I called my dad the night it happened because I knew Dolly was his dog through and through. I asked him how everyone was doing. “We’re ok.” I could hear he wasn’t.
“How did…how was… is she….” I couldn’t finish the sentence, but he knew.
“It was pretty quick. The vet came in and gave her a sedative IV to help calm her. She said it would take 15 minutes for her nerves to calm down and the pain to settle. She said she would give us time and come back. We were all there.” I pictured him and my mother and brother standing around a metal table in the middle of a probably white room where Dolly lay, machines and things all around her. “She came back and gave her the shot. Dolly couldn’t feel anything. I was up front by her face just petting her.” I imagine my father, whose love for our dog surpassed the normal master-pet relationship, squatting down at the front corner of the table so he could be face to face with her. Probably stroking her ears like he always did, whispering to her it’s going to be all right Dolly, I love you, you’ll be ok… and even kissing her on the top of the nose a few times to reassure her. That’s when my eyes started to fill. “Her tongue flopped out a little and her eyes got glassy but her face never changed. The vet got her stethoscope and said she didn’t hear anything. She was gone. It was pretty fast and Dolly seemed to be ok through it. There wasn’t any pain.” I tried really hard not to cry during that conversation, afraid that if I did, I might hear it in my father’s voice, but I when I hung up the phone and the actuality had set in, I simply sat down on the couch with my head in my hands and cried.
Thursday night one of my most faithful and loving best friends died. Dolly Madison was the epitome of man’s best friend. Mostly because she was my father’s puppy for her entire life, but every time I came home from college over the past few years, she would greet me with a little bobble of her head as if to say, “Caitlin, I didn’t think you were ever coming home, but I’m here! I missed you. Pet me!” I’ve been watching her age with hardship as I’ve returned home for holidays and such, but only this past six months has she gotten worse. Dolly’s always had horrible allergies so she was never the bright white of a Dalmatian that she should’ve been, and a couple of years ago she developed a lump on her neck. The vet said it was only a goiter, no cancer. However, about a year ago she started fainting, but more than likely, she was probably seizing. And her soft black ears were turning gray.
Dolly had fluid around her heart and when she would overexert herself, and in these last few month, sometimes that just meant walking up stairs or standing up from her bed, somehow her heart or lungs or something pushed on her sternum bone causing her to pass out. But my mom thinks she was actually having seizures and after seeing one episode, I agree. One day Dolly’s back legs gave out and she flopped over, her legs pushing straight out and her head arching back, her whole body becoming very stiff for a few seconds. Then she woke up, looked at Dad as if to say what happened? and lay there for a good twenty minutes.
My family had to take Dolly to the vet Thursday night because for some reason, she just wouldn’t get up anymore. She couldn’t walk and though we always hoped Dolly would just pass away from old age, she was in pain and they couldn’t let her suffer anymore. I tried not picturing her laying there on her bed, but ironically enough, I just watched Marley and Me Monday night, wondering if and when it was going to ever happen with Dolly.
That when and if came too soon.
I remember the day we brought her home I was eight and excited beyond belief at getting our first puppy. Even if I was going to have to take care of her and clean up poop. I placed a soft towel on the floor of my side of the back seat because I wanted our new blue-eyed puppy to be my friend. I wanted her to be my puppy. She rode home curled up there the entire way.
My father, in time, somehow commandeered her from me. They had a special bond and after those first few weeks with her, I knew she was going to be his forever. I spent all of her life slipping her food from my plate trying to win her over and just in the past few years when I’d be home to eat, she’d always come and mooch by me. Waiting. She knew I’d give her something, anything, even if it was a lick of my fingers. I got in trouble a lot for that, scolded by my mother, but winning Dolly, even for a moment, made it worth it. Besides, she was a sell out. She only loved my father because he’d let her sit on his lap in the couch, or the chair, when my mom wasn’t home. She wasn’t that big of a Dalmatian, but she wasn’t a lap dog either.
The last time I was home I took her on a walk because somehow, I felt it might be the last time I would ever see her and I wanted her to feel the sunshine. It wasn’t a long walk, she couldn’t go far with her enlarged heart and weak joints, but I know she enjoyed it. Dolly remembered our route like she always did, turning before I even reached the corners. And when we got home, she waited by her water bowl for a large drink, a gesture I learned over the years that meant she was happy and had enjoyed the exercise. When she wasn’t, she never drank.
When I left, I kissed her head, letting her growl at me as she did in her old grouchy stage, and told her I loved her.
Mom put the phone by Dolly’s ear Thursday afternoon when I called after getting her voicemail. “I love you Dolly. You’re my greatest friend. I’m sorry I teased you a lot and made you mad sometimes, and never took you on enough walks. It’s going to be ok, you can run all the time now. I’ll see you again. I love you.” I was eight again that afternoon. Not twenty-two. My running helps me endure through life, but it doesn’t prepare me for when life is over. Nothing ever really does except the experience of it. And it is in those moments when you realize the importance of life, of love, even if this time it is just from a simple dog. But they are faithful, and loving, and forgiving, and always there for you they way people can’t be but should be. Dolly was my friend for 10 days shy of fourteen years, and now that she’s gone I realize what it means to be a companion and a friend. One of my clearest and cherished memories is of when Dolly was a puppy. I had lay down beside her on my parent’s blue bedroom carpet and we curled up together in the tiny area between the wall and bed. My head was kind of propped up on her neck and shoulders, my hand wrapped up in her soft, black ear. I don’t know how long we slept but it was that she let me wrap myself up in her, let me get close, and stayed there with me. As if she knew me, a small child, needed a moment away. She never forgot me through these last few years. When I’d come home she was right there, close, wanting my hand to be wrapped up in her ears again. As if saying, “Caitlin, I’m still here. I love you. Pet me.” 
And that’s what’s so wonderful about dogs. No matter how much you tease them or yell at them or how much you’re away, they never stop loving you. And I know that in the moment right before her heart let go of life, her heart never let go of us. Even if she knew what was coming, she still thought I love you guys. Just pet me.
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