The sweetest, most wonderful dog in the world is dying.

My beloved golden retriever, Tawney, is terminally ill. It appears she has had a cancerous tumor rupture and is bleeding internally. She’s expected to pass any day now.

She’s doesn’t appear to be in any pain, so we elected to allow her to die here at home, rather than to euthanize her at the clinic. She seems to be doing alright: she can hardly walk because her legs are so wobbly, and she’s not eating, but she’s stable at the moment and at peace. She sleeps a lot and I find myself constantly checking to make sure she’s not gone yet. Any other dog may have lost patience with me by now— they’d growl and think “For Christ’s sake! I’m just taking a nap! Stop sticking a fucking mirror under my nose every five minutes!”

But Tawney would never think this, she just nuzzles my hand with her furry lips and lays her head down again. She’s such a gentle dog, I have no idea what we’ll do without her. What other dog would put up with Maia: a raging toddler who tackles sleeping animals? Tawney handles my little girl with patience and class; hell, she’s kinder than I am. Long after I started snarling and nipping at Maia, Tawney still gives her soft kisses and usually seems genuinely happy to see her.

Last Thursday, Tawney was a spry as ever, she went on a two mile walk. Friday, Tawney pestered us all, trying to play fetch; an energetic 10 year old golden retriever. By Saturday evening, however, when she couldn’t take 3 steps without falling over, I took her to the emergency veterinary clinic. A blood sample showed a concerning lack of red blood cells. The doctor came in to break the news to me, the prospects were grim.

Usually, I’m pretty quick to think around corners, I think it’s a trait common in computer geeks— if you change the name of this database column, it will affect this part of the code, that query, and those 3 reports. But sitting there with the vet, I couldn’t wrap my mind around what she was telling me. She didn’t outright say my dog was going to die, but there was a sense of hopelessness in everything she proposed.

Tawney needs a blood transfusion, but since we don’t know where she’s losing her blood, there’s no point in giving her more. We could try to do x-rays to find the tumors, but since this is a soft-tissue problem, the x-rays may not reveal what we’re seeking. There are a couple of causes for her low blood-cell count: an immunodeficiency in which the white blood cells are killing off the red, or hemangiosarcoma, a cancer common in golden retrievers. Since Tawney had no other symptoms of an immunodeficiency, but did have several symptoms of hemangiosarcoma, this cancer was the probability. If we could determine where the cancer is, we could perform surgery: but the results would be questionable, as a tumor had obviously just ruptured, therefore the cancer has already spread and she would get ill again. Blah-blah-blah-blah-blah.

Hours later it would all make sense, but at the time, I couldn’t determine what needed to happen. Finally, I called B, my ex-wife & Tawney’s co-owner, to come and help decide how to proceed. We finally were able to determine, that even if we deducted exactly what & where the problem lied, treating it with any hope of success was highly unlikely, and so we elected to bring her home to die.

To add insult to injury, I’m pretty poor. Simply taking Tawney to the emergency clinic had me mentally calculating my bank account balance. Even if I did have the money to purchase x-rays and god knows what else was needed to find the problem, I couldn’t hope to buy my beloved canine a blood transfusion and a surgery.

I’ve been pretty cold-hearted at times in the past when I’ve heard friends & co-workers talk about paying thousands of dollars for an open-heart surgery on their family cat. I don’t think I’ve ever said it aloud, however I’ve often thought: “But you can get a new cat for FREE!” But now that the shoe is on the other foot—if I had thousands at hand, I would buy Tawney her surgery, even if it’s only a fool’s hope.