Goodbye Marley

I’m typically not much of a fan of trigger warnings, but if you don’t want to read about my dog who passed away today, I’d close this out. I’ll also admit this more of a free flowing thought experience to help me deal with my grief, so just a heads up.

I never understood the whole eulogizing pets thing. I’ve seen it on social media and occasionally on blogs, but I’d never had a pet die on me before. Like so many things in life, you don’t truly understand what its all about until you go through it yourself.

My wife adopted our dog Marley when she was eighteen years old. She had a full ten years before he came into my life five years ago. I like Marley the moment I met him. He looked a lot like my old dog Starbuck it's he had a very chill temperament. He was always smiling and happy, and ready to play at a moment’s notice and he and I hit off quite well.

I didn’t want a dog. In fact, it was one of those red flags when we started dating. I’d been through pet ownership before, and I just hated the inconveniences a pet created. It was hard to go out of town on a whim and the cost of boarding is always absurd. I guess, as I moved into my late 30’s, that was just not something that interested me, but my wife is incredible and Marley was incredible and together we made a great family.

Marley was extremely well behaved, although he seemed a bit vindictive at times. I’ll never forget my wife telling me it seemed like he would do things just to spite you at times, and early on in our relationship I was watching him while she was on a worktrip and I took away a toilet paper tube he had gotten out of the trash can. The moment I did it, he looked me straight in the eyes and peed right on the floor. I’d never seen anything like, and he’d never done something like that. It gave a little credence to her claims that he’d get back at you if he didn’t like what you did.

Those early days with Marley were filled with trips to see the Easter Bunny, random walks, and lots of playing. But as he reached senior age, some of those things slowed down. He became slower, began growing warts and growth spots that aggravated him, and he just lost what made him so happy all the time. He still had his moments, including today, when it seemed like he smiled all the way to the vet, but he wasn’t the same dog from five years ago, of course, he was almost sixteen years old so that’s to be expected.

He got quite sick in January and we prepared ourselves to put him down. When we got to the vet, the vet said he wasn’t ready and gave us a ton of meds to ease the pain and make things better. The meds seemed to work to a degree, at least the first few weeks, but in return, Marley stopped playing with his toys. In fact, he stopped doing just about anything other than eating, sleeping, drinking a ton of water, and peeing. His mobility was still good, especially on the pain medication, but he just hasn’t been comfortable in some time.

In fact, I’d bought an inflatable cone to help him cut down on biting his feet, legs, and warts, but it became such a problem, he pretty much had to wear the cone all the time. That was never the intention.

He also began using the bathroom on our rugs. We got rid of the rugs and bought puppy pads to combat the problem. It wasn’t ideal, but at least it was more sanitary.

Last night, was a weird night for me. I got off work, and then accompanied my wife to her winterguard end of the year party. It took up most of the night, so I didn’t get my usual relax time where I unplug and watch TV or play video games. When we arrived home at 8:30 PM, Marley was barking life his life was in danger. He never did that sort of thing, especially at that pitch. Once we came upstairs, he was fine though and he was just full of energy the rest of the night. Unfortunately, I wasn’t in a great mood and I was just irritated with him and with my lack of free time. I got in bed early, but he woke up me within an hour with his pacing. Then he woke up my wife twice with all his pacing. At 2 AM, I took him downstairs, made sure he had food, water, bathroom, etc. and he just whined and then would pace back and forth. It reminded me of my great-grandmother who lived with me for years and had severe Alzheimers. I knew this couldn’t keep going on, so at 7 AM when my wife woke me I told her I think we need to look into putting him down.

I slept till 12 PM, since I had to call out of work (I was up basically all night with him) and she got ahold of my mom who helped set up an appointment with her vet. I didn’t get one of those great, “let’s say goodbye days” with Marley. It was more of a “I let him out of his crate and we got a call that they could put him down within an hour.” I made sure to let him play outside as much as possible, since he loved the outdoors and then we cried, cried, and cried some more.

He was happy at the vet and when they gave him the sedation medicine, he just fell asleep on my wife and started snoring.

It was hysterical and a great way to break up the depressing mood. He went very quickly and apparently his blood pressure was really low, and they had issues putting in the gathered because of it. He wasn’t in great health, and we did the right thing. I have no doubts about that, but I will miss the little guy. He was my buddy and my friend. And to be honest, after going through all this, I never want to own another pet again. It really sucks having your heart torn into pieces.