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| Severan: 3/2001 - 12/2014 |
I was struck by how pretty the scenery was outside the car
window. We finally got snow. It took until December but over the past few days
the inches added up. And I was glad for it because I wanted to send Severan off
on a beautiful winter evening. While looking at the white landscape, with the
trees heavily laden, emotion tried to come upon me a few times – with some
success. I had laid him on a pad in the back seat. Severan was too weak to
move. He was limp when I placed my arms underneath his body and carried him to
the car. Sev always hated to be picked up. Now he was too weak to resist.
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| Sev (L) & Bru as wheel dogs (directly in front of the sled) |
I had retired him and his brother Bru from the team at the
end of last season. We hadn’t been going very far, but Severan let me know in no uncertain terms that he
was done anyway. Bru was doing better, but at the age of 13 there was no point
in running them anymore: especially when I often ran them with Bru's speed-demon offspring and their mother. The two siblings have been full-time house dogs ever since. At one
time Sev was my best gee-haw dog, that is, he was better than any other leader
in my kennel at making turns. That was in his younger days when we broke-out
and ran the back trails exclusively for fear that we would have head-on passes
with other teams and end up with Severan and Bru attacking the other team.
Unfortunately, it was not just a fear. Sev and Bru learned to be aggressive
with other dogs thanks to their old man, Braun, who was the patriarch of the
kennel. This problem haunted me for several years until the dogs got older, got
neutered (some of them) and grew out of it. However, it was mostly overcome
when I raised a new generation and adopted other dogs who were not
aggressive.
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| Webby |
Sev and Bru’s mother Webby died just over a year ago, and
for some time now I thought Severan would be the next to go. For the past few years
he has had hair loss on his body and a few tumorous and fatty growths on his
chest and belly. Two blood tests – taken at least 6 months to a year apart –
indicated all was normal, but clearly something was not. This summer he had an
operation that removed a large growth from the center of his chest. I was told
it could grow back. It didn’t, but what was going on inside of him? I’ll never
know.
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| L-R: River, Bru, Kalu, Braun, Sijon (River and Kalu are not related) |
Braun and Webby came from a town in the Kuskokwim River
Delta in South-Central Alaska . They were
sibling puppies given to me by a friend when I cared for them and two others for
some months in 1999-2000. When I left the area I flew Braun and Web to Colorado with me. During
Christmas of 2000, I left the two dogs with a friend while I went out of state.
I returned to find Webby had come into heat and been accessed by at least one
of his Siberian huskies in addition to her brother. The result was seven
puppies: five males and two females. Two of the pups looked just like Braun,
three had white and grey markings indicating the Siberian parentage of my
friend’s dogs (including Severan) and another two looked mixed (a litter of puppies
can have more than one male parent). Webby was a great mother, but that was the
only litter I let her have.
It all started on Sunday or Monday morning when Severan
refused to eat his food. That night he seemed to have his appetite back. The
next morning I witnessed what wasn’t digested on the carpet. He never ate anything
again. But he did drink (until today). Although it wasn’t too excessive the
drinking of water was frequent. Yesterday morning (Wednesday) something else
happened that alarmed me. It wasn’t the fact that he uncharacteristically peed
in the house – in a spot that I stepped on in the dark – that alarmed me, but
how he behaved after I called him and Bru back into the house after putting
them out to do their thing. I hadn’t noticed any difference with Sev when he
went out, but when I tried to get him to come back in I noticed how unsteady he
was on his feet. He worsened quickly, getting increasingly weaker throughout
the day. This morning I woke to more pee on the carpet with Sev lying next to
it. He couldn’t get up. I picked him up, took him outside and set him carefully
on his feet where he stood independently and peed out very concentrated urine.
When he was done I carried him back into the house. That was the last time he
stood up independently.
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| After a porcupine encounter |
How things have changed for you Severan! How many years ago
was it that you and your brother Sijon defied me and darted into the woods? Of
course Super Si, with his one blind eye, never came back. What a character he
was. Then there was the time you and Bru took off. Bru came back three days
later in a terrible state with porcupine quills embedded all over his face. But
you didn’t come back with him. Four, five, six days pass and no Severan. Seven
days later you also show up back at the house with some quills, but looking much
better than your sibling did. You were so strong then.
I didn’t want to linger at the vet's. I also knew better than
to try to converse with the staff. Braun, Web, and Cali had all made their final one-way trips
to this clinic, so I knew how choked up I could get. Severan was already near
death. His heart was beating but it seemed the rest of him had already quit.
Completely limp in my arms I made my way into the clinic. While looking at him
on the table I was taken at how hollowed-out his face was. It just seemed to be
skin and bone. I wiped the gunk out of his eyes one last time (he had a chronic
problem with it in his right eye for some months). Dr. Brown took note of his
long muzzle. Did he have wolf in him? No. His nickname was Captain Longnose,
but I didn’t tell her that. There he lay, my good captain, a dog who used to be
beautiful but in recent times had some of that taken from him. My hands
remained on Severan, the left one rising and falling on the chest and the right
stroking his head, until the drug cocktail took hold and stopped the motion of
the chest cavity and silenced the breathing.
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| Sev & Bren: March 4, 2014 |
I am glad that I did not bring Severan in any sooner. He had
made the decision to go and there is nothing that could have been done earlier
to have stayed that decision. He probably never even knew he left home.
Goodbye Captain Longnose. Only Bru now remains of your
family. The two of you were always together, and now you have left us alone. You had a good life and you died well. May I be granted the same.
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| Severan & Brujerki (brew-zher-kI) |
