My Old Dog Is Dying

By Regina Winkle-Bryan

I have an old dog who is dying. She has cancer, the kind you can’t cure. We brought her with us from Spain when we came back to the United States five years ago. She has her own passport and everything.

I remember telling people we were moving to the United States, and the question that would sometimes bubble up, “What will you do with your dog?”

I never thought about leaving my dog behind. She had been with us for nine years at that point, and she was and is part of the familia.

She looks like a wolf. Or a coyote. One eye is blue, the other brown. She is beautiful even in her twilight years, even with cancer.

My dog was a force of nature.

I used to get on my bicycle and say, “Mush!” She would take off in a perfect gallop, pulling me along the boardwalk that hugs Barcelona’s seashore. People would point and take pictures. Her strength was tremendous. I didn’t pedal, I just let her do her thing, the wind in our hair, her tongue pink and floppy. Her whole body exuding happiness because she was doing what she was meant to do. She was meant to run. To work. To take people across icy landscapes, pulling sleds under cold skies.

Her fur and skin are thick, and frankly, the hot Barcelona weather never suited her. The Pacific Northwest has been a welcome change for her retirement. It is here that she has known the thrill of chasing a squirrel, spotting a deer, and rolling in the dewy grass of her own backyard. Maybe she misses the Mediterranean Sea. I’ve asked, but she never tells me how she feels about this.

What an athlete, my dog. A swimmer in any body of water. I’ve seen her push through waves and dive for rocks in the ocean. She was a fetcher of sticks. An acrobatic ball-catcher. But now, she is brittle and thin, a shell of herself. She doesn’t run. She walks, slowly, her hips riddled with arthritis.

I walk her anyway. We go more slowly. I devise ways to take her five miles along the routes she used to effortlessly complete a few months ago. On the internet, I found a wagon with fabric siding and bought it for her. My plan is to pull her in this sort of wheelchair for dogs. It may look strange, but I don’t care.

You may be thinking that it is right to put her down. I will when it is time. But my dog has a lust for life. She’s not ready to leave. She has an appetite. She still wags her tail. She still plays ball (obsessively). And, she still likes to walk, more gingerly, in parks and in the thick green of the Washington woods.

She knows that a walk — such a simple thing — is a gift. A chance to smell the moss growing on the nurse log. An opportunity to stroll along the Puget Sound and dip a toe into that cool, clear saltwater. She hears the spring birds. She senses the rabbits and lets them nibble in peace.

Sometimes I see her stop and sit back. Nose in the air, pulsing. She is taking it all in. Examining the lay of the land through a powerful snout. She reminds me to notice the beauty that is around us. To take a moment to appreciate a light dappled trail. The first of the roses. The strength of my body. The time I’ve been given.

Lately, none of us have been able to do much. Like the rest of the country (world), we’ve been asked to stay home. No bars, no restaurants, no libraries or lunches with friends. Just home and walks. It is during this time of restriction that I am grateful for walking more than ever. I have often been strolling, admiring the jewel tones of spring and thought, “What if we couldn’t even go out?”

Such was the case in Spain and Italy. Weeks with no walking. Except for those lucky citizens with dogs. The dog-owners of Barcelona could take their companions out at any time of day. They had a free pass.

As our parks and trails begin to reopen, where can you take yourself to connect with the healing rhythm of the forest? May I suggest Point Defiance in Tacoma and Saint Edward near Seattle if you’re in this part of the world? My old dog has padded along these pathways. She walks more nimbly on the soft dirt trails than on concrete city sidewalks.

When we enter between the firs and cedar, the forest medicine envelops her. When no one is around, I unleash her. I watch her amble up the trail and I think of Mary Oliver, who wrote, “it is a serious thing / just to be alive / on this fresh morning / in this broken world.”