Jenna's Ashes

We spread Jenna's ashes at her favourite dog park tonight. She's with Harlem now, out under the sun where she belongs. She always loved the change in the weather in the fall, so we thought this was the best time to do it.

It's amazing how the hole they left is still so painful. It has been almost 5 months since we've become dogless, and sometimes we still go to the dog park just because we miss being there. But it's not time yet. We aren't ready for a new dog, because we still spend too much time remembering our old ones. The tendency to make comparisons would be too strong, and a new puppy has to be allowed to be a different dog, if that makes sense. But we'll get there, eventually.

The End

I've been avoiding writing this post, because I just didn't know what to say. We put Jenna to sleep on April 23rd. She could no longer walk on her own, and she had lost all control of her bladder and bowels. She still felt reasonably well at the end - she was eating and drinking and she still loved to be petted - so it was a difficult decision to make. But the vet advised us that there was really nowhere to go from there, and her mobility and functioning were only going to deteriorate. We have always promised her that we will do whatever we can for her, but when there was no longer anything we could do, we were not going to let her linger in pain or misery just for the sake of keeping her alive. And Jenna was not the kind of dog who was content to lie still on a blanket on the floor, constantly being cleaned and fussed over. After a couple of days of this, it was clear to us that it was not a life for her. It was just a slow death.

Jenna has always lived for her daily long walks at the dog park. She was a leaper of fallen trees, a chaser of dogs, an eater of shoes, a raider of garbages - a wrecking ball with boundless energy and a fearless, headlong, often disastrous approach to her life. She has always been a survivor. Most dogs would have had it after the first 4 or 5 times she almost died: she fell through the ice on the river, ate a kilo of raisins and almost had kidney failure, ate a wild mushroom and had a seizure, smashed her head on a tree (from galloping around like a lunatic) and developed a neurological disorder, and then she got Evans Syndrome and lost most of her blood cells. She was a regular patient at the emergency clinic. But she lived through all of that. She was indestructible. Jenna the Tank. I really was beginning to think she could beat anything. Even cancer.

I'm not sure if we did the right thing. I hate it when it comes down to the final decision, because no matter what we do, I always feel like we've done the wrong thing. I panic when I think about the fact that she's gone, that I let it happen, that I was there while the vet put the needle in. How could I have done that? How could we have chosen that? Did we kill our dog? I know it's supposed to be the right thing to do. But I understand why they don't let us do it to humans. It's the most horrible decision to ever have to make. It's nothing but guilt and doubt and panic and terror that you've made a colossal, irreversible mistake. It's responsibility for an entire, sacred life that you have to bear. That's the part I struggle with the most.

And now she's gone, and the house is empty. We are dogless people. We are not going to get another dog, at least not anytime soon. Harlem and Jenna enriched our lives immeasurably. Sometimes, when life got really busy, walking the dogs was the only thing we did together consistently. Long talks at the dog park were our best means of resolving disputes or connecting to talk about our day, our plans, and our dreams. The dogs were even ring bearers at our wedding - they've been there through all our ups and downs. They've given us so many gifts. Now that they're gone, we miss them, we grieve for them, but we still have those gifts they gave us.

WHAT.THE.HELL.

Ok, so today was the craziest, most horrific day out of all the crazy, horrific days Jenna has had in her near-death-experience-filled life. This morning she was scheduled to go in for chemo as usual. My husband took her to the clinic as usual. He started to unbuckle her collar in order to hand her over to the vet tech - as usual. In the instant that he loosened the buckle, Jenna suddenly wrenched her head back, pulling herself free of the collar, then bolted for the door. Somehow, in her adrenaline high, she managed to shove both the interior and the exterior doors open herself (they are heavy doors), then bolted across the busy street, with my husband and a clinic staff member hot on her heels. To their horror, she then disappeared under a one-tonne truck and took off at a mad gallop out the other side.

This happened at about 9 AM. My husband called me at work, and I left to help him look for her. We spent the rest of the day driving up and down every street and trudging around every park in the vicinity, calling her name and interrogating pedestrians and the postman. By the time it got dark, we hadn't seen a sign of her since some guys reported seeing her at about noon, so we checked in at the pound and then decided to go home to start phoning vet clinics, posting internet ads, and printing Lost Dog posters. Then, just as I was getting ready to take my posters and head back to the area where we lost her, we got a phone call from the clinic. A good Samaritan had brought a dog that matched her description to the pound. Anne, one of the receptionists at our vet clinic, hightailed it to the pound to pick her up, telling us to meet her at the vet clinic. We had no idea what kind of shape Jenna was in, as my husband and a vet tech had actually witnessed Jenna getting hit by a truck, not to mention that she'd been out all day in minus 16 degree weather.

Our vet, who had waited around after her shift was over, came out to examine Jenna right in the waiting room. There were no broken bones, no collapsed lungs, no frostbite, no abdominal bleeding, no nothing. The damage? A broken nail and a bit of a stiff hind end, which is more than likely due to the fact that she was running all day. To top it all off, her lymph nodes are still fine. The vet decided to put off chemo until the weekend to give Jenna a chance to recover from her ordeal.

I know this sounds like I'm making it up. I can't believe it myself. And I can't even express how grateful I am that she's alive, that she's safe, that she's home. I also can't believe how many people came out in force to help us look for her, including a complete stranger who witnessed the accident, drove up to my husband, shouted "get in!" and then proceeded to drive him around the area for an hour looking for our dog. And to whoever saw a lost dog out in the cold night and made the effort to catch her and drive her to the pound instead of leaving her there, I hope karma finds you.

Album: Jenna and the Great Outdoors

Jenna hiking in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta ...

... in Mount Robson Provincial Park, British Columbia

... at the Columbia Icefield, Jasper National Park, Alberta

... and in the Alberta badlands, Dinosaur Provincial Park

Visiting the dinosaur museum - they wouldn't let her in, though. She's too poorly behaved (and mutty) to pass as a guide dog. ;)

Having a field day on a backpacking trip in Cypress Hills Provincial Park, Alberta. There are no bears in that part of the province, so I let her off leash during the day. She thought she'd died and gone to heaven.

A routine walk at our favourite off-leash park.

Prissy-dipping in the river at the dog park. A Labrador she is not.

Facts About Jenna

We almost never call Jenna by her real name. We call her the Bear. And sometimes the Bad Dog. I'm pretty sure we started calling her this because we hated her name. We adopted her from the Humane Society on October 28th, 2003. She was already 3 years old at that point and had lived in 3 homes (all of which returned her to the shelter within a year). The only thing she seemed to know was her name, so we decided not to change it.

So why, you ask, did 3 separate people bail on this beautiful dog with the Cleopatra eyes? We can't figure it out either. She's great with kids. She's as housetrained as it gets. She's bizarrely trusting, considering the life she's had: she will lie there, semiconscious, and permit us (and total strangers) to clip her nails, remove slivers from her pads, sticks from between her teeth, and even porcupine quills from the roof of her mouth. Vets invariably declare her a gem among dogs.

Yes, we have to put the garbage on top of the cupboard. All shoes go up on a high shelf by the door. Dirty dishes left in the sink remain there at their peril. We have to restock wooden spoons every other month. None of the Tupperware has a surviving lid. Sometimes we find cutlery in the couch. All that's left of my husband's leather belt is the buckle. Oh, and if you leave dog cookies in a coat pocket, the coat will be dragged off its hanger and the pocket will be surgically removed. I guess those might be reasons why someone would take her back to the shelter. Luckily for us, we don't own anything of value, so mostly her escapades aren't much more than a minor inconvenience. Except that one time that she pried open a kitchen drawer and ate a kilo of raisins, and we had to go to the emergency clinic to have her stomach emptied before she had kidney failure. That sucked.