Partly Cloudy
12 x 8.75 x 6
stoneware paperclay
2025
Available

My Dog is Dying

Not in the: she’s on her last breath, the end is near kind of dying.

No, the other kind.

The slippery slope of old age dying.

The kind where you make small decisions along the way.

More frequent trips to the vet than the one or two every year.

She won’t live long enough to get our monies worth from her most recent rabies shot.

She woke up this morning (and yesterday, quite frankly) being able to move her left legs well, but not her right.

So she was circling the kitchen like a carnival gold fish in a bowl

using the cabinets for support.

Trying hard to focus.

But she ate her breakfast and went outside to do her business

And chewed on a bone.

She has always been a spinning top, racing from moment to moment

But she is old now. Her body has lived through 15 and one-half years (as best as we can tell)

Maybe she will rally. Yesterday she did.

Barking and walking up and down the driveway

after the alpaca came home.

She could still do stairs, yesterday.

Today: we did not try.

But how small do we want her life to get?

It’s the slippery slope of life

When we get to that side

the slide down is steep

and there are usually fewer things to grab hold of.

And, even if we do, it’s only temporary.

We will never have the strength again to pull ourselves up to stable ground.

Things have shifted under us.

And that is how a well-lived life is.

If all goes according to plan

A good life has used up parts.

Things that no longer work as they once did.

My dog is dying.

Just not today.

It turns out:     

They have a pill for that.