The last good bye

Eleanor's time with us is really short now. I'm actually waiting on a call back from the vet to discuss the when and how of it all, but Lance and I finally sucked it up enough last night to talk about it. We both knew her time was coming if not already here but neither of us wanted to bring it up and actually say it out loud to the other.

I was at my hair lady's yesterday and was talking to her about Eleanor, she is a dog-lover and so is very understanding of it all. She was there for me when I had to say good bye to Franklin and knew how hard that was on me. As I was talking about Eleanor out-loud, I realized that Lance and I are being selfish right now and we need to consider Eleanor more than ourselves.

Eleanor spends her days and nights laying down, she can't get up to play or to snuggle and if she tries to, you can see how very hard it is on her. Her back left leg can't bear any weight on it so she holds it up and curls it as if it is broken, but it isn't. Because she has not used that leg in a couple weeks now, it has lost all the muscle and weight in it and looks sunken in and bad. When we take her outside for potty, we have to sling a towel under her belly and lift/carry her down the stairs and into the yard. When she sees me getting the towel, you can almost read the relief cross her face. And when I slip the towel under her belly, I can feel her give me all her back weight to carry for her.

So, I sent the word out to her friends, asking them to come give her one last hello. Eleanor has her favorite people that she's known since puppyhood and when she hears us say their name or that they're coming over, she gets all wiggly and smiley because they are her friends too. I know she'll try and put on a brave front for them, because that's what dogs do, but I also know she'll really love the opportunity to see all of them one last time. I'm pretty sure she'll know why there here too, she is just that smart and perceptive…

It's going to be a rough weekend. But it is going to be full of cheeseburgers and peanut butter.

Old and tired

Eleanor is old and tired. This morning it was the most obvious it has been in a long time. We've known that she is suffering from arthritis and getting around is not easy for her so we have been giving her pain medicine to help manage whatever pain she may be feeling. But when I came downstairs this morning and saw her laying at the foot of the stairs, I asked Lance why she was there - she's never there. She's usually out on the back porch having some breakfast after having gone outside for first potty. He said she didn't want to go out, so he gave her the pills hoping they'd kick in quickly and she'd be ready to head outside. I sat on the floor with her, petting her and cooing to her, sympathizing with her sore legs. She knew what I was saying, she was happy to have the sympathy.

We got Eleanor as a puppy, 8 weeks old. I'll never forget going to pick her out. We were first time dog owners and didn't know what to do. All we knew was we wanted a dog. So we found an online site that asked a gazillion questions about our personalities, our activity level, our likes and dislikes when it comes to dogs and the website came back with our perfect match: English Mastiff. Neither of us had any experience with mastiffs, I had always had dogs as a kid but they were always pound dogs who had a minimum of 4 breeds all mixed up in there. So, we started looking through the newspaper and found an ad for puppies. The father was an English Mastiff and the mother was a Rottweiler. We thought how perfect! We'd get a mastiff with a little bit of Rott in it for good measure. We didn't know anything about Rotts, other than they are very pretty and usually quite smart.

Going to "browse" the puppies was so much fun. There were I think 10 in the litter; 5 little Mastiff puppies and 5 little Rottweiler puppies. Because of the way the bloodlines and the breeds work, the little pups came out either one or the other. There was no mutt-look to any of them, they were very distinctly one breed or the other. But they were all full of puppy excitement and joy. Lance and I found one we couldn't live without and put a deposit down on her. A week later, she was old enough to be picked up and brought home.

Our friend, Larry came over to meet her and he was the one to actually name her. We knew we didn't want to name her Fido or Spot but couldn't really come up with anything. Larry had a dog as a kid named Eleanor, and she was apparently the best dog ever. So, we named our dog Eleanor :) Eleanor quickly became our first child. We took her to work to show her off, we enrolled her in school, we took her for walks. She was a very spoiled and loved dog, she still is. She is also quite possibly, the smartest dog I've ever known. She learned all her words, and learned them quickly. You can sit and have a conversation with her and see in her eyes, she understands. She understands everything you are saying.

I know the decision is looming, today was just a reminder that she won't be with us forever. I know that when she is just too tired and too old, she will let us know. She's not there yet, but I know that day isn't too far off and that's just sad. I've always maintained that Eleanor is Lance's dog, but she is my dog too. She's a good girl and has been a great dog for us for many years. She may not be snuggly with kids or even approachable by strangers, but she is Eleanor and she is our dog.

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