Can change throughout her life. Maybe it’s your husband, or your mom or sister. Maybe you have a girl best friend that you grew up with or met in college, or maybe it’s a guy. And if you’re lucky enough (or crazy enough), maybe you have the gift of also having a canine for your best friend. My doggie best friend is a gal named Sam – also known as Sammy Sam Sam (best said in a baby voice like “thammy, tham, tham”), or Sam-a-lama-ding-dong, the Saminator, and of course, Samonila.
Recently, my best girl friend Carey, told me some sad news about her female German Shepherd, Cydney (Cyd and Sam are also best friends). Cydney has a condition called Degenerative Myelopathy (DM). It primarily affects the GS breed and is very similar to Multiple Sclerosis in humans – although typically affecting the back legs only. After Carey sent me information on the symptoms, I realized that my Sammy has it too – only to a lesser extent than Cydney. In the morning, when Sam first gets up, she walks like a newborn colt on her back legs. They seem unstable, almost like they aren’t doing what her brain is telling them to do. When lying down, her legs get crossed and she has a difficult (if not impossible) time getting them uncrossed to stand. She uses her front legs to do most of the work going up stairs and to help her get to a standing position from lying down. It’s hard to watch and I can’t help but think about the inevitable. But that is the difficult part about loving a dog - defining that inevitability. With humans, we have personal choices or living wills. We can stay hooked up to a machine for years if we or a loved one wants us to. For pets, this is much less acceptable. So we are forced to decide when their “quality of life” is no longer sufficient to keep them alive. And it is the choices that we make during this remaining time with our aging or ailing friends that separates many pet owners.
Carey is at one end of the spectrum. Since she and her husband can’t afford the visits to the doggie neurologist, water therapy, specific diet and supplements required to keep her healthy for as long as possible, she has started making and selling jewelry. She sells the jewelry to coworkers (she’s an occupational therapist), to her friends, and has even created a web site devoted to selling jewelry for Cyd’s enhanced quality of life. Carey bought Cyd an above ground swimming pool (and her two girls love it too), so she could give her daily water therapy. She decided that if and when Cydney’s back legs go, she will get her a doggie wheelchair and together, she and I will pimp it out to the fullest. And for this, I truly love my friend. I forget who I was telling this story to, but the response was, “I just don’t get why people spend so much time, money and energy on prolonging a pet’s life for such a short amount of time, and plus the dog can’t be happy in a wheelchair.” This is a different part of the spectrum. And this is where I disagree. Dogs know no self-pity. They do not feel embarrassed in a wheelchair, or missing a leg or two legs, they just adapt and move forward. They are the definition of resilience. Also, if you consider the length of a large dog’s life – 14 years if you’re lucky – adding 6 months through preventative diet and exercise, extends their life by 3.5%. That’s about 3 years to us humans (based on U.S. average of 82 years). I can’t remember if the respondent was a personal pet owner or a family pet owner. But I think there is sometimes a difference.
You see, Sam is my dog. I got her when she was 8 weeks old, and she’s 12 ½ - still sassy by GS standards. I raised her all by myself. I calmed her puppy yelps and house-trained her in 21 days, just like the book said I would. I rode my bike to class, rode home and let her out, rode back to class, rode home again and let her out, and then rode to work. I missed weekend trips with my friends, because I had a pup to take care of. She was my first commitment, my first baby. Sam has been with me through 2 breakups, 5 roommates (not including Kevin and Gabe), a thesis dissertation (not a pretty time), a marriage, and the birth of our child. She brought me and Carey together as best friends – through our love of German Shepherds. She rode across country with me - head out the window (hers not mine), marked her territory in 11 states, and ate and threw up wheat in Kansas. She started a new home with me and Kevin on the opposite side of the country from the only home we had ever known. She’s known me longer than my husband. She loves me like no other. She is mine and I am hers. And at this very moment, she is my own personal foot warmer.
I am not saying that I love my dog more than you family pet owners love your pets. I am just saying that Sam and I have shared things, personal parts of my life that no one else has. She has been present and helped define chapters of my life. And that makes our bond strong and my commitment level high.
And for the reasons listed above, and more, I will do whatever it takes – long, slow walks, special garlic, ginger, and veggie enhanced diets, extra trips to the vet, swim therapy, get a second job - and spend whatever it takes to keep my doggie best friend alive and well, for as long as possible.
So let's go on a walk Sam. What's that, girl? You want to go to Starbucks? Oh, all right. If you insist.
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