Day 819
I'm a little lost this morning on what to do about something. I'm in the process of trying a last-straw kind of Hail Mary play to see if I can stave off a really hard decision and I really have no idea if it'll work.
The thing is, I love dogs. I really do. Dogs naturally love me and I love them. I could give a fuck less about cats. Yeah, ok... cool. Your cat might be the coolest, most dog-like cat on the planet but it still isn't a dog. Even obnoxious dogs are great animals. Even the most yippy little shit dogs are better than any cat that's ever been born. And that's what makes this so hard.
As some of you may know, we've had Little Dog at the house for about 9 or 10 months now. And during that time, she's managed to escape the dog run about a half dozen times, getting so far as 3 streets over once, gotten involved in a private little Cold War with RoomMateBaby, get into regular fights (read: get her ass handed to her by) with Regs over whatever either of them was pissed at the other about at that moment and generally been a pain in the ass.
But she's a really sweet dog. And I like her a lot.
She's 12 years old and I think she's losing some of her eyesight. She's got tumors of some sort (we're not sure if they're cancerous or not) below and possibly underneath her ribs near her sternum. She barks all the time at anything she sees outside, be it a bird or a squirrel or whatever. Because she's a Jack Russell and that's what they do. She even barks at leaves that blow across the yard because I think her eyesight is going and she thinks that they're something she should be trying to chase and catch. She freaks out at thunderstorms and is a snarly, snappy bitch when it comes to trying to get her out from under RoomMateBaby's bed because apparently even though they hate each other, it seems like under her bed is the safe place that she wants to hide. It takes special tricks to figure out how to deal with her neurotic tendencies and it sometimes feels like dealing with the emotional minefield that is well... pretty much 99% of all women on the planet... when trying to figure out the best ways to deal with this dog.
Despite all that, she's a ridiculously sweet dog. When she is being dumb or barking about nothing and I order her over to my feet when she's not in complete freak-out mode from a thunderstorm, she walks over with the sad "I'm sorry" eyes and falls on her side and shows me her belly. She jumps up on the couch and tries to perch on my shoulder and knows how to sit pretty like nobodies business. She tries to give kisses even though it was trained out of her when she was a puppy. She's affectionate and like to snuggle or just follow me around almost under my feet.
The problem is that we hit the last straw yesterday. We had thought that we had figured out a good way to deal with her for a little bit. She's fine during the night (unless there's thunder) and just crawls under my bed and sleeps there most nights. But as soon as I get up in the morning, she wants to be up and alive as well. The thing is, I get up around dawn. And she wants to go outside. Or she wants to be in the living room. And she's pissed that there's nobody there or she sees something outside or whatever and she barks her fucking head off. ENDLESSLY. Like, if you or I yelled as much in 1 day as she barks in 15 minutes, we'd be hoarse for a week. And it wakes up the rest of the house that does NOT need to be awake at 5 or 6am for work and that pisses them off. Hell, if I didn't sleep like the dead, she'd piss me off too if I were in their shoes.
So the most effective option to this point had been to leave her outside for an hour or so in the mornings when I left for work, but after today, that's no longer an option. The roomies got a knock on the door this morning from a very polite police officer to inform us that someone had complained about the barking. And while he was nice this time, I sincerely doubt he will be so if he has to come back about it.
And this is a problem now. Because I really like this dog. I might be the only one in the house that does, but she's a sweet dog if you know how to navigate her personality quirks. And I'm running out of ways to navigate them and keep the peace. I'm down to one last option and that's to leave her in the basement when I leave. I don't know if the neighbors are going to complain about even letting her outside in the morning just to go to the bathroom while I'm in the shower if she barks and then letting her in once I'm done or if it's just because she was out there for about an hour this morning that it pissed them off. So I'm going to try to kennel her in the basement when I leave every day and see if that helps. It's dark down there, like my bedroom and I have a kennel cover to cover the crate so she won't be freaking out about the bars and it might just feel more like a den to her. But that's the last option as far as I can figure out.
Otherwise, that's about it. She has nowhere else to go. The girlfriend can't have her at her place because they don't allow dogs of any type. She can't go to the girlfriend's parents place because their dog and hers turned on one another a while back and try to go for the kill whenever they're even in the same house as each other. And she doesn't have any other family that could take care of her.
So this is the last option for her. I don't know if maybe the barking is because of her age or her tumors (and/or maybe cancer) or because her eyesight is going and she's just trying to compensate for it. I really don't know. But I know that we're running out of options and going to see what the Vet suggests on Thursday to see if they can give any other ones. Or if the only option left is really the worst possible one.
I can't stand it either. I mean... fuck you Sarah McLaughlin ASPCA commercials and ruining my day. I don't like when I feel like I'm going to start crying at a commercial. So this last resort is like 1000 times worse if it's the only one left. She's 12 now and has been the girlfriend's dog since she was a kid. How can I not feel like complete shit even telling the girlfriend that I don't know if we can keep the dog at my house anymore, knowing that that might be the only other option for her? I don't even know if I could let her go through with it when I don't think it's what's best for the dog yet. Or am I maybe holding on too long because I think it's cruel to put an animal down before they're no longer to even control their bowels or obviously in pain?
Because it's not like you can ask someone else that's not family or a super close friend "hey, can you let my basically-geriatric, tumor-ridden, potentially partially blind, neurotic during thunderstorms, constantly barking dog come live with you until she's so sick that it's cruel to not put her to sleep? She might have a few good months or a year or so left in her."
And it's not fair to the dog to keep passing her around just because it's no longer convenient for her to live somewhere. But what other options are there? I'm just at the end of my rope trying to figure it out. I feel like even bringing it up makes me a horrible human being. Because I think she knows what I might not be able to admit yet myself. That if she can't be at my place anymore, she doesn't have anywhere else to go and she doesn't have a long time left to live anyway with her health. And that only leaves 1 option. One that seriously makes me on the verge of tears even thinking about.
Yeah, fuck you. I have a heart when it comes to dogs.
FUCK. I don't know what to do. But any way I look at it, if trying to leave her in the basement hwile I'm at work or at least in the mornings doesn't work... I'm going to feel fucking horrible. I don't even want to make this about me but I feel like this is weighing on me as if it was my own dog and I'm doing that anyway. Because that's just how I am with dogs. The Little Dog, Regs, Bailey, and even my friends dogs. I never want to see or be responsible for a dog being put to sleep before its time. And I feel like this is one of those cases where it is not yet her time. Or I just don't want it to be her time yet and feel guilty about any responsibility that I might carry for that.
I can only imagine how she feels now. Much less how she'll feel if that is the only option left.
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