by Cathie Beck

Created on: August 27, 2009

I'd been working toward being able to make that crushing, impossible decision for 10 years - which didn't make me any more ready than if I'd made the decision on the spur of the moment.

She was psychotic, exuberant, impossible to contain. At 2 years, she was diagnosed with "Happy Tail," a condition that caused her tail to burst open and splatter blood droplets on the newly painted walls. It was impossible to contain. Taping the tail? A joke. She chewed off the tape.

At 4 years, she had a litter of little yellow labradore retrievers. I learned that it is impossible to be unhappy in a room full of a half-dozen little yellow balls of fun.

At 6 years old she was fat, a situation that crept up on us both. We both went on diets, she on expensive adult weight loss dog food, me on the person-version of that regime. We lost the weight together. We both thought we were "all that."

At 7 years we were still doing our daily, three-mile runs through the park. We shared ice cream, rides in the car, swimming (illegally) in the big city lake, and frowns when the thunder rolled in.

But at 9, she wasn't so keen on running any more. She didn't so much about the oversized bones - the ones big as a small man's arm, and the vet said to not run her anymore.

Finally, last month, the vet suspected degenerative bone disease. Her blood work showed cancer. We spent the next three weeks putting her on a fattening diet, giving her anything she wanted. Mostly we sat on the livingroom rug and looked into each other's eyes. When we weren't doing that, we watched "Mad Men" together.

It was a Monday and a dear friend - a man whom she loved - came to help us. Of course, she rallied at his arrival, the young lab coming back and trying to jump on him. What the Vet didn't tell me was that watching her fall asleep after the shot is not like watching her sleep at home. This sleep included labored breathing, an awkward splay of her legs and paws, a dropped head not like that of a contented dog at your feet.

Babaloo. You are still here. At every corner of this house, in the dark spots throughout on all of the carpeting, in the smell of the scoop to get your food. In my heart.

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