Yes

If you had to do it all over again, would you still do it, even knowing how it would end?

June 28, 2018 had been a stiflingly hot day, humid, with dense heavy air. When I walked out of the animal hospital around five o’clock, the clouds finally cracked open and it began to pour. Pickwick would have hated this. He hated walking in the rain. But that didn’t matter now. Pickwick was gone.

Let me tell you something right now: This is a sad story. The dog dies at the end. I’m sorry. If you don’t want to keep reading, I understand. But I’m telling it anyway, because it’s a story about love, and how much we can learn from the dogs who grace our lives.

In May 2015, I lost my dog Sunflower to heart disease. To me, Sunflower had been just about perfect—she was a sweet and funny Pomeranian who had a smile for everyone. I had loved her from the first moment I saw her photo on Petfinder in 2009, and loved her even more the first time I met her in person. The only flaw she had, as far as I could see, was that she was so wonderful that I could hardly bear to spend a minute away from her. When she died at the age of eight, I was heartbroken.

I knew I could never ask another dog to be Sunflower. But I also knew that not having a dog in my life made me feel lonely and adrift, so I decided that I would start to look for a new friend. I wanted another Pom, but one that somehow was different than Sunflower. Of course I wanted another rescue, so once again I turned to Petfinder, where I spotted a little orange Pom boy with a short haircut that made him look like a fox. I was struck by his bright, intelligent eyes and charmed by the neat white socks on his paws. The rescue said that his previous person had given him up because he “didn’t get along with her boyfriend.” I felt sad for the little boy, who must have felt so confused after losing his home.. He was only a year and a half old, and he had already been rejected in a terribly callous way. I kept going back to his picture and soon I felt sure that he was the one. Yes, he was very cute, but in a different way than Sunflower. I would not look at him and think of her. He was described as a dog who had a big personality and loved being with his person, which also sounded ideal for me.

He was called Percy and although his rescue was in Ohio, they regularly transported dogs from crowded Midwestern shelters to the Northeast, where I lived, so they might have a better chance of being adopted. Once my adoption application was approved, he was scheduled for a transport that would bring him to me in New York City.

On January 17, 2016, a volunteer driver for the transport pulled up in front of my building and quickly handed the little orange dog over to me, eager to get out of the city before it got dark. As he wiggled with excitement, I carefully carried him into my building. I noticed that he was smaller than Sunflower, and he felt different in my arms. When I put him down on the floor of my apartment, he stared curiously at me and my roommate Meg as if we were two aliens who had just taken him into their spaceship. Suddenly it felt strange to see another dog who wasn’t Sunflower standing in the hallway where she had come to greet me so many times. Then he stood up on his back legs and danced around a little bit in a way that made us laugh, and that gave me some hope. When I went to bed later that night, he snuggled against my leg as if he was all ready to be mine.

I wasn’t sure I was ready to be his, though. When we tried to go out for a walk the next morning, it was a disaster. He had probably never seen so many people and other dogs in his life, and he barked and lunged and growled at all of them. I was horrified. Sunflower had come from the suburbs, too, but she hadn’t barked at people. And while she didn’t care to be around other dogs, she didn’t antagonize them. With this little guy, I couldn’t tell whether he wanted to attack or play with the other dogs he approached. Each day, his reactions seemed to get wilder and more out of control. Walking him was exhausting.

Things weren’t much better indoors. He didn’t play much with toys, and although he always stayed within sight of me, he didn’t beg to be picked up the way Sunflower had. He often looked very serious, whereas Sunflower had been a constant whirl of joy.

And by now you can see the problem I was having. I had sworn that I would get a dog who did not look like Sunflower and had a different personality, because I didn’t want to compare him to her. Yet I did it anyway. For some reason, I had held the thought in my mind that I would be able to find a dog who was completely different from Sunflower, yet somehow exactly like her, so that it would be like she had never left. And this dog was not Sunflower and never would be and she was never coming back. Sometimes I looked at him and cried, not because of anything he had done, but because of who he was not. It wasn’t fair. I wanted to love him, but when I looked at him, I just felt nothing.

On the outside, I smiled and thanked everyone who congratulated me on his adoption, and told me how cute he was. I agreed, but inside me, a voice kept saying, “But he isn’t Sunflower.” I wondered how I would ever get over this, or if I ever would. I had made a terrible mistake. It had been too soon and now I was stuck with this dog who maybe wasn’t right for me. Of course I would always take care of him, and I never considered giving him up. But he would probably live for 15 years and I’d have to pretend everything was okay all that time, when what I really wanted to do was look for the next Sunflower. The more I had these kinds of thoughts, the more I hated myself. How could I not love this little dog? What was wrong with me?

And he didn’t even have a name. He hadn’t seemed to respond to Percy, and I wanted to call him something more creative anyway. I had trouble choosing a new name, though, and for weeks I just kept calling him Little Boy. Finally, we settled on Pickwick, a character from a Charles Dickens novel. I liked the fact that it began with P, and the bouncy sound from all the hard consonants. But by then he probably thought Little Boy was his name.

Every walk continued to be a challenge. Some dogs he wanted to play with, but he wanted to fight just as many—especially big dogs. He barked at people who approached him and tried to bite anyone who wanted to pet him. Sunflower had regarded everyone on the street as a potential friend; Pickwick seemed to think everyone was a potential attacker.

When I went out, he barked nonstop. Sunflower had barked too, but she didn’t sit right by the door and yap, which is what Pickwick did. One of my neighbors complained about him every time she saw me.

Then Pickwick began to “guard” me and my/his territory…from Meg. He was fine with her when she stayed in her room, but if she came into the kitchen, which was next to my bedroom, he would bark and growl at her. If she came into my room, the hysterical barking got even worse. Once, when she was in my room, she reached over to pet him and he tried to bite her.

What I told people: “Yeah, my other dogs were usable straight out of the box, but Pickwick is some assembly required!” (laugh laugh)

What I was thinking inside: “What am I going to do? I don’t know how to handle this.”

Yet he was always by my side. Sometimes he slept next to my desk while I worked, so close that I couldn’t move my chair. At other times, he stayed on my bed, within sight, so that if I turned around I would see him watching me with those deep, clever brown eyes. If I laid down on my bed to read or take a nap, he snuggled against my back. When I went out, he stayed by the door the entire time I was gone, lying on the chilly hard floor.

That winter was very cold, but we went for long walks in Central Park every day. I began to understand which dogs were likely to trigger Pickwick and which ones he might want to play with. He decided to let a few—very select few—people pet him. Ice melted and spring came, letting us explore more areas of the park. During our walks, he often liked to take a break and nibble on the new green grass. I sat by his side until he was ready to continue exploring.

People tend to glorify the idea of love at first sight. In movies and books, it’s a sign that two people were meant to be together; they had seen their soulmates and recognized them immediately. But sometimes love comes more slowly. It sneaks up on you quietly, without fireworks and rainbows. Instead, one day, there’s just a simple “Yes, I do.” I realized at some point that I did love Pickwick. I don’t know exactly when it happened, but it did. I loved him for the dog he was, not because he was another Sunflower. I learned that letting him into my heart didn’t mean that I loved the memory of Sunflower any less.

One thing troubled me about Pickwick, and that was that he didn’t eat very much. His poop also never looked normal (this is a dog story, did you think there would be no poop?) and he would go through periods of chewing his paws and itching all over his body. After talking to his vet, we determined that he probably had food allergies, especially to chicken, which is a big problem. Chicken is in many types of dog food and treats; even foods where chicken isn’t one of the main ingredients still might contain chicken byproducts. I learned to read ingredient lists carefully, and how to politely decline when people in the park offered him a treat, because I couldn’t be sure that the treat didn’t contain chicken.

I kept trying different foods: canned foods, dry foods, grocery store foods, fancy brand foods, prescription foods. Sometimes they would be okay for a little while, but then his stomach would start acting up again. I read recipes and tried cooking food for him myself, but then found out that I would need to add supplements to make sure that he was getting a nutritionally complete diet. The more I read, the more confused I became about the whole thing. Finally, in the spring of 2017, we consulted with a pet nutritionist, who found a prescription food that he seemed to be able to eat without any problems.

That spring and summer of 2017, Pickwick was healthier and happier than I’d ever seen him. He consistently ate well and was full of energy. He learned to play with some toys and had a steady group of dog friends he hung out with in the park. We kept going on our long walks, even on the hottest summer days. He needed more breaks when it was humid and the sun was blazing, but that was okay. We would just sit in the shade, side by side, until he was ready to go.

Then, in October, Pickwick was attacked by a large dog. He was severely injured and we didn’t know at first if he would survive; I had to face the possibility of losing him. The times that I’d had negative thoughts about him during those first weeks kept replaying in my head. Be careful what you wish for, they said. I take them back. I didn’t really mean them. I want him to live at least fifteen more years. Please let him be okay.

Pickwick had to spend six days in the hospital, but recovered well. The experience was terrifying, but you know how sometimes when you face your worst fear, everything seems better afterwards? That’s how I felt. It was second-chance time and everything was okay now.

Except it wasn’t.

On New Year’s Day, Pickwick stopped eating. At first, I thought it was a one day thing—a random upset stomach. A few days passed, though, and he still wasn’t eating. I tried some new foods, and he would eat a little, but then when I offered the same food to him again, he refused it.

The vet prescribed an appetite stimulant and that worked—for one day. Then he stopped eating again.

We did blood tests, then an ultrasound. I had pet health insurance for Pickwick, but the company reimbursed you a percentage of the bill after you paid the whole thing upfront. I was freelancing while trying to find a full-time job and had next to no money and only one credit card. I struggled to make sure I had enough money on hand to cover a bill temporarily until the insurance company paid me back.

Pickwick kept losing weight. I strongly felt that he wanted to eat, but every time he tried something, it made him feel bad, and then he wouldn’t eat it again. An endoscopy revealed inflammation in his intestines, as well as the presence of the h pylori bacteria, which causes ulcers. The vet who did the ultrasound put him on a course of strong antibiotics and other medicines, but it was difficult to get him to take the pills. If he took them on an empty stomach, that made him nauseous and even more reluctant to eat, so his regular vet told me to just try anything that might tempt him, even people food. Yogurt, cheese, ice cream. I made him pancakes and pasta and potatoes. But the same thing kept happening—he would devour it once, and then refuse it the next day.

By early March, I was desperate. My dog was starving to death right in front of my eyes and no one knew why. His vet contacted a doctor at an emergency and specialty hospital and I made an appointment there. When we went to our appointment, he wore the small harness he had first arrived with from Ohio, when he was still a young boy without a full coat. It hung loosely on him.

The vet at the hospital examined him and told me that he had Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). That meant that Pickwick’s digestive system was chronically inflamed, which was causing him pain and preventing him from digesting food correctly. It can be connected to food allergies, which seemed to make sense with Pickwick’s history. The vet explained that with the right kind of diet and medication, most dogs were able to manage life with this condition. But we also needed to focus on getting his weight up and help him regain some strength, so she suggested putting in a feeding tube to help get some nutrition into him regularly. I agreed and she did the procedure that day.

Pickwick was still a little woozy from the anesthesia when he was brought back to me. I spent almost an hour with a vet tech, who showed me how to grind the hypoallergenic kibble and water in a blender to make a liquid that I would be able to push through the feeding tube with a syringe. It’s not easy—you can’t go too fast and Pickwick could only have small amounts at a time at first.

Things went wrong immediately when I tried to do his first feeding the next morning. Pickwick started licking his lips while I fed him, a sign of nausea that meant I should stop feeding him. By noon he was so weak he could barely lift his head. I called the hospital and the vet told me to bring him in immediately. On the way to the hospital, he vomited and had bloody diarrhea inside his travel bag. The vet told me they needed to keep in the ICU overnight to stabilize his condition.

The next morning I got a call from the hospital saying that Pickwick had developed sepsis, a serious infection throughout his body. The vet doing rounds that morning told me they could do a procedure where they gave him a transfusion of albumin, a human protein, but there was no guarantee it would work. If I wanted to see him, I should come as quickly as possible.

Pickwick was being prepped for the transfusion when I got there. He laid under some towels, with a heat lamp overhead to give him more warmth. I looked in his eyes, those clever bright brown eyes that now were dulled with pain and exhaustion. The vet tech quietly put a box of tissues next to me, and I began to cry, wondering how I could ever have doubted that he was the right dog for me. I told him, “I love you, Little Boy, always” and left, wondering if I would ever see him again.

Later that day the hospital said I could come see him again. I went to the ICU, where he was in a cage, sleeping in a little bed surrounded by blankets. He sat up and barked when he saw me, and I stood by his cage, petting him until he fell asleep with his head in my hand. When visiting hours were over, I quietly stepped away to leave, but he immediately woke up and began to scream. Not cry, not bark, not whimper. He screamed. It was the most awful sound in the world, yet I smiled and told him in a loud, cheery voice that I would be back soon. When I turned the corner and was out of his sight, the tears came again.

We hoped his condition would continue to improve, but he wasn’t even close to coming home. And more days in the ICU meant more money, which I did not have. I began to call credit card companies, trying to get them to up my credit limit, while applying for new ones as well. I posted about Pickwick’s condition on Instagram, and one of his friends quickly reached out to ask if she could set up a GoFundMe for him. I hated the idea of asking people for money, but I was desperate, and it’s amazing how fast your pride disappears when you are trying to save a life.

I visited Pickwick every day. As he grew stronger, he was allowed to come out of his cage and sit with me in a visiting room. He usually just fell asleep next to me, but every time I left, he screamed. It seemed like you could hear it throughout the entire hospital. I always smiled and said, “I’ll be right back!” Outside, I could cry. It’s okay to cry on the street in New York.

Finally, after a week, the vet said he could go home. I held my breath as they totaled up the bill, hoping that I would have enough money to cover it. Much to my relief, the combination of credit cards and GoFundMe money (Thank you, Insta friends!) provided just enough money for me to pay in full.

They sent me home with a bag full of medications and three pages of instructions for how and when to give them—even injections, something I’d never imagined myself doing. The only way I could handle it was to make a spreadsheet. Dates down the side, the list of medicines and tube feedings across the top. Every time I did one, I entered the time on the spreadsheet. At the end of the day, the row would be completely filled in. When I put in that last medication time (usually around 11:30 pm), I felt triumphant. We had made it through another day.

It was a lot, but it wasn’t supposed to last that long. We hoped that the medications would calm his inflammation and allergic reactions, the tube feedings would help him gain weight, and maybe in a few weeks, a month, we would be able to start working solid hypoallergenic food into his diet, and dial back some of the meds. There was more good news for the future—I got a job and that meant that I finally had some financial stability coming my way.

Pickwick’s next visit to the vet looked great. Everything seemed to be moving in the right direction. But then, just a week later, his exam showed that he had a liver infection. He had to stay in the hospital for three more days to treat that.

And that’s how the next two months went. A good visit, some progress, followed by poor test results, an infection, an inexplicable weight loss, bouts of vomiting and diarrhea, late night trips to the hospital to get him an injection of fluids because of dehydration. At one point the feeding tube fell out, and he needed surgery again to have that put in place again. A tiny cut in his paw blew up into a painful swollen infection because some of his medications were immunosuppressants that weakened his ability to fight infections.

One day, as we were coming back on the subway from the hospital, a woman inquired about the tube coming out of his neck. I explained it was a feeding tube and that he needed it to help him get through an illness. She stared at me like I was crazy and said, “But what about his quality of life? Is it the kind thing to do?” It took a second for me to understand what she meant. “He’s only four,” I whispered. I got off at the next stop just to get away from her.

There was a period in May when we were in a rhythm that seemed to be working. I spent my days ticking off the medications on my spreadsheet, filling the syringes with the liquefied food, and then settling down to feed Pickwick. During that time, he would jump up next to me and lay down quietly while I pushed the food through the tube. Sometimes he would doze off as I fed him. I think he felt good, glad to have something in his stomach, grateful not to be hungry and sick.

Then Pickwick got another liver infection. When I went to visit him in the hospital, he was happy to see me. When I left, he screamed, his voice echoing through the halls.

Early June was beautiful in New York that year. The days were warm but not humid, and the grass in the park was deep green and growing fast. Wildflowers dotted the hill near us. Pickwick developed this strong drive to be outside, constantly wanting to go out and lay in the grass. We wouldn’t walk too far, but instead would just find a place where he could lie down and sleep. We would stay outside until it was almost dark, just because he seemed to feel better out there. I averted my eyes from the sympathetic looks of people who saw me sitting there next to him, crying constantly.

The vet said there was an IBD medication for cats that sometimes helped dogs. “Let’s try it. I’ll try anything.”

Pickwick began to walk away from me when he saw the syringes full of food. If I did get him to take them, he often threw up or had diarrhea immediately afterwards, or sometimes both. When I finished giving him his medications at night, I no longer felt triumphant because I had made it through the day; instead I became depressed because it would all start up again in a few more hours.

I had kept Sunflower’s bed after she died. I couldn’t bring myself to just throw it out and had left it in the same place where she used to sleep. Pickwick had almost never shown any interest in it, but now I found him sleeping there sometimes. I tried to imagine that there was some magical little bit of her left there that was now trying to help him.

As I watched him sleep there, his little body thin and exhausted, I thought back again to those early days with him, was haunted by the time I’d wasted not loving him just because he wasn’t Sunflower. It seemed like all of this was now some kind of hateful payback to me for making that mistake, cruel gods teaching me a lesson. I know the universe does not seek retribution; the stars do not care what we think, or say, or do. Still, I wished I could have that time back. I wished that I could explain to Pickwick that I had learned from my mistake and that I had made up for it by loving him doubly, triply times more in the days since then.

I read everything I could find on IBD, hoping that I’d discover a new article that mentioned an experimental medication that we could try. But there wasn’t anything new. Everything I read said the same thing: “Most dogs can live with IBD by managing their diet and medication. Unfortunately, a small percentage do not respond to treatment.” No one ever thinks they will be that small percentage. But someone has to be.

How do you know when it’s time to stop hoping, to stop trying? Outside, I would watch Pickwick sleeping in the grass, and beg him to go on his own. “Please don’t make me make this decision,” I would whisper to him. “Look, the sky is blue, the grass is cool, and you look so peaceful. Please go now.” But it didn’t happen. No one gets to pass off the hard decisions to someone else, to the sky, fate, or any god who might be listening. You have to make the hard decisions yourself. I learned that.

We look at our sick and aging pets and ask ourselves over and over, “How will I know?” But somehow we do. Somehow the day comes when we look at them and know that it will never get better, it will only get worse, and even now is already too much for them to bear. One day we just know.

On June 28th, 2018, Pickwick had already had a vet appointment scheduled. When we got there, the vet examined him and said that his condition had worsened. I told her this was the day. I just asked for them to make sure he wasn’t out of my sight anymore. I couldn’t bear to hear him scream again.

They put us in a room to spend some quiet time together. Pickwick laid on a blanket next to me, and I made sure that no matter what position he shifted to, we would be looking in each other’s eyes. “It’s okay, Little Boy.”

After almost two hours, the vet asked if I was ready. I said yes. I sat directly in front of him, stroking his head, and looking into his beautiful brown eyes. “I love you, Little Boy.”

And then it was over. The vet and I cried together, then I pulled myself together to walk outside into the hot, sticky afternoon.

If you had it to do all over again, would you still do it, even knowing how it would end?

I was exhausted by the grind of the last few months, by the round the clock care, by the hopes raised and dashed, by the endless sadness of it all.

We only had two and a half years together, and those last six months had been consumed by illness. I had learned so much in our brief time together, though. I had always known that every dog was different and deserved to be loved and accepted on their own terms. But it’s one thing to know that in theory and another to live through those feelings. I had had to work through the loss of Sunflower, and learn that it was okay to love Pickwick for himself, to welcome any new dog with an open heart. I learned to be more patient, more understanding and more accepting. I learned that I was much stronger than I ever thought I could be. I have never been heroic or brave; I have always feared that if pushed into a difficult situation, I would shrink from the moment. Yet when the time came, I was somehow able to give Pickwick everything I had. I wish I could have saved him. But there is some peace in knowing that I did as much as I could. I know, without question, that I am a better person now than I was before I met him.

Rescue an animal. You will save their life, and they will change yours in ways you could never imagine.

If you had it to do all over again, would you still do it, even knowing how it would end?

Yes, again and again, yes.