Pawprints

 Thirteen years ago, I bought a chowchow puppy, Moonlight.

I thought I had done my research on breeders, but I was grossly misinformed and misled. I had put $1200 on a cream chow puppy that would be ten weeks old when I received her. Instead, a 6- or 7-week-old red puppy, gold as the sun, ears still flopped, and unweaned, arrived at the Philly airport seven hours late, dehydrated, and starving. Little Moonlight went from 6 pounds to 4 pounds in just two days as we tried to find a way to feed her. She suckled Jack's finger looking for milk, so we finger-fed her. To the moment she died, she still suckled Jack's finger.  

Thirteen years is a long time for chows to live. Usually, their lifespan is 6-8 years. Moonlight lost her left eye a few years ago to a stroke. Last year, her hips gave out, and we often had to pick her up if she wanted to get anywhere. More recently, she lost her hearing. She'd get frightened because she couldn't see or hear us. Her little yipe sounded like "Help!" at all hours of the night, then all hours of the day. In the past few months, her legs would give out as she walked and she'd splat on the floor, unable to move. Her yipe became a hoarse yelp. 

Watching the physical and mental decline of a creature you love and who loves you so much is very hard on the heart. I've had dogs all my life, and I knew when it was time, the kindest act was to let them rest. 

Moonlight was Jack's first puppy, and he didn't want to let her go.

He didn't want to put a dog to sleep merely out of convenience. My heart was torn. Having arthritis myself, I knew what pain Moonlight experienced every minute. Once her eyesight and hearing went, the only real joy she had was her chicken treats. Jack held on until this last month, when it became clear Moonlight didn't know where she was half the time. She had senile dementia. That's when Jack knew it was time.

Today we said goodbye to Moonlight. She wasn't fearful at the vet's. She licked Jack's nose while the vet administered the shot. Then she slept. She was gone.

She had come from a feces-filled pen with no shade, bred by a heartless monster who got caught dumping 35 young chows out on a mountain highway--which is how we got our next chow, Lieutenant Kije, three years after Moonlight. She was loved and spoiled and pampered longer than many chows every will be.

Our hearts ache, but we were so lucky to have loved her for thirteen years. Her pawprints will stay on our hearts.