Tuesday, May 26 (evening)
He’s still alert and getting around just fine. At 14 Bru is
the last of my original sled dogs, but within a few days he will only live on
in my memory, photographs, and in his three remaining offspring: TyBo, Aura,
and Bori. The bloodwork revealed that there is a problem with his liver, and
the radiographs appear to show a mass of tissue growing on it. The diagnosis
isn’t definitive until exploratory surgery is performed, but exploratory
surgery isn’t going to be performed. In light of all the information I was
given I do not think it will prolong his life, but it might shorten it. In
addition to the liver problem Bru is anemic. He also has muscle wasting which
might be an indicator of cancer. If he is anesthetized and opened up in this
condition he may not revive…assuming they didn’t find him riddled with cancer
and wanted to revive him.
I was supposed to have flown out of Alaska
last night and been at my parents in Georgia by now, but when - the day
before I was scheduled to depart - Bru refused his food I became concerned. I
thought it was more than simply being under the weather, and I quickly picked
up on other alarming traits that confirmed my suspicions like the excessive
drinking of water. I have seen the same pattern in most of my other dogs that
have died. When there was no change yesterday morning I knew I could not
continue with the trip and leave a potentially dying dog for a 19-year-old
sitter to deal with. So I canceled my flights and started focusing on the dog
I am most attached to.
This is the third full day he has spent without a real meal.
The best I have been able to get down him is to feed him by hand a little
salmon and a few small sausage links, but he has mostly turned his nose up at
them. When he does take food in mouth and chew it usually falls out. He may
have better luck swallowing the second or third time he tries, but he can also
lose interest. Before I realized he was sick, I caught him turning his food bowl
over and nosing dirt over the food. I’m not sure what this means, but I suspect
it is an inherent trait to try to conceal his food from the other dogs until he
is ready to eat it - in the same manner wild animals bury their food.
I had a hard time deciding my options with Bru after
receiving the news from the veterinarian and needed to weigh what is in my best
interest with what I think is in Bru’s best interest. If I wanted to always
remember Bru as the strong and healthy dog he has always been (and I do want to remember him that way), and wanted
to go the convenient route, I would not have come back home with him and
instead let the vet mix the lethal drug cocktail and inject him. There was no
question that that option was on the table, but was that in Bru’s best
interest? The staff made me wait a long time to see Dr. Hanley after I had
driven back to the clinic to discuss Bru’s fate. I’m glad they did. By the time
he walked into the examination room (without Bru) to talk to me, I knew what
the right thing to do was. Hanley elaborated more on what we had discussed on
the phone and it confirmed for me that surgery was out. I then asked to see Bru
and he got him. What appears to be in my best interest and what I believe is in
Bru’s best interest are not necessarily one and the same. Unlike that of people, suffering
for animals has no redemptive value. Animals cannot offer up their pain for the
greater honor and glory of God, or for the persecution and suffering of others.
We probably all know people who kept their suffering dog alive far longer than
they should have because they couldn’t part with it. These people are clearly
thinking of their pleasure in having their pet versus consideration for the
suffering dog. I don’t want to be one of those people. On the other hand, I
don’t want to be hasty for convenience sake. Bru didn’t seem to be unduly
suffering at the vet clinic then, and he doesn’t now as I watch him sleeping on
his pad. I took him into the clinic today to diagnose and hopefully treat his
condition, not to end his life. Sometimes that decision needs to be made right then
and there, but that was not in Bru’s best interest today. The fact is, once he
is euthanized Bru has no more interests, and while he remains alert and active
it is premature for me to truncate the remaining time we have together.
I am not going to write what I’m going to miss about Bru,
but what I enjoy. I enjoy his personality, his distinctive look, and his fun
nature. Of all the huskies I have owned he is the only one who really knows how
to play with me. I will look at him and do a dramatic start - like I am about
to chase him - and he will make his own dramatic move by dropping low on his
front forelegs and wait for me to make my move. Then I do chase him and he runs
from me, with both of us occasionally facing off and repeating our moves,
punctuated every now and again by Bru’s distinctive bark. Once I made him a house
dog, Bru employed these same behaviors to let me know when he was ready to
eat…regardless of whether or not I was ready to feed him.
As a sled dog he was a steady worker throughout the years (I
retired he and Severan at the end of the ’13-’14 season so they wouldn’t
potentially get injured). He could run as a lead dog but did not reliably keep
the team lined out and was not very focused. A notable exception to this was
when we ran our first and only 100 mile race in 2005 when he had never run lead
before. Except for Cali all of my other lead dogs wouldn’t work in the top
spot, so in desperation I put Bru up there because I ran out of options and
much to my surprise he rose to the occasion and ran the last 80 miles in that
position. Unfortunately, due to aggression that they learned from Braun - the
patriarch - as soon as I raised the next generation and adopted more dogs I
moved both Bru and Sev back further in the team so they wouldn’t attack other
dogs on the trial. They got over it, but not before several years went by and I
got really familiar with breaking out and running all the back trails in order
to avoid other dog team encounters.
I always kept Severan and Bru (and Sijon when he was alive)
together. Indeed, the two boys probably both thoughts their names were "Sev-Bru", but Bru seemed just fine after Severan’s passing, probably because
he spent so much time with me as well as with the other dogs in the kennel.
With the possible exception of TyBo, and probably not even
him, Bru has always been the most photogenic dog in the kennel. The one blue
and one brown eye on his dark and light face always makes for a nice contrast.
His ears are notable as well since the tips decided to never straighten out.
Wednesday, May 27 (mourning)
The early morning hours were not good to Bru. The way he was
positioned on his pad in his outside enclosure immediately tipped me off. He
was lying on his stomach instead of his side and pointed in the wrong
direction. It appeared he had eaten almost all of the food I had left for him,
but I can’t be confident the squirrels didn’t help themselves to it.
Nevertheless, he was unable to get up. Several hours earlier he went up and
down my porch stairs, but now I couldn’t get him to stand on his own power. I
carried him inside the cabin and set him on his indoor pad where he remained for
about an hour-and-a-half until we were ready to take his one-way and final trip
back to the vet clinic. Yesterday afternoon he was still alert and able-bodied,
and my conscience would have haunted me if I had decided to euthanize him at
that time, but several hours can make a big difference when the body is
internally shutting down, and so it was with Bru. When I carried him outside I
set him on his feet by the open car door and supported him in place for a
minute just in case he wanted to pee. He didn’t, but surprisingly he steadied
himself, walked to the car, and climbed in the back seat entirely by himself.
I was, of course, with him until the end. There were times I
couldn’t believe I was looking at the same dog who had been born in my bedroom
in Mancos , Colorado
I still have 10 more dogs at home and several of them are
not far behind Bru in age. However, I admit that the three remaining canines
that have the bloodline I started with - from Braun, Web, and Bru - I am the
most sentimentally attached to. Like Bru’s litter, I also raised this second
generation. The death of Bru closes the chapter on my original team, but the
book itself hasn’t yet come to an end. But an era has come to an end by saying goodbye to one of my most favorite dogs ever.
