7. More Than All the Doggies in All the World (April 2022)

Annie Rae at daycareTallahassee Wigglemonster, my chihuahua-rat terrier of 9 years, was my first animal companion. We had such wonderful times together that happy spontaneous songs with silly words would burst out of me and become a sort of leitmotive to our shared life. She was my Brave Protector turned stalwart pandemic companion, who watched the news with me and also made me go outside to walk and swing in the hammock. Then Tally succumbed slowly and horribly to liver failure between February 2020 and May 2021. I was teaching at home full time for her last year on earth and had to pause Zoom classes because she was vomiting and crying beside me. Death hung in our house for weeks beforehand, but the final moment still shattered me.

Barely a week after Tally’s death, unexpectedly into my life bounded 18 month old Annie Rae Frecklebutt. Annie Rae hopped out of her former owner’s car, came straight to me, and insisted on being petted and loved. I brought her home and she leaped onto my bed like she had always lived there. I sat down in my chair and she snuggled between the arm rest and my leg, sighing contentedly while I worked. I woke in the mornings, threw back the covers where she had burrowed down to my knees, and asked, “Do I have a doggie?,” only to be tackled and licked with abandon while her tail wagged so hard it positively thumped.

Annie Rae was supple and soft, Annie Rae on her "gotcha" dayradiant and beautiful under my hands, which had grown too used to the skeletal fur and bones of Tally's final year. Annie Rae was energy and joy personified. She wanted nothing except to be cuddled and loved and kept close. She wasn’t dog motivated or treat motivated, she just wanted Mom.

For a year before Annie Rae came, it had been that Tally’s every grunt or hiccup sent fear knifing through my heart. Annie Rae was obviously a healthy and happy baby, though. There was nothing to fear. I wasn’t thrilled about her digging in my garden and trying to eat the mulch, but I couldn’t help but laugh when she also chewed through her outdoor leash so she could be exactly where I was. Dachshunds aren’t supposed to jump because then they have back issues in older age, but I couldn’t help smiling when she leaped from the furniture or stairs despite my warnings, a huge grin on her face and a WHEEEEEEEEEE! on her lips. Her happiness was radiant and infectious. She smiled by showing her front teeth whenever I came home, and I couldn't help but smile, too.

In fact, without my even knowing it, Annie Rae found all the frightened, broken places in my heart and loved them back together. At first, I missed knowing that where Tally would’ve fiercely protected me, now Annie Rae would more likely flop over for a belly rub. Eventually, though, I found myself feeling less like I needed protection and more that it was my turn to be protector. I found myself looking at Annie Rae fondly and thinking, “You’re not Tally, but you’re okay, kid.” Without even realizing it, I started telling her I loved her more than all the doggies in all the world, and thinking happily of our long, long future together. Maybe someday soon it would even be okay to use some of Tally’s silly little songs with her. She had one of her own – Annie Rae Frecklebutt, Annie Rae Frecklebutt, you’re the sweetest dog I know – but just the one.

I was away on probably the most euphoric, significant professional trip of my career when my cell phone buzzed in my pocket. Annie Rae had been injured at daycare and rushed to an emergency vet, who thought she had sprained her neck. Doctor's orders, no more jumping! I brought her home wracked with guilt at all the times I had allowed or even encouraged her doing just that, resolved that those days were over. The surge of fear was visceral and metallic – what would I do without Annie Rae?!? Close call, but she’s young and she’ll recover, and we’ll be careful.

I thought as a few days went by that she was getting modestly better. Then she wet my bed. She cried if I moved her even a little bit. One night she covered both of us in diarrhea overnight, unable to move enough to wake me or get herself out of the mess. I rushed her to the emergency vet certain she’d had a stroke or seizure – but they still insisted no, still just severe muscle spasms. I started her on massage and laser therapy that very day, shocked at the developing 1000-yard stare in her eyes.

As a result of those measures, there was one last glorious spring afternoon where she moved without pain, albeit wobbly, and followed me around. She stared at me with awareness, which in the moment I thought was just gratefulness to have a respite from pain. I put her bed by the porch door that afternoon and she sunbathed, her tail wagging whenever I spoke to her.

But that night, she spasmed over and over, her head thrown back and her easy smile wrenched into a grimace. No medicine, no massage, no moist heat, no cuddles or whispers of comfort could help her or even reach her. Food and water simply fell out of her open mouth. I tried to sleep beside her on the couch that night, afraid to move her to our bed, but there wasn’t enough room. I slept alone instead and hallucinated fires, bombs, and aliens bursting through the ceiling. The emergency vet in the morning recommended hospitalizing her for a day, but hours later recommended we drive across two states to a university veterinary school for advanced imaging and diagnosis from a neurologist.

Numb, red-eyed and exhausted, I took her. En route, she didn't even respond to bacon. When I carried her into the building, limp and disoriented, her mouth hanging open, I felt the very ground wrenching under my feet.

The neurologist showed me a massive area of swelling and fluid taking up the entire center of Annie Rae’s brain. There may indeed have been a pulled muscle at daycare but the pain and her rapid decline was not because of it. A tumor was blocking normal drainage, ratcheting pressure inside her skull and specifically onto the control centers for movement, swallowing, and breathing. A radical surgery might save her, maybe, but it’s such a rare condition and unusual presentation, especially in such a young dog, they’d have to order special surgical materials. Annie Rae, they told me, would not live long enough for these to arrive.

It hadn’t even been a year since I adopted her. She was barely two years old but haggard and trembling as I knelt next to her in the facility's family room. The silence was so heavy. I knew this was our last time together. I tried to apologize that I had been broken and less than what a sweet girl like her deserved in the short time she had – but I sobbed so hard I couldn’t speak the words. They weren’t the right words, anyway.

Her eyes still stared blankly ahead but she perked her ears when instead, I asked if she wanted to snuggle. Wrapped in blankets with her head on my chest and my arms around her, I sang her song to her. I whispered to her of all our favorite things: Aunt Bonny and Cousin Belle, treats, walks, Uncle Mike and Aunt Deborah, the dog park, daycare, Uncle Mac and Aunt Kathy, outside, adventures, Grandpa and Aunt Kate, time to go to bed and watch movies, time to snuggle on the couch. I thanked her for saving me, for helping me to love again. I knew she did because I loved her so much. I thanked her for choosing me and loving me, too, and promised that she would run and jump soon and this would all be over. When the doctor joined us, little Annie Rae opened her eyes and looked right into mine. She was clear and aware for the first time in days while I whispered over and over, “You’re a good girl … mama loves you … you’re a good girl … mama loves you ….”

The grief is heavy. The responsibility for her life is heavy. These days after, it's so hard to breathe and the silence is deafening. It can’t be right that such a beautiful, pure soul should have so little time, cut short by something so freakish, brutal, and sudden. The tears hurt my eyes and choke my throat.

But there was a lesson here. Grief, pain, sadness, fear, guilt … that must be allowed to be, but most of all, allowed to pass. Annie came to me to help these pass after Tally. Her life was proof that always there is a way to move forward if we choose to see it, always there is a way out of the darkness, to carry onward with us that which is full-hearted, sincere, and true.

What I can carry forward is that I gave my Frecklebutt the best time and the most love she could ever have. I needed her to help me heal and love, and she needed me to keep her safe. She needed me to make her suffering short and her end peaceful. She trusted me and I’m grateful I could do that for her.

If she could have spoken in our last moments, I think Annie Rae would have said simply, “I love you, too, Mom.” But she did, didn’t she, just by looking for me in our hardest moment together, and leaving me to remember and carry forward our loving memories.

I think it will not be long before I have another dog. It cannot be long, because this hole is so deep, and my couch and bed so empty. There are so many old songs to share, now, and many new ones to make.

In The Empire Strikes Back, Yoda tells Luke Skywalker, “Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.” In my heart, Annie Rae Frecklebutt is radiating white and yellow, soft and snuggly, forever agile and smelling of fresh grass, leaping from star to star with a big grin and a WHEEEEEEEEEE!