And Then There Were 3...

Paw print memorial that the vet office made for us

It's been almost a week since we said goodbye to our little Brie.  I find us doing surprisingly well, all things considered.  I think what's made it easier is that for the last year, we'd been waiting for this to happen.  Brie took a fall last summer that resulted in a torn toe-nail…there was blood everywhere, she was panicking, we were panicking…I thought for sure that was the beginning of the end.  But it wasn't.  She went on to live a full year and then some after that incident.  But it was that particular incident that gave me a glimpse into what were up against.  Reality showed up at the doorstep uninvited, and sat down on the couch and just waited.

I don't find myself looking for her as much as I thought I would.  Part of that probably has to do with the fact that she wasn't all that interactive in the past few months.  She basically would move from pet bed to pet bed, napping pretty much all day long and then sleeping through the night.  We would snuggle on the couch in the evenings, and she had her little spot on the bed at night, and that pretty much summed up our daily interactions.  She couldn't go for walks, she couldn't play, and I think she was just worn out.

There are times when her absence catches me unawares.  The other morning I was letting Cooper out of the crate, and he charged out just like he always does.  I found myself pausing at the door of the crate, waiting as I always did for Brie to slowly get up and make her way out.  But she wasn't there.  As I walk through the house, I find myself glancing at the pet beds, as I always did, just trying to keep a mental note as to where she happened to be snoozing.  I see a pile of laundry lying on the floor, and there's no little Brie sleeping on it.  Even if I left something as small as a sock on the floor, she would lie on it.  She just wanted to be snuggled up with things that smelled like me, even if they were tiny.

Her favorite bed with some of her favorite toys.  She always chewed the faces off.

It's weird when a pet dies…it's kind of like when a person dies, but it's different in a lot of ways, as it should be.  Pets are not people, but they are members of the family just the same.  After my grandma died, I got back a blanket that I had made for her.  I used to just sit there and bury my face in the blanket, taking in the smell of her and her house that still remained trapped within the fibers.  I didn't use or wash that blanket for a really long time, as I didn't want that physical reminder of my grandma to disappear.  The blanket has since been washed, and it no longer smells like her.  But every time I use it I think of her, and that still gives me comfort.  With pets it's different.  On the day of Brie's passing, I was in full-on laundry mode, and washed all our bedding, the dogs' bedding, and anything else that she may have come into contact with.  I literally have nothing in the house anymore that smells like her.  Which is ironic, given that I complained about how stinky she was.  But she wasn't always stinky, and not everything she touched got stinky…I just wish I had something that smelled a little bit like her…a slightly doggy smell with a touch of corn chip.  No idea where the corn chip smell came from, but it was there just the same.  I still have her bowl, which I can't yet bring myself to throw away.  I have it in my head that I'll use it as some sort of receptacle for things.  No idea what, but I think I can pretty easily find a use for a big orange bowl.  Maybe it can be a popcorn bowl, one of the treats that we both loved to eat.  Is it weird to eat popcorn out of a dog bowl?  Maybe.  I guess I don't really much care.  A bowl is a bowl, and it's bigger than our other bowls, so I can get more popcorn in it.  The glutton in Brie would have appreciated that.

A lot of people have asked me how Cooper is doing without his constant companion.  I guess I don't really know.  I don't know that dogs show remorse or sadness the way that people do.  He's been avoiding the pet beds, which is something that I've noticed.  Cooper has always been pretty non discriminating in where he takes a rest, but if Brie was on one of the beds and he was ready to chill out for a bit, he'd curl up with her on the bed and they'd have a nice nap together.  So I don't know if he's avoiding the beds because she's not there to snuggle with him, or if he's never really much cared for them in the first place.  When he does lie on them, he keeps himself off to one side, as if leaving room for her to join him.  He's also reverted back to his weird eating habits.  He's always been a little finicky, but I recently changed out the dog food and he couldn't get enough of it.  But, there was always a hierarchy to keep in mind when it came to meal times.  Brie always ate first.  No matter what.  Sometimes Cooper would eat at the same time as her, sometimes he would wait until she was finished, but he never started first.  That's just how it always was.  Now he's back to being picky, skipping meals, leaving pieces of food lying around…he just seems uninterested in eating.  Either that or he's just not sure when he's supposed to eat, given that he always took his cues from her.  He's getting enough to eat, but he's eating about half of what he was prior to Brie's passing.  We've also noticed that he's barking more than he did when she was here.  Along with eating first, Brie was definitely the dominate personality in the house.  If she freaked out, he freaked out.  If she was calm,  he was mostly calm (he's always been a little more high strung than her).  Granted, the reason she didn't react to anything was because she was blind and deaf, but he didn't know that…hahaha!  But now he barks a lot.  He barks at people walking by, and rather than stopping when they're out of sight, he continues to stare in the general direction they were traveling and continues to bark.  He barks in the house for seemingly no reason.  It's as if without her there to assure him that everything is okay, he feels the need to be on high alert all the time.

Other than that though, he seems to be his same happy-go-lucky self.  He's enjoying his daily walks, which is something we hadn't been doing once Brie started to decline.  I felt bad taking him out and leaving her behind, because somehow she always knew when he was going for a walk, even if we tried to be stealthy about it.  The day after she passed, we went for a nice hike in the woods and we brought Cooper along, something we hadn't done in years.  Partially because he doesn't behave when he sees other dogs, but also for the same reason that we quit the daily walks…because Brie couldn't come.  He had a fantastic time running around in the woods…peeing and pooping on everything, running ahead of us and waiting for us to catch up, sniffing to see who had been there before us.  It was really fun to be out in the woods with a dog again.  Of course, since the daily walks had been so few and far between, he was very out of shape and ended up having to be carried for over half the walk, but he still enjoyed himself and it was a nice activity for the three of us to do together in light of all the sadness from the previous evening.

So I guess that's that.  Kinda sad that in the space of less than two years our little family of five has decreased to a family of three.  I guess that's just how it goes.  It's hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that I've had dogs for over 13 years…that's a long time!  And they've been here for some very significant parts of my life.  Despite all the sadness when they go, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Our new family of three. Cooper is, unfortunately, not as photogenic as Brie was.