He became the thunder

Saying goodbye to my Moose.

Probably the best thing to come out of becoming suddenly infamous in January is that you all got to meet Moose, thanks to my dear friend Josh Shahryar. All you dog lovers came out in force to demand more of Moose’s perfect, weirdie self — more videos of him carrying on a conversation with me! More arresting photos of his beautiful yellow eyes! 

And, as of the beginning of March, more updates on his health. Now, after four hard months, I’ve had to make the most difficult decision — asking my vet to end Moose’s life, humanely, among friends, in our home.

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Moose was diagnosed with a brain tumor on March 4, based on what had happened the night before, when he’d bit me four times in the face in a split second. I needed 13 stitches and he’d missed my eye by half an inch. All I’d done was lean over to kiss him. He’d never been aggressive, even in a tiny way, toward a human before — ever — and never was again after. He’d been showing other new, odd behaviors that day: staring at walls, holding a bully stick in his mouth for hours — even falling asleep with it — this was a dog who typically ate one in 10 minutes, tops. (For non-dog people, these are supposed to be “long-lasting” chew treats).

Worse than the pain and blood and stitching was how devasted I was by what he’d done — How? Why? Why? Moose was a rescue who’d come with his share of emotional and physical burdens, but he’d been my baby for 10 years and I knew him like I knew my own face. Or mind. Or body. 

The next morning, my vet had an unequivocal answer: Moose either had dementia or a brain tumor.

I won’t get into what happened after that in terms of diagnosis, symptoms and treatment, but I will add that he later developed laryngeal paralysis, which was beginning to slowly paralyze his throat. 

He’d been heavily panting for no reasons I could discern, and his breaths suddenly had become gravelly. 

Then, one night, he looked me in the eyes and had what looked like an asthma attack. It felt like it went on forever, but had to have lasted less than two minutes. Less than two minutes of not-breathing hell. 

He had another attack later that night. 

Lots of discussions with vets then and after didn’t help. If he was going to choke to death, there would be no time to call a car and get him to either my vet, 10 blocks away, or an animal hospital, which was even farther than that. And they could put him on oxygen, but it would all happen again at some point — guaranteed. I became focused on how to have something on hand to ease his pain and anxiety if it happened again and really wouldn’t abate.

I never got that. Between losses of his strength, joy and awareness, it stopped mattering. 

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While I held and kissed and whispered to Moose as the vet injected him with the chemicals that would end his life, it began to thunder. Moose feared thunder. His Aunt Mary Ann was there too to comfort him during this terrible moment.

The process took much longer than my vet had calculated — he required two shots more than she’d expected to “calm him” before the fourth, during which he kept sitting straight up and looking panicked. It was awful. 

The thunder made everything worse.

Then it was over. I couldn’t get his eye to fully close. I wish I didn’t remember that so clearly.

The vet asked Mary Ann and me to leave the room — go in the bathroom, or wherever — while they took him away. We did.

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While I sobbed on the cold tile floor of my bathroom, I told her how upset I was that he had to go with the sky making so much noise.

As the storm continued, and I kept crying, Mary Ann took my hand and smiled.

“Don’t you get it?” she asked me. “Moose now is the thunder. He’s part of nature now. 

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When I finally began slowing down with my hyperventilating a day or so ago, I was able to start reading your many condolence messages. They mean everything to me right now. You all have consoled me by saying that I gave him the best possible life. I hope so. But I do know for sure that he gave me the best possible life.

The day I adopted him. He was 30 pounds underweight and had heartworm.

He was my Velcro dog — that’s how he was advertised as a rescue. And all I’m left with are the broken hooks and outstretched fuzzy loops because the Velcro between us was ripped apart so horribly forcibly, our connection so apparently broken. 

For now, I’m trying to figure out how to live with being frayed, and with a whole missing piece of myself floating ever-farther into the ether…

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I miss wiping disgusting globs of banana off my walls, because I didn’t notice where Moose had flung his treat-stuffed Kong.

I miss trying to get out of the shower in my tiny NYC bathroom because my 103-pound Moose had sprawled himself out on the small bathmat — and most of the rest of the floor. I’d step between his 400 paws and try to get to a towel.

I miss the happy wags he did when he and I successfully, working together, got him up the three stairs into my apartment building these past few months as his legs failed. This last week, there were no more wags, and no more strength within him to help me as I carried up first his front, then his back. 

I miss sleeping in a tiny quarter of my queen-sized bed because Moose has chosen to take up the rest of it.

I miss how when I’d stay up reading at night, he’d lie on his side against me and repeatedly turn his face up to meet my eyes, just to be sure I was still there. I was. I was always there. 

With good friend Cleo.

I miss the way he would light up upon seeing one of his human or dog friends on the street. I miss his joy at snow. Swimming. All puppies. The tiniest speck of a treat someone would fish out of their pocket for his pleading self.

I miss that he hopped every time he barked. Every. Time.

I miss our morning routine where he would stand at the side of the bed and put his little (huge) face flat on the bed right in front of mine, with his big floofy ears at attention and his tail wagging like a wind turbine. Just to get me up with him. (Okay, probably mostly to get me up so I could give him breakfast. But it was our happy morning game). Moose always woke up happy.

I miss the tiny lick he would give my foot if I still wouldn’t get up, despite all that, to feed him at ungodly hours.

I miss that his bark was so ear-splittingly loud, friends down the block would tell me that they’d heard Moose earlier.

I miss that no matter how sad or furious or defeated I felt, I could just be next to him and touch him and he’d transmit love so warm it took away the hurt. 

I miss his deepest way of expressing love and need: I’d sit on the floor and he’d bow his head into my chest, pushing while I held him. I’d do anything to have him love me like that even one more time.

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As a young child, my purest love came from my Ellie, a yellow Lab. We were the same age; she died when we were 13. I have been spending a lot of these last couple of days hoping she’s out there somewhere helping my Moose, my forever baby bear, my scaredy bear of thunder, through this transition. 

I’m writing this a couple days after I lost him, on yet another stormy day, and I just realized that I’ve been sitting here speaking out loud to him for quite a while. When I finished, astonishingly, the thunder spoke back. 

I’ve never done anything harder than this, than to say goodbye to the best being I’ll ever know, but that rumble made me smile, and now thunder always will. 

Goodbye, my sweet boy.