Today is the one-year anniversary of Enzo’s death. To mark the occasion, we met Bob, his dog walker / favorite person in the whole world at Eagle Park in Mountain View to scatter some of his ashes. After walking around a bit, we decided on a large tree in Enzo’s favorite corner of the park, and scattered a few handfuls of ashes at its roots.
Even after getting Little Bear, not a day goes by that I don’t think about that dumb dog; I’m just glad I got to be a part of his life.
We miss you, Enzo.
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Everybody has heard of the 5 stages of grief, right? Sadness, denial, anger, bargaining, and acceptance. Well I seem to be experiencing the 5 stages of guilt. In some ways, I think end of life care is more difficult for animals than it is with humans, because they can’t communicate with you their feelings and wants, so the best you can do is guess. Did I do too little? Did I do too much? Was he sad when I left him alone at work? Did I make him sicker by feeding him chicken and rice sometimes instead of his special prescription dog food? Why did I cut his walks short to leave for work 10 minutes earlier? Was he scared when I brought him to the vet that last time?
I just keep replaying in my mind that last moment when I felt his head go limp in my hands, and wonder if the outcome would have been different if he had a choice. I can’t imagine what it is like not knowing that you are about to die, but being in a room full of people who do.
I guess I had always thought that when the time came for us to put Enzo down, he would be much much sicker, and that there would be no room for this tiny lingering doubt in my mind; no second guessing. My head knows that we made the right decision, (I think had we not taken him to the vet that morning, he likely would have been that sick within a day or two) but my heart aches every time I think about it.
I miss him.
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We put Enzo down this morning. We noticed that his belly was swollen, and he didn’t want to eat anything, which if you know Enzo, is pretty bad. So we took him to the vet, and she said that his kidneys were shutting down, so his belly, eyes, and lungs were collecting fluid, and that it was time for him. She left us for a few minutes while we said our goodbyes, then they came back with the injection.
I held his head as they put it in, and within seconds, his head dropped, and he was gone.
He was the worst, best dog I’ve ever known, and I know that wherever he is, he’s still causing lots of trouble.
Enzo, we love you.
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What do the following things have in common?
If you answered “Things Enzo has eaten”, you win! The last item came in the form of a gastronomical adventure on last night’s walk. For a few weeks, there has been a dead rat on the sidewalk in front of one of the houses in my neighborhood. Last night I noticed that it was gone, so I assumed this means that someone cleaned it up. When we got closer, Enzo started nosing around in the gutter, and I naively assumed this meant he had to ‘do his business’, but I was appalled to see him end up with something black in his mouth. Black and fuzzy. I tried to get him to drop it, but when food is involved, Enzo is do or die, so he eventually swallowed it.
I called up the emergency vet, and decided to bring him in so they could induce vomiting. As an aside, late-night emergency vet visits sure do bring out the freaks. Among others, I was waiting with a street kid wearing a raccoon tail and carrying a hatchet, and a profanity-spewing mascara-streaked woman with no shoes. Anyway, no rat came out of Enzo, so I think this probably means it’s still inside him. But the vet thought there was probably no danger, so two hours and $161 later, we were back home.
Stupid dog.
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(-2 days)
Had another nice weekend. Saturday I took Stinky McEnzo to the self-service doggy bath, and he came out moderately less stinky, and about twice as fluffy. Later in the day I went to the mall with Yar, Jan, and Rahul (how very high school of us), where we all had a very productive shopping day. Afterwards, we watched The Host, which I thought was awesome. Yar and I both appreciated the rapid switches in tone. In one minute, it is pure slapstick comedy, and in the next, it is telling the story of a man trying to make up for being a failure of a father. But mostly it’s just great Asian cinema weirdness, which I highly enjoyed.
Sunday we took a hike at Mount Tamalpais, which was really beautiful. The day was so clear that we could actually see the Inner Sunset from the mountain, which was pretty cool. Afterwards was Japanese food and chocolate cake in Berkeley, which was yummy.
In a completely unrelated note, I’ve been getting a lot of Spanish language songs on my iPod when I play it on shuffle. I guess that’s what I get for always downloading the “Canción de la Semana” on iTunes…
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Good Thing: Enzo is smart enough to wake me up if he has to go outside during the night.
Bad Thing: The reason he had to go outside was that he had explosive diarrhea. 5 times.
At least I have a backyard…
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Sorry for the lack of update-itude, friends. I’m currently back in good ol’ Albuquerque, but I’m leaving tomorrow for NYC to visit the rest of the family there. The past couple of weeks have been busy with work, but I did manage to squeeze in the EA holiday party, picking up a cute 4 1/2-foot Christmas tree for the apartment, a visit from Enzo’s old dog walker (where he was so excited he peed, and by “he” I mean Enzo, not the dog walker), a Christmas cookie-making party, dinner at Chez Panisse, a hair cut, and finally ending up here, roughly in that order. While in Albuquerque, I somehow achieved my goal of seeing everyone I’d promised to see, so I’m proud of that.
I’d like to make a New Year’s resolution to update my site more frequently, but since I have a work deadline in a month or so, I’m not hopeful. But until I disappear into the abyss that is work, Happy Holidays to everyone! I hope everyone’s break has been full of fun, food, family, and all other manner of awesomeness.
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I’m getting tired of having the doom-and-gloom last post at the top of this page, so here’s an update on the happy things happening in Sha’s life. Last Saturday, Amanda, Erik, Buddy and I went to the annual Ozomatli concert at The Fillmore. It was awesome, as usual, and I had a lot of fun.
In other happy haps, I finally broke down and bought an Xbox 360. Overstock.com and PayPal were having a special deal where, if you paid for your purchase with PayPal, you would get 20% back, up to $50. So the premium console ended up being just about $300, which is a pretty good deal. Astute readers who pay attention to the bar over to the left will notice that I’ve been playing Dead Rising and Stuntman: Ignition. I’ve really only been playing Stuntman recently because Dead Rising is really, really hard and frustrating. But I’ve been having a lot of fun with Stuntman.
Finally, Happy Birthday, Peter! I’m a jerk and spaced out and forgot to wish him a Happy Birthday on his real birthday, which was on the 5th. We took him to dinner yesterday at Darda in Milpitas which was yummy. Mmm…sesame bread…. Afterwards, we headed over to his place for some awesome Rock Band action, which is always a good time.
Today we’re going to get a lil’ Christmas tree from the lot on 7th ave, which is super exciting. I just hope Enzo doesn’t decide it makes a convenient indoor potty.
Speaking of Enzo, thank you to everyone for your well-wishes. Despite all his health problems, he’s actually doing really well, and doesn’t yet seem to have realized that he’s sick. So he’s still truckin’ along, sleeping, eating, and peeing as normal. All the things he does best. 
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It’s been a rainy couple of days around here, which is fun, in theory, but less fun when you have a dog to walk thrice daily. Fortunately, I got Enzo a swank coat that I bought from someone at work. (Oh, come on, like you’re surprised I put clothing on Enzo.) Anyway, it’s been a pretty good couple of weeks. Last week I went to see The Shins, which was a lot of fun. That weekend I took Enzo down to Mountain View to his old groomer (see results in this picture), and Buddy, Babs and I climbed for a bit at Planet Granite Sunnyvale.
It’s reunion weekend for the class of ’02 (omgwe’reold), and I’m attending a couple (i.e. the cheapest) events. Last night I went to my freshman dorm’s Mini-Reunion at Blue Chalk in Palo Alto, and it was actually really fun. There were several other dorms/organizations doing mini-reunions that night, so I saw a lot of people from other dorms, too. Hung out with some old friends, and ran into some people I wasn’t expecting to see. I also discovered that I had a website lurker (yes, I’m talking to you), which is always fun. Tonight is the larger class party, which features, I’m told, an open bar and free hot dogs. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go work out how many hot dogs I have to eat in order to make my $35 worthwhile.
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