Last night we had to have our dog put to sleep. What a phrase, put to sleep, like he might wake up but he won't.
Gnomad was a beautiful malamute. He had one eye that was half blue and half brown, incredibly thick black and white fur, and when he was younger, he was bouncy and exuberant. I remember him when he was younger, stronger. He would trot up to you with his tail up, a powerful animal that easily could pull anyone holding his leash in the direction that he wanted to go. We named him Gnomad because he liked to get off the leash and roam the woods. He would come back panting, tongue lolling, and attack his water. But if you didn't catch him then, he would like as not take off again, at least until dinnertime. He was too big to be in our small house so had to be an outside dog, something he clearly prefered, especially in the snowy winter when he slept outside of his dog house most of the time because it was just too warm inside it for him. At first, I worried about him and we would bring him into the house to sleep when it was 20 deg. below but after I realized that he often preferred to sleep outside of his house even at such low tempteratures, and I saw how frisky he was I realized that he really was built for northern winters. Yeah, I know, you would think that I would realize that an Alaskan Malamute could take the cold but I shiver in my down coat, long underwear, scarves, gloves, boots, so thought he would be cold too.
He had a long chain we would clip onto a long cable so that he could have the run of the orchard. In the last few years he got too old to get up and chase the deer when he saw them at the other end of the orchard. He was also deaf and going blind so he didn't really notice them anymore. And last year we had a scare when he was very sick. We thought he would not make it then but we kept him in the house and coaxed him to eat. We babied him and fussed over him for the two weeks it took to get him back on his feet again. When he made it through this last winter pretty easily I thought he would live a long time yet.
His back legs weren't working yesterday. His legs collapsed under him and he pitched headfirst into a tree. Tom brought him to the house and when it was clear he just couldn't get up we brought him into the house and dried him off (it had begun to rain.) I thought he might be better after resting and babying again, like last time. While we were in ritual though he began to moan in pain. We did a healing for him, and then Tom took him to the emergency vet clinic. They did some x-rays and discovered a large mass near his liver. There wasn't much that could be done at that point. We'll bury him today near other animal friends who have crossed the rainbow bridge ahead of him.
Copyright © 2000 Kyril Oakwind