Duke

I’ve been putting off writing this post for almost two months.  If you’ve been visiting for a while, I’m sure you know where this is going.  We had to say goodbye to Duke on December 21, 2022. 

I really thought we’d get one last Christmas with him, but when he started to decline, it was so fast.

Duke had his surgery for Cushing’s Disease in January last year.  They were able to get most of the tumor, but it was malignant, and we knew there was a chance it would grow faster than expected.  Duke recovered well from the surgery.  He had a great spring and summer.  He played in the yard, ate a lot more rabbits than anyone would have liked, was the center of attention on quite a few game nights, and shoplifted at the dog wash (don’t worry, we always paid for whatever he helped himself to).  His mobility wasn’t perfect, but it was good.  He struggled to get up from some floors but was fine once we helped him up.  And we lost an egg and cheese bagel to the assumption that he couldn’t get to it.

Then his mobility got a little worse.  He needed help up from every kind of flooring.  Then he started occasionally needing help up in the yard. Then he started losing weight.  The weight loss wasn’t a concern at first.  Dr. M had lectured us on Duke’s weight for years.  But the weight loss continued, even when we tried things to put weight back on him.  He developed some cardiac concerns.  His heartbeat would race for no apparent reason.  In consultation with Dr. M, we made the decision not to pursue cardiac treatment from the specialist.  We knew he had part of a malignant tumor left, and we knew we weren’t putting him through another surgery.  So we shifted our focus to keeping him happy and comfortable. 

In the meantime, he developed a sort of abscess on one of his hips.  Dr. M was treating it with antibiotics and even tried closing it up, but it reopened.  Duke didn’t seem terribly bothered by it, so we continued antibiotics and hoped for the best.  And Duke stayed his happy, friendly self.

At Thanksgiving, he needed help up and out of the bedroom, but once he was out in the living room, he was delighted to see everyone and went around the room to visit with everyone and see what they might be willing to feed him.  He got a lot of attention and petting.  Duke had a great Thanksgiving.

After Thanksgiving, his decline really picked up.  He lost too much weight to be able to wear his harness.  The abscess got worse.  He started struggling to stay up once we helped him stand up and was beginning to fall down more often than not.  We made an appointment for him to see Dr. M on Monday, December 19^th. 

That weekend, Nick wasn’t feeling well at all.  He was tired and had a lot of muscle aches.  The weekend before, he and some of our neighbors had saved another neighbor’s chickens from some dogs that were loose, and Nick ended up carrying a very large dog around for a while.  We attributed the back pain to that and lifting Duke.  Duke’s appointment with Dr. M wasn’t until late Monday afternoon, so I went to work Monday morning for a mandatory meeting.  Nick stayed home sick and decided to get a flu test.  They also tested for COVID, and Nick was positive.  My job sent me home.  And we canceled Duke’s appointment with Dr. M. 

Duke was having a relatively good day that day, so I thought we might be able to get through Christmas.  In the meantime, I went and got tested for COVID.  I was negative.

By Tuesday night, we knew that Duke’s rally was over and that it was time.  We also knew that Nick couldn’t go.  Dr. M is over an hour away.  Dr. D, the vet we take the cats to, is about ten minutes away.  My sister called and talked to Dr. D’s office Wednesday morning and explained everything, including Nick’s COVID and my negative tests.  She also called Dr. M’s office, and they agreed that taking Duke to Dr. D was a good choice.  He had been there before for a few things and knew and liked everyone there. 

I had called our neighbor, Lori, as soon as Nick tested positive for COVID since we had been around them a few days before.  They really are the best neighbors.  The kids insisted on dropping off cookies in the carport as soon as they found out, and Lori had been calling to check on us every day.  When I told her I was taking Duke in that afternoon, she said she’d go with me, so I didn’t have to go alone.  I found out later that their 15-year-old had offered to go with us in case we needed help lifting Duke. 

I am so grateful for so many reasons that Lori went with me, but the biggest one is that she saw the difference in Duke and said we were making the right choice.  If you’ve ever made the choice, you know how impossibly hard it is.  To me, there’s always the thought in the back of my mind that I’m giving up too soon.  Lori was shocked at how much Duke had declined since they were over for Thanksgiving and said he didn’t even seem like the same dog.

One of the vet nurses at Dr. D.’s office is in vet school and works there doing breaks.  She’s one of our favorites and was there the day we took Duke.  I was glad to see her, and she also helped when she said Duke had declined so much since she had seen him during the summer.

They carried Duke in on a little stretcher and laid him down on a nice little nest of blankets on the floor.  Lori and I sat with him, and we all petted him and fed him treats and even a little bit of cat food.  Everyone told him what a wonderful dog he was and how much everyone loved him.  He wagged his tail, licked my hand, and drifted off to sleep. 

We had Duke for eight years, and he was our boy from the moment we walked out of the shelter with him as a foster dog.  You couldn’t help but instantly love him.  He went through so much with the heartworms, kennel cough, and leg amputation.  I will never understand why he was an owner surrender, but I’m so glad he was.

I don’t think it’s possible to quantify the joy that Duke brought to people.  He made us happy.  Howard adored him.  Dr. M’s office sent a card, and more than one person talked about how seeing Duke walk in could turn around even a terrible day.  Everyone loved him when I brought him to work at my old job.  Strangers loved him.  I will never forget walking him downtown and a man running up to us and hiking up his pant leg to show us his metal leg and asking to take a picture with Duke.  Of course, I said yes.  He wasn’t the first or last person to ask for a picture with Duke, though he was the only one with a prosthetic leg. 

During the worst of the COVID shutdowns, when everything was drive-thru and/or curbside, I took Duke with me for practically everything.  At first, I did it because Duke loved car rides, but then I saw how happy it made people.  Even with masks, it was possible to see someone’s joy when they saw Duke.  There was just something about a dog who was so loveable and didn’t want anything from you that seemed to make a difference when things were so bad.

Duke made people happy.