Goodbye, Good Boy

It started with the treats. Oskar used to love treats. Last fall, when Henry learned to give them to him, we knew we had a love match.

In the spring, he lost interest in his treats, and we thought it was strange. We'd call, "Treeeeat!" from the kitchen, but he wouldn't come. Fine, we thought, he's getting older, we'll take the treats to him.

By summer, we knew it wasn't just the treats. Oskar wasn't responding to any our calls, and we decided he must be going deaf. We'd expected that something like this would eventually happen, he was almost 13 years old, we'd already been through diabetes and high blood pressure with the cats.

As it got cooler out, we finally started saying out loud what we'd known for a while. He wasn't just deaf. He didn't hear us, that was clear, but he also didn't remember how to walk through the front door when we came inside. He wandered under the dining room table and couldn't find his way back out. He began having accidents in the house. He slept through the day and paced the house aimlessly at night. He stopped barking when friends came to the door. We looked down at dinner time, expecting to see him at our feet hoping to catch a dropped bite, and he was gone, alone in his bed in a different room. He began to disappear.

In September, Oskar was diagnosed with cognitive dysfunction syndrome and started medication for it, along with something to help him sleep at night. We were told it might take a couple of months to see some improvement and that not all dogs respond to the meds at all, but we stayed positive. And by November, he seemed stable, if not improved. He was still confused, vacant, but he had fewer accidents. He slept better at night. In hindsight, I realize that our optimism tricked us, that we saw hope in what were really the tiny spaces between bad moments.

In December, he declined rapidly. He walked headfirst into swinging doors. He turned in the wrong direction on his way into the bedroom and toppled down the stairs. He lost control of his bodily functions. We began washing his bedding daily.

The long weekends and snowstorms over Christmas and New Year's kept us all in the house together for days on end. We watched Oskar, talked about him in hushed voices, and we knew. Mike had known for a while, but it was me who needed to catch up. I needed time. I'd put so much effort into hoping Oskar would get better that I hadn't accepted what his illness would really mean. I felt guilty for giving up on him, but also selfish for keeping him around just to mitigate my guilt. I loved him, and after the new year began, I knew it was time to let him go.

We put Oskar to sleep yesterday morning. His vet, our dear friend Katie, came to the house. Mike and I sat on the couch, I held Oskar in my lap, and Katie kneeled in front of him. He was sleepy from his sedative, and we stroked his back as he stopped breathing. Afterward, I kept holding him as the heat left his body, and we talked about what Oskar had been like. How he hated to go for walks and loved to kill his dolls. How I secretly used to let him come up on the couch with me when Mike wasn't home, and how Mike secretly knew our secret the entire time. How, when Henry started crawling, Oskar would get right behind him and lick behind his ears and make him laugh so hard he would fall over.

We stayed like that until we knew he was gone, and then Katie took him away. He'll be cremated, and we'll spread his ashes in the spring. He was a good dog, and he will be missed forever.

Oskar, 1997-2010