The Loss of a Pet

Our little black wiener dog honored his predecessor today. He napped on her grave under a tree that commemorates her. It was as if he knew this was the anniversary weekend of her death.
 

Dan the Man soaking up the 70 degree November sun in Kansas

Seven years ago, I put down my red dachshund named Lexy. She was eleven-years and nine-months old, a little younger than most of the kids I teach. Her back legs went out, something that happens to a lot of wiener dogs due to their elongated bodies and the strain on their spines.

I had raised her from the time she was a puppy. Trained her to ring bells to go out and potty. In a month, she had it down. Later that summer, my niece Jessica helped me train her to walk on a leash by enticing her with food.

Lexy, named after a South Dakota weather forecaster Lexy Hickok, arose at 5:50 am every day when I first got her back in June of 1995. I wanted to sleep in—it was summer. So one day, I said, "We're going back to bed," and I stuck her under the covers with me. That was the last time she slept in a cage. Then I got married, and she slept alone in a doggy bed.

Lexy and Dad nap ~ Summer 1995

One can imagine the pain of losing a house dog who is a constant companion. My dad said he understood when I told him I cried over Lexy’s death more than I did Mom's.

Shortly after my dog's passing, fellow dog lover Kaitlin Nance, a former student of mine, gave me the book, For Every Dog an Angel. For anyone who’s lost a dog, the words will not seem silly. I knew I wanted another dog; I just wanted to wait until summer time when I could give it my full attention.

Lexy ~ Tank, Kaitlin's dog ~ Pepper in July 2007

But I was. So lonely.
I missed Lexy. So much.

Guilt over all the changes during her last year of life did not help me. I tried to enjoy Pepper’s company, but it was not the same. He was not Lexy. I would walk Pepper at night and just bawl. I bought an iPod to drown out my thoughts.

Some suggested I should get a dog right away, others said I better wait, yet others said maybe I should not get another one—ever. After all, we had Pepper. In addition, I feared my new husband would not want another dachshund after the way Lexy behaved at times. But I wanted one. Another one. Another dachshund.

Lexy's second Christmas in 1996. She did not like that doggy coat.

My husband saw my sorrow, and three months later in March, he drove me five hours one way to get a dog from a rescue. It was a black and red dachshund I found on petfinder.com. His papers came with the name Daniel, but I wanted a fresh start for this little fella whose story I will tell some time in a future post, so I renamed him Dan the Man. He’s my little love who teaches me about patience and kindness in a way no human can. 

Dan the Man with me in May 2012

How does one move on after the loss of a pet?
It is tough. So tough.

Give yourself permission to mourn. How do you do this besides tears? Create a special memento of your pet. Mine is a box full of pictures and a journal full writings. In fact, that’s when I started writing consistently again. Lexy’s death in 2007 caused me to return to my default mode. In that journal, I wrote messages to her.

Lexy with me on the last day of her life.

Also, realize the time to grieve is different for everyone. You might choose to never get a pet again. Only you can make that decision, but do know that you are not being disloyal to the one you lost if you want another companion. My time ended up being three months because I could not stand it any longer.

One day at lunch, my friend and colleague Jill Weber said, “It helped my mom when she got another one." Her words gave me permission to make room in my heart for another dog.

And room I had.
Dan the Man’s spot is right beside Lexy’s, and today, his resting on her grave confirmed it.

saying good bye

How have you dealt with the pain of losing a beloved pet? What did you do to cherish the memories?

Alero, the sweet lemon

My Alero has been kind of a lemon--but more sweet than sour since she is over 15-years-old, on her third set of tires, and still makes 27 miles per gallon.

I now pay more for the registration paperwork than I do the property taxes on this thing, but hey, she still works, and I'm not too proud to drive a tin can.

The Alero is not fun to sit in though. A towel covers the driver seat’s innards so they do not end up hanging from my rear. Switching from AM to FM or to change to a CD requires pushing the button three times. But oh, one thing works quite well: the cassette tape player.

Many other items; however, are out of commission or close to it. Here's the list.

The trunk lid requires a key and refuses to open with the remote or the inside lever. The plastic liner on the edge of the trunk is gone. Between my golf clubs and Brittany’s getting yanked in and out, it would not stay on anymore, so I duct taped the thin indoor carpet liner to the metal frame.

The cabin is far from sound proof with leaky windows—especially in the back--that is why she is a tin can. The sunroof stopped shutting, so we disconnected it. The back two windows are disconnected too because they did not know how to stay where they belong either.  
 
The driver’s side window started all these window issues in December 2006, a couple months after I married Chris.

What does love have to do with it? A snow storm, that's what! Fifteen inches in Oklahoma when it was all said and done, and I've got pictures to prove it.

Never a shy one around a camera, a 12-year-old Brittany with Pepper--ready to move to Kansas.

We traveled to Bartlesville from Cheney to sign for the closing on Chris' house. The road conditions turned a regular 3-hour trip into a 6-hour adventure. This time it was mother nature expanding the time frame--unlike my trip this summer in 2014 when I turned a 9-hour trip into 12. Read my blog post entitled, On the Road Again--Alone, for more about that nightmare.

Chris at his house in Bartlesville on the day of the signing.

Luckily for us, Brittany's grandpa and Chris had moved their belongings in a U-Haul to Kansas the day before, a Wednesday. They returned to Oklahoma that night. The plan was for Chris to come up with his pick-up on Thursday with the last of their belongings, and after I was done with school, we would drive back in the Alero for the signing, which was on Friday. Brittany's grandparents would see to it that she would wrap up things at her school.

But on the Thursday morning of the trip, even before a lick of snow hit the ground, Cheney Superintendent Brad Neuenswander made the no-school call. That was how dangerous and plentiful the storm was predicted to be. When I called Chris at 7:30 in the morning to say that he had better leave now--with no snow on the ground--he thought I was crazy.

Not the case when he finally got here late morning and told me he had hit the ditch due to ice near the the Belle Plaine exit on the turnpike. He was able to maneuver his red Dodge pick-up right back up out of it. Good thing no one was traveling too close behind him either. I could have been a widow before my husband even officially moved in.

What does all this have to do with the Alero? Ice and snow, that's what. On our drive back to Oklahoma, Chris had to keep opening the window, grab the blade, and knock the ice off the wipers.

Ready to head back to Kansas in the Alero--to finally live together as a family.

We arrived Thursday night in good shape, but the last 10 miles from Dewey to Bartlesville took an hour. The closing was postponed from Friday to Saturday, and Brittany never had school those last two days.

After we arrived back in Kansas on Saturday afternoon, the driver's side window kept sneaking down. It did not want to stay up. And I had no garage, so we taped a blanket over it.

So on that first Sunday, with my family finally together, we crammed into the pick-up to go to church. Large speakers took up the small back seat area, so Bee and I held the groceries on our laps on the way home from Wichita. Oh, the memories of beginning married life. 

We had to fix that window, of course, or no mailbox stops, fast-food drive-ins, or ATM stops for us. In the years that followed, the back windows began to slip too, so we disconnected them.

But that was the beginning of my car, only 7-years-old, turning into my tin can rat trap. I think she got her feelings hurt when Chris purchased a brand new Honda Accord later that month. Suddenly, the Alero was not driving us around like she used to, the Honda was. And the Honda is a smooth, quiet, luxurious ride. Brittany and I used to accuse her dad of loving the car more than us.

But I understand his affection for his car. I will probably cry when the time comes to retire the Alero. But for now, I'm hoping she makes it to 20-years-old like one of my dad's other Oldsmobiles. 

Chris with his Honda in December of 2010 when she is already 2-years old.