The Online Photographer

Chris Skarbon, Chris and Freddy on a walk in Sussex

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We cannot do for people what we do for pets. 

It's a pet owner's responsibility to manage the death of their beloved companion. It falls to us to balance our desire to have them stick around as long as possible, against their interest in slipping this mortal coil with a minimum of distress and pain. It creates a classic dilemma worthy of Greek tragedy: they might be who we least want to lose, yet we must decide when they die. 

Butters died on June 6th. You might not agree that "a dog is a man's best friend," but Butters was mine. The evergreen aphorism, by the way, is credited to King Frederick II of Prussia, who, before his death in 1786, said of his Italian greyhound, Biche: "The only, absolute and best friend a man has, in this selfish world, the only one that will not betray or deny him, is his dog."

I had—am having—a hard time with it. I was so attached. As one friend said, "you are releasing him from suffering at the cost of your own." 

The beginning of my connection was rooted in duty. Butters came to me with his name. He was a runaway whose family couldn't pay the fee to retrieve him from the shelter. He spent many months of his puppyhood there, in a chainlink pen with a concrete floor, surrounded by dogs but not interacting with them, getting insufficient human attention and only one hour of outside time in every 24. He came to us with a welter of deficits, neuroses, bad behaviors, and needs, and we had to work so hard together for so long to help him overcome them. He had separation anxiety, couldn't be crated, and was poorly socialized. It came close to defeating me. And yet it created a deep bond. He flourished under the care, attention, and love Xander and I gave him, and ended up, I would say, 95% cured. Given where he started, that was close to miraculous. To get him over his leash reactivity, to name just one of many issues, I walked with him two miles every morning and two miles every evening for eight months, following the suggestions on that linked page. At first we had to avoid every distraction. But by the end of the eight months he had graduated to being able to pass a leashed dog coming the other way. It felt like a victory to me the first time he managed it. As we passed, he kept going and kept his eyes ahead but vocalized suppressed whimpers. The turmoil was still in there, but he was striving mightily to keep himself together. Good boy!

All his life I really enjoyed caring for him. He understood me and I understood him. We worked out everything between us. However, it was usually a negotiation, and some of the negotiations could take a while! :-) Our biggest struggle was in how to come inside after a session of fetch. As each session neared its end he would become more and more reluctant to relinquish the ball, and resist giving it up to come inside. After much stubbornness on both sides, we worked out a method: I let him take the ball inside himself, and then he gave up the fight and turned it over.

We went through a whole eight-week obedience course not once but twice with Leann Boucha, the dog trainer who helped us adopt him. At one point I told her that I had always wanted a dog who was superbly well trained, who would heel without a leash, come at first call, and hold a stay until released. She thought for a moment and said, "Well, Mike...this is not that dog." Made me laugh.

Dogs mature at about age three, and Butters settled down eventually into a bright, gentle, always amenable, kindhearted dog, quirky and interesting, never aggressive, with a mind of his own but great enthusiasm for his owners. He was a lab mix with some pit bull in him—I always meant to have his DNA analyzed, but never did—with smallish ears but an enormous tail. It seldom stopped wagging, its speed showing the relative state of his happiness. You could speed it up by showing him a little attention, and when it really got going it was like an ear-to-ear smile. We called it "the nuclear tail"—small children were in danger of getting smacked if he was particularly happy, and he once wagged it so hard he broke a blood vessel at the end of it, flinging drops of blood to both sides. He and Lulu slept together on the porch (Lulu died in 2021 at age 16) and he preferred to sleep there long after she died, but otherwise he was with me. He liked having me around and I felt the same way. I've almost never played pool without him in the shed. We parallel-played—pool on the table, fetch out the doorway—winter or summer. Even at night, with a glow-in-the-dark ball that I recharged with a bright LED flashlight. One of the saddest things about his final illness was that his eternally waving or wagging tail was stilled for the first time since I'd known him. I saw it wag, faintly, only once more, a few weeks before his death. 

Last week was a trying, challenging, anguishing week. I originally scheduled his euthanasia for Tuesday, but, after a day of unforeseen distress I found I could not go through with it. I was really struggling. We converted that appointment to a quality-of-life discussion, ending the session by making the same kind of appointment for Friday. He declined noticeably in the interim, as he had been doing for some while now—he'd been sick since last Thanksgiving (he had a brain tumor). I could barely leave him. It was actually just me who needed those three days. I needed time to accept what had to be done. To choose to end something that is so precious and can never be replaced is so brutally final, so forever. I couldn't face it. I ended up feeling I picked the jumping-off point about as well as I could have. Although that did not make the goodbye any easier.

I'm unsure if I have ever known any creature on this Earth better than I knew Butters. As soon as that thought occurred to me, I wondered if I was being unfair to any humans, especially my son. But human children, as close as we are to them, individuate as teenagers. And that's normal and to be desired. A dog never says, "I'm sick of you telling me what to do. I want to live my own life. I'm getting an apartment!"

(Xander never said that, t0 be fair. He "launched" himself into independent adulthood very well, without issues.)

Pets are, or can be, so specific, too. A dog is not a dog is not a dog, a cat is not a cat is not a cat. Another friend said: "I never got another cat after Penny died, because whenever I considered it, I realized I didn't want a different cat, I wanted Penny! Only cat I've felt that way about." Penny had been gone for 30 years when he said that. I know what he means. I don't want a dog; I want Butters.

Peter's wisdom talk
Four years ago, before Lulu died, a veterinarian friend named Peter took a generous amount of time schooling me about end-of-life issues with animals, for which I am forever grateful. He told me something I hadn't thought of: that I needed to consciously, actively prepare myself to forgive myself. There is no such thing, he said, as a perfect end-of-life decision. Whatever you do can be second-guessed in some way if you're predisposed to do so. It's that Greek tragedy thing. So do the best you can, remind yourself after the fact that you were fulfilling your responsibility to your friend, doing your duty to ease him on his way, and then be gentle with yourself afterward. We can't protect them entirely. I guess Peter had seen a lot of pet owners accept a semi-permanent sense of needless self-blame, and that was also distressing for him as a vet.

As Butters' sickness progressed he responded more and more to love and affection, and needed it more. It relaxed and consoled him and gave him comfort. Every day, several times a day, I would invite him up on the couch, and kneel down, and let him bury his face in the crook of my arm, and I'd stroke him gently and talk to him in a quiet voice. Then he could settle down, stop his endless pacing and crash into a near-comatose sleep that looked half like death already.

A pet is a distinctive kind of friend for many reasons. One is that their affections have a forthright, unmediated character—even though they might still be transactional! And, they live with us at home, day in, day out. I love a select small cadre of precious humans, but they don't live with me and are not a daily presence in my life. They are loved, some of them deeply, but they don't keep me company. Companions might be the beings we miss the most, whether human or animal, on account of that quotidian intimacy. Grief does not observe protocols, and is not subject to the hierarchies that seem correct to us. It was always a joy to come home to Butters. I've never lived here without him before. The house is empty. The Universe seems empty, if that's not too dramatic to say. Talking to friends on the phone has helped. It makes my grief vanish, if only temporarily. When I disconnect from the call and find myself alone in the empty house, the grief settles in again, like a fog returning. 

Empty house
I was up at 4:30 this morning, just like buddy Butters boy was still here and alerting me with a bark that he needed to get outside. I can't just go right back to a normal sleep schedule. To be honest, I'm considering adopting a permanent two-part sleep schedule: midnight to 5 a.m., give or take half an hour, and then maybe 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.—writing in between. I struggled with EMAs (early morning awakenings) and insomnia long before Butters got sick at the end of last November. Do you think that would, or do you think it wouldn't, work? It's tempting to try.

I kept no mementos of his death. They want to give you ashes, his collar, a cast of his pawprint—but why? So I can be sad every time I come across them? I have tons of pictures and videos—he was a handsome dog, although not a willing model. I'll get rid of the dog stuff that's all over the house. But I'm going to take my three favorite pictures of him and get them printed and framed, and hang them in the bedroom, where I currently have nothing on the walls. I'll probably do the same for Lulu. 

Title of random Bill Frisell album: Good Dog, Happy Man. There was only one Butters. I loved him dearly. I'm deeply grateful he was here. I might miss him for the rest of my life.

Mike
(Thanks to Chris Skarbon)

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Featured Comments from:

Note: These really are just a sampling. I appreciated reading every comment I got on this post, and each one helps. And I appreciated hearing about so many other loved and valued pets. Sincere thanks to everyone, including those who contacted me privately or asked that their comments not be shared.  —Mike

Bob Rosinsky: "The canine love of my life, Jazz, passed in 2016. I think of her often and when I do, it always brightens my mood."

Mike replies: You know, I am going to work on getting there. Butters brought me a lot of joy. I think I can get to a place where I mainly remember that if I work on it. Thanks for that Bob.

Dennis Mook: "What a wonderful tribute to Butters and a good way to start your process of healing. I had the privilege to spend a few hours with Butters when my wife and I visited you. I witnessed, first hand, the 'fetch protocol.' I could see in that short time that he was a wonderful companion and full member of your family. I think I know how you feel as my little buddy of 16 years, Max, fell terribly ill and the same process of decision-making took place. Even though we know what the inevitable must be, it doesn’t make it any easier. I’m sorry for your loss."

Tom Passin: "Oh, Mike, my deepest condolences for Butters. It's been six months since I had to help my Jasper along. By now I can think of him with a smile and talk about him with others. But reading your post still brought out tears with memories of the day and the loss. I think it helps to set a direction for the long term. For example, 'I will be able to care for and love another dog'; or 'I will be able to remember my time with Butters with love and fondness.' Anything, really, that speaks to you. That's the important part. It will act like a light that will call you to keep moving forward."

Brian Cormack: "After reading this I had to get up and go give my aging pup (a 12-year-old Sheltie/Collie mix) a good hug. This must have been so hard to write, and I'm really sorry for your loss."

Mike replies: It was actually therapeutic to write, I think. It helped me work through some things. And I do treasure the memories. 

Benjamin Marks: "All we can do, Mike, is gather 'round, as you see so many you have touched do here. I don't think grief is an emotion like sadness. It is the heart's sense that the universe is 'wrong' without the beloved's presence in it. You were fortunate to have Butters in your life, but it was a 'make your own luck' kind of luck, not a 'something nice happened to me' type. You gave Butters your heart and he gave you his. There is no greater prize, you lucky, lucky man. I wish you peace and the comfort of honest tears."

Andrew Lamb: "I am so very sorry for your loss, Mike. I can't think of anything wise or consoling to say. They break your heart. It's a loss you never get over, even if you own another dog who is also special in their own way. Deepest condolences."

Caleb Courteau: "My deepest condolences, Mike. This is a beautifully written tribute to a dear friend. My wife and I lost our cat, Vita, last year. We also had to go through the agonizing process of choosing the 'right' moment to put her down. She was a quirky cat, but deeply loving. She was intimidated by people standing or walking, and would skitter away like a cockroach when you approached her. However, once you were seated she would promptly hop on your lap and mash her face against yours, emitting deep purrs. I watched her take her last breath as the euthanasia took hold, and stroked her head as she faded out. I haven’t cried that much in years."

David Dyer-Bennet: "It sounds like Butters was hugely lucky to have found you. And you to have found him, for that matter. I've gotten a lot of pleasure out of your photos and anecdotes about him over the years."