Mark’s Bark #2 continued

Throughout all this, Ivan was still Ivan. With a cast on his leg, in the middle of a snowstorm he slipped out of his collar and climbed a snow bank to get to 6th Avenue. He still “hoovered” everything in sight and he still though he was the alpha dog. One afternoon I was yelling at him about something in our loft. He just stood there, 10 feet away, staring at me like I was an idiot. Then he peed on the floor, just to make his point! It was kind of like he was saying, “screw you, I’m the alpha dog here”!

In spite of all this, or in some strange way because of it, we loved him even more. I would bring him to the company I was running at the time and he would roam from office to office, happy to sleep under a desk. Once, when I was alone in the office we actually had an intruder. Ivan just sat in front of him, growling low in his throat. They stared at each other for a while and the guy split. That night, Ivan got a steak.

A few years later, at age eight, running on the beach he loved more than anything, he fell, and started howling again. It was the same leg. After x-rays by our local vet, who couldn’t find his butt with both hands, we brought Ivan, still in enormous pain, to an orthopedic veterinarian at the Manhattan Veterinary Group who immediately diagnosed a break, and most probably a break due to bone cancer. He reviewed the x-rays I had brought with me and was able to see what my local vet had missed; a thin line surrounded by a cancerous tumor. He told us we had 2 choices. First, we could euthanize Ivan, right then, since he had to be in terrible pain. Or they could amputate the leg and give him Chemo therapy. It was an awful decision to have to make, but it had to be done because we loved him and he was hurting so badly. But we couldn’t let him go and in times like those you hear the doctor tell you that even with the amputation it was most likely that the cancer had spread and would get to his lungs, the usual route for bone cancer, in a year. But what you hear is maybe he’ll be alright. You talk yourself into believing there’s a chance when there really is none. So they amputated his leg, and it was horrifying and he almost died. But the tough little bastard hung in there and we spent weeks laying on a futon on the floor with him, feeding him baby food or whatever the vets were telling us at the time. And he got better! In fact, he got much better, except he stopped trying to be the alpha dog. He got sweeter and I think it was because for the first time since he was a puppy he wasn’t in pain from that leg. And he got around great, running down the beach, chasing balls. He wasn’t fragile, is what I mean. He did have a small issue with peeing, at first. Cause he’d lift the leg that was still there and tip over. But in no time at all he figured out how to lift his leg and hold himself up on just the front two legs. It was amazing how resilient he was, in spite of the chemo and in spite of only having three legs.

And he was acting like his old self, which was just fine with us, since we’d convinced ourselves that he was the exception, the dog that would beat bone cancer. And, of course,     
12 months to the day he started having trouble breathing. We brought him back and to my undying shame I sat in front of these doctors and cried and begged them, begged them, to do something. And there was nothing to do. We even took him to Dr. Wen, a cancer specialist who was great. He tried herbs and acupuncture and a bunch of other stuff and it just got worse.

I feel strongly that when it’s their time, you have to let your dog go. It’s the most horrible thing, but I don’t think it hurts them. And I also believe that if there’s any way possible to do it, you should get the doctor to come to your home, rather than have the last moments of your dogs’ life be spent in a vet’s office on a cold metal table. We are fortunate to have a house that looks out at the water and a deck high up so you can see over the trees. We gave Ivan his favorite meal and we hugged him and kissed him and told him how much we loved him. It was October, chilly but sunny and we bundled him up and sat on cushions on the deck. He was happy and full and warm in the sunlight. And Dr. Wen came and gave him an injection and he was gone. Just like that. Dr. Wen took him in his blanket and drove away to take Ivan to the crematorium. We would get his ashes back in a few days. And I did not cry, I howled and screamed and bawled my eyes out. And as I sit here and write this I think of my sweet boy, my bad boy that was Ivan. And I cry for us both.

A week later, still wrecked from his death, my wife and I took Ivan’s ashes, in a plain brown bag, to the beach, intending to spread them on the ocean he loved so much. It was a perfect day, a late Indian summer, and as we waded into the ocean flat as a pancake, with not a hint of wind, we opened the bag containing his ashes and tipped it into the sea. Suddenly, with no notice whatsoever, a huge wind came up, blowing some of the ashes into our eyes and noses and mouths and hair. We were mortified at first, and then we just couldn’t stop laughing. Because even after he was gone, the sonofabitch was still determined to get the last laugh.

That’s my bark for today. If you’ve lost a friend like Ivan, you know the grief that comes with it. And believe me, I’m sending you a hug.