And A Pupper In A Pear Tree

They don't do a whole lot of second opinions for dogs. Once our humans get the news, it's all downhill for us until... well, you know.

Miracle cases are pretty rare, but they do exist. A lot of things exist if you look hard enough, but that's not much of a pastime for most humans. When Bonnie and I left Super Pupper Pet Care that day in 2018, with her mascara running, you could tell she had given up on a miracle.

As a dog, I don't typically cry. Besides, I'd known for awhile.

After the way our last year had gone, it was easy to miss the signs. It was easy to just assume that I was still recovering. It had been a rough year. I went through a very unfortunate, super tricky, hard-to-treat medical issue that was really no one's fault at all.

Ok fine. I ate a piece of the couch. It was just hanging there. I mean, it was attached, I guess, but not securely. The long strip of teal fabric went down in one swallow.

Bonnie always complained about the effects of a t00-big meal, covering her belly with shame, but this was kind of the opposite. I lost nearly half of my body weight in a month. I just kept getting thinner and thinner.

When she came to visit me at the pet hospital, they brought us into a little room. She tried not to cry, but she was completely resigned by that point. It was obviously the end... She pet me carefully, watching out for the pink tape they had wrapped around my leg.

When we came home a few days later, it was like, wow we survived this traumatic thing and now we're going to be fine.

We're gonna carpe the M-F-ing diem, whatever that means.

Bonnie wasn't used to things working out, so it took a while for both of us to believe it, but once I gained back a few pounds, it was business as usual.

I was only 14 at that point...or 2 years old as she liked to say. Just a widdle baby. But I didn't mind the baby talk. Boy did I get spoiled that year. I didn't even mind the sweater she loved to dress me up in; It was actually pretty cozy.

We had a generally comfortable life. I wasn't a big fan of American Horror Story, but how many seasons could they possibly make, I wondered, ducking my head under the flannel sheets.

Other than her questionable taste in scary anthologies, things were really looking up for us. Bonnie sang about it... constantly.

Coney-boo-boo baby bear. His name is Coney-boo-boo baby bear...And there's a million shoes he hasn't chewed, but just you wait. Just you wait...

I don't know who wrote that one, but we must have been doing well with so many people writing songs about the two of us. She sang me a new one every day.

And when we took walks- wow. What a good boy, everyone said, smiling approvingly at me while they apologetically pulled away their yappy yorkies and forceful entitled retrievers. I just skipped along beside Bonnie, my tongue hanging comfortably just outside my mouth.

We were just getting started.

Then on a Wednesday night, just outside the front door, all of the color left Bonnie's face.

"Coneybear!!!! What's happening???" she sobbed trying to get me to stand up.

I was pretty out of it at that point. It's a bit of a blur. I think I walked back into the house myself... or maybe she carried me.

My legs had just... gone out from under me. Bonnie was shaken up, and I was... Well, I was the stable best friend I had always been. Why freak out over something unnecessarily? Unless it's a doorbell. Or the mailman. That fucker...

I remained pretty calm sitting on Bonnie's lap that day, but it wasn't like our other vet visits. They said I had organ failure and probably only had a few weeks.

I was gone the next day.

No one asks a lot of questions about how a dog goes. Even a little one. We had 20 beautiful years, or as Bonnie would say, almost 3 years.

It didn't feel like enough, but would 10 or 12 or 15 have been enough either? It was always going to end in tears.

Full dogsclosure? ...I wasn't counting the years. Every day was like a year with Bonnie. In the best possible way.

She kept talking about a dog beach, but we never went. Oh, and something called puppy heaven. That was the last place she told me about. Where I'd get to see all the puppies. Where we'd all run together without leashes. Where all the table scraps end up on the floor. Where everything smells like bacon. Where every guy gets his own tree. I'd still mark it up every day. You know, just in case...

I guess the pear tree in the front yard is mine now that the tiny box with my ashes are buried under it. I can't exactly tell that to the neighbor dogs that walk across the front lawn most days; But I know it's mine. Bonnie hung a photo of us from one of the branches, but it got pretty weathered, and then it fell apart one day in the rain. It had a handmade frame made out of cardboard- I would have chewed the heck out of that.

But I'm still here with her. She instagrams about me less. Just once or twice a year when it hurts as much as that first day we weren't together. But someday she'll have another Coneybear. He'll have another name from a broadway musical and he'll stick his paw under the bathroom door just like I did. And maybe she'll love him as much as she loved me. But probably not quite as much.

I was, after all, such a good boy. She told me every day. And as much as some people think their dogs aren't listening. We are.