In Memoriam. Kenya Dog: 1992 – 2008 A Remarkable Life

My apologies for this being non-political. Today we took a trip which we knew had been coming for some time, but was made none the easier from knowing it. Our oldest dog, Kenya, (shown here in happier times with a number of her toys and gifts at Christmas) was diagnosed with cancer of the bladder last fall. She was put on an aggressive treatment schedule of Peroxicam and some low level pain relievers to reduce the size of the tumor, give her relief from discomfort, and give her a few more good months with her family. Our goal was to spoil her as much as possible and give her enough time to have one more good springtime to go lay in the sun on our back deck, soaking up the heat, which is what she always seemed to enjoy most in her later years. In this, at least, we were successful. She was sixteen years old.

Sometimes, when I try to describe the loss of a pet as being similar to losing a child, people will scoff harshly and tell me that the two are nothing alike. I would beg to differ.

When I first met my wife, Georg-Karen, we were both volunteering at a Humane Society animal shelter in Upstate New York. During a frustrating period of time when I kept asking Georg out on a date and (in what was doubtless a demonstration of her good sense) she kept turning me down, it was also when we first met Kenya. The dog had been found by animal control, abandoned at around two years of age and wandering near a rural stretch of highway. When brought to the shelter she suffered from worms and a urinary tract infection, both of which she was treated for. As bad luck would have it, she showed up during a period of time when the shelter was struck by a wave of canine diseases which devastated the facility and shut down all intake and output for a couple of weeks. The dog, already ill, was hit in turn by a respiratory infection followed by canine distemper and, finally, parvo.

For those not familiar with the disease, Parvo is almost universally fatal to dogs not belonging to families rich enough to have 24/7 care and IV liquid infusions. It dehydrates the dogs until they just waste away. However, it does have a predictable, if long, course that it runs and eventually goes away. Sadly, this usually takes far longer than the dog lives. My beloved lady spent all of her time for weeks doing nothing but going to work and then staying at the shelter until bed time. While caring for the many dogs in quarantine (most all of whom, sadly, were lost) Georg would go and sit in the dog’s pen, cradling her head in her lap and picking up handfuls of water to hold to her lips to try to get some liquid into her system. It was during this period that, in one of her occasional fits of morgue humor, she named the dog Kenya. This was not out of love for any particular African nation, but as a short version of “Can ya survive?”

(I fear this will run a bit long, so you’ll need to click through for the rest of the story.)

The dog had wasted away to about 1/3 of her normal body weight. Then, one morning, we both showed up to work at the shelter, walked into the quarantine area, and Kenya stood up. She wagged her tail a little bit, a rather feeble effort, and began to drink a little water and then ate some food. It was at that point when we decided the normal adoption rules could just go piss off and we took the dog home. This was also when my badgering for a date finally paid off and Georg and I became a couple. Kenya moved into the first home we established and became, in effect, our first child together.

The dog bonded immediately with my wife to a degree far beyond even that which I’ve seen with many other faithful pets. She became incredibly protective – so much so that we faced several incidents when we risked potential lawsuits or being disowned by our families. When people got too close to Georg, Kenya would leap in to protect her. This, unfortunately, included biting, among others, my Mother, my Mother-in-Law, the cable TV installation guy and a friend of ours from my dart league. Never life-threatening bites, mind you, but definite signals of, “You’d best not get too close to my mother again, buddy.” I could never find it in my heart to get very angry with her over these incidents.

Kenya was always full of love, overflowing the brim, as we moved through a few residences and acquired more pets. She was the one constant in our lives together, always referred to by Georg as the very first gift I ever gave her which she truly loved with all her heart. I always looked at Kenya as the first gift my wife and I received from God, the universe, or whomever or whatever you may feel bestows such gifts. In good times and bad, Kenya was always there, playing, following, cheering us on – a willing compatriot in each and every endeavor.

When Kenya was about ten years old she began to suffer from hip dysplasia, requiring her to take daily doses of glucosamine and pain relievers. She was very good about taking them with her food and continued a happy, healthy, pain free life with us just as before in the years to come. Then, last year, came the serious health problems with her bladder cancer. Often, at bed time, I would go up to bed and Kenya would jump up on the bed while we waited for Georg to come upstairs. In those moments I would cry, stroke the dog’s fur, and promise her that i would see my job through to the end. I would somehow finish the job we started those many years ago and see her safely home in the end with the best life possible.

Today we made good on that promise. It was over more quickly than I might have imagined. My wife insisted, with my vote as well, that Keny would not end her days on some steel table inside the vet’s office. Our vet is a wonderful woman who has cared for all of our pets for a decade now, and agreed with the plan. We took Kenya’s favorite blanket out on the lawn, out in the bright sunshine on a small hill outside the vet’s office after the nurse put an IV into her arm. The vet came out in the sun, sat on the blanket with us, and finished Kenya’s 16 year journey among those who loved her most while soaking up the warm spring sunshine. After many tears, she was wrapped in the blanket she had slept on for most all of her life, with a promise given that it would not be removed until her cremation.

I write this difficult piece today, for any who might somehow be interested in sharing this, only an hour after my return from that sad event. Tears still run down my face, and I have a pain in my chest which feels like a great stone crushing me. But I wanted to do this now.. now while the pain is still sharp and harsh and cutting, before it eventually fades with the passage of time (as all such pain does) blurring the hard edges and allowing me to remember more the good times… the love.. the promise. I have not led an exemplary life and have done many things of which I’m not proud and wish I could take back. But at least for Kenya, I was good to my word, beginning to end. And I saw the task through to bring her home at last with the best life we could give her.

Kenya is survived by many friends. There is Rascal, our 12 year old basset hound, also a cancer survivor now thankfully in remission. There are four cats. Sassy is 14 years old and suffering from diabetes. She gets insulin shots twice daily and may not be long for this world. Her sister Spider is the same age and in remarkable health. Tom is something closer to ten years old and has a remarkable survivor story of his own. (He was a refugee from Katrina exported to the Northeast for a new home.) And Pepe’ is our long haired “young” cat, around seven years old now. They are already gathering around in a way that most people would not think possible. They know what’s happened. There are many pets remaining, but a huge hole gapes in our home with Kenya’s departure. She was the first. She was beloved. She will not be forgotten. And by writing this piece today, perhaps her memory and her image will be preserved for a long time to come, even after I follow her on that last journey.

She was a dog, not a person. But we loved her more than most anything else in this world or the next. While writing this piece, I got up for a break to walk out on our back deck. I found myself waiting for the inevitable clatter of her nails on the kitchen floor, following me. In all our years in this house, I was never, ever able to go out on the back deck without her following along to join me a few minutes later to sit in the sun. I like to think that she just wanted to keep an eye on me to make sure I was ok. Goodbye, Kenya. Try to remember that I kept my promise, beginning to end.