Farewell, Tuff Twikett

“Like all of us in this storm between birth and death, I can wreak no great changes on the world, only small changes for the better, I hope, in the lives of those I love. – Dean Koontz

This is not a post I wanted to write as it is not a happy one. I called home from Georgia the other night and heard from my Mom that Joan had called and left a message that our little Tuff Twikett, the sole surviving puppy in Releve’s litter had died. Death is an omnipresent entity in the short lives of dogs and the longer I am around them, the more I realize how true this is. Not all puppies survive birth or the short weeks following and this time around there must have been something truly wrong because Releve never really accepted this litter. But Twikett was indeed tough and survived a couple of weeks.

Why? That’s always the question isn’t it? Why is life so short? Why does this one die and this one survive? Grappling with death is an ongoing debate. Some prefer to avoid it. What’s there to add? It happens to us all. This is especially true with dogs. The discussion can become repetitive, maudlin, overly sentimental because something touches us to the core when we lose one of our companions and we all struggle to make sense of it; sometimes dwelling in this stew of emotions. But Twikett hadn’t been around long enough to be such a companion had she?

She had. That’s what my time at Pugdom has taught me. It has become a microcosm of life and death, helping me to understand the process, to deal with the pain and questions. Twikett’s life was so brief yet she made her presence known. Joan’s friends gathered at her house to help her be born. We held her, named her, fed her. We grew from our care of her and from our support of each other. She knew the hand of a human, the warmth of her mother’s breast. She crawled and cried, snuggled and suckled and like with all of us, her time was too brief, but she lived. She may never have opened her eyes, but for two weeks she made small changes on the world. We may forget her name in the years to come, but not her presence. Life brings change and growth. It can’t be dismissed, overlooked or glossed over. Tuff Twikett survives in the love we gave her.

Tough Times

The surviving pup, Tough Twikett is having a tough time of it. Joan says it doesn't look like she is growing. Joan has been supplementing her with goat's milk and her Mama has been feeding her, but Joan says she feels so light. I worry that maybe Mama knew there was something wrong with this litter all along. But we haven't given up hope yet. This little one is a fighter and we'll see what happens. The above picture was taken a few minutes after she was born.

Alive and Kicking

The surviving puppy, the second one born, is alive and kicking. She is strong and well. She knows how to nurse, kneading her mother like Rocky Balboa going to town. I have taken to calling her Balboa, but Joan is calling her Tough Twikett (spelling uncertain) and I imagine that will stick. For some reason we all keep calling her a "he." Her Mama is letting her nurse now and Joan keeps supplementing her. I think she's a fighter and a beauty.

Aria's Song

When I left the newborn puppies at Joan’s house the other night, they were noisily squealing, earning the first-born pup, the nickname Aria. The second, another girl with a cockscomb hairdo, we mistook for a boy and took to referring to as “he.” The third was born two hours later, seemingly big and strong and healthy. By the 9:30 a.m. feeding, she was gone. Aria lived long enough to earn a name and steal our hearts. She had passed away later the next day. The second puppy lives still and seems to be going strong. Her Mama still doesn’t want anything to do with her, but Joan is making sure the pup is fed. We are trying to supplement her with a goat’s milk product I picked up at the Blogpaw’s Conference in May. I planned to review it on my blog. Instead, it feeds a tiny life. Several times a day, Joan holds down the mama long enough for the pup to suckle.

We are left to ponder why. Why did these two pups come into being only long enough to receive a nod and a smile before  dying? What is life and what makes it so fleeting? The questions are the same whether one is an hour old or ninety – life always seems so short, death so familiar and yet, so foreign; something we recognize, but never truly expect. As Joan and I worked to bring the puppies into existence, then to keep them alive, her daughter and son-in-law stood vigil at his mother’s bedside. She died in this span of time and they made plans to return her body to her home in Puerto Rico. They make funeral arrangements even now. “There are so many flowers,” Joan’s daughter says.

To hold a puppy in your hand, no bigger than a bird, is like grasping a living heartbeat. You feel every fragile pulse and yet, in that teeny body with such very big lungs, I also felt a universal strength. She was alive and moving, full of energy, full of life. She made her presence known. In the hours after she was born, her bigger sister cuddled with her. Resting her head against her back, not unlike the way my Alfie sleeps with Waffles. They were small, but instinctualy they knew how to keep warm; they understood the rhythms of life.

Once another of Joan’s pugs had a large litter of puppies. One died each day until they were all gone. I can remember holding one, no bigger than my finger, naming the coal black creatures after the blackest of things – Blackberry, Black Bear, Blackbird and singing away the minutes, “Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take your broken wings and learn to fly, all your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise.” Singing, until her own time came…We tried a sip of vodka in a last ditch effort to jumpstart the tiny heart, it did no good and the last little puppy, wrapped in a stark, white napkin, died. There were others that did not live long. I remember one we called Winnie from another litter and then of course, last year, our little Batman, seven-weeks-old, growing strong, then suddenly inexplicably gone.

It’s so easy to see the heartbreak, to be crushed by death’s uncompromising greed, but during my time at Pugdom, Joan’s house, where the birth and death of dogs is a regular occurrence, I have become intimate with the cycle of things. My heart has been tugged at, broken and mended with the waxing and waning of each small life. Once touched by these heartbeats I become part of their pulse. I weep at their passing, but I see the flowers. There are so many and though they shrivel and wilt, they bloom glorious for a time. Life is something to relish, however brief. It demands celebration and notice. No matter how fleeting it is incredibly strong; unapologetically real, unforgettable! It leaves a lasting song.

“…you were only waiting for this moment to arise…”

Newborn Puppy Videos

Releve's first puppy was born after 8:00 p.m. yesterday. Her second puppy shortly after 10 and her third, a big girl, arrived at 5:30 p.m. about an hour-and-a-half after I left Joan's. It was a long labor. I have been at Joan's when puppies came so quickly it was difficult to clear them from their sacs before the next arrived. This was all about waiting. Releve was stoic, getting up out of her box in Joan's kitchen to pace, but otherwise remaining almost silent -- no panting or moaning for her. The first puppy had bulging eyes and was so teeny and cold. Releve wouldn't feed it and we worried that perhaps she was rejecting it because she thought it was too weak and wouldn't live. The second puppy was a bit larger and perhaps stronger, although it took a lot of work on Joan's part to get it to breathe. I didn't want to leave Joan, but she convinced me it made little sense for both of us to lose sleep. After I left, the third baby, a big girl, arrived.  Before leaving I held Releve while Joan coaxed the two puppies to eat.

New Life

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It's 4:00 a.m. and I left Joan's house in Warren and two new little pug puppies in my wake an hour ago. It is a long night as the Mama still has more to birth. The two little ones are very tiny and Mama has not been up to feeding them, so Joan and I had to help out. First, giving sugar water and then holding Releve, the mother, still and forcing the pups to suckle. If another puppy doesn't materialize by early morning, Joan will meet the vet who has already been called. I have dubbed the first born girl Aria already because in spite of her small size, she has been singing her lungs off all night.

Dog Show

Rose with the sun today to show Alfie and Joan's pug, Lumpi. Both did us proud. I will share more about the experience tomorrow.

Resurrection

Saying goodbye to a beloved pet is never easy, but in the case of my friend Joan’s pug, Egg, it may be next to impossible. Egg is 13 years old. He has lost the use of his legs and each day seems to grow weaker. We have been preparing for his death, beginning some of the rituals that make it easier for us to deal with his passing. This weekend we wrapped him in the afghan Joan’s dog sitter, Norma, made for him and took him out to sit among the daisies. We photographed him there. Before she returned home, Norma held and rocked him and as I left for the evening, she whispered to me, “This one’s going to be a hard one for Joan. Be there for her.”

She’s right. Joan has a house full of pugs and loves them all, but Egg has been her car dog, her traveling companion, her special pet, the one that made his way through the pack to stand at the head of the crowd. In his youth, he was an athlete, jumping fences, chasing the girl dogs until Joan was forced to neuter him, but over the last few years, age got the better of him and his legs began to give way. He weakened quickly, too quickly for Joan to buy a doggie cart, and she had little success trying my pug, Vader’s. As his legs ceased to hold him up and his head began to tilt at a peculiar angle, we saw the beginning of the end.

The phone call came tonight while I was out running errands. Joan’s message was Egg had died. Fortunately, for me, I missed the message and when I called Joan tonight and questioned as usual, “How are you,” she answered, “You heard didn’t you?”

“Heard what?” I asked.

“About Egg,” she said. I knew instantly that he had passed. I began to offer my condolences, “I’m sorry, Joan,” I mustered, but was quickly interrupted. “But, Kim, wait,” she said. “He isn’t dead. I thought he was. He’d shut his eyes, wasn’t moving, made three big gasps. I’d heard that sound before, but it wasn’t the death rattle,” she murmured. “I started making preparations, getting a plastic bag to put him in, I turned around and his eyes were upon me – wide open. He’s sitting in my arms eating chicken now.”

I thought about Joan’s necessary ritual of wrapping the corpses of her deceased pets and placing them in the freezer until they could be delivered to the vet and I was happy she hadn’t gotten this far. To me there has always been something spiritual about Joan’s home and the dogs that live there, but Egg’s resurrection has taken things to a brand new level. For now, at least he has risen and as every human knows, each moment we spend with our pets is a miracle.

Good Hands

One of my personal photography projects for the last couple of years has been taking photographs of people with their pets. Their is an intimacy to the relationship that the lens frequently captures. Although this puppy does not belong to my friend Norma, I love the photo. Until recent years when her health and other circumstances caused her to move from her house into an apartment that doesn't allow pets, Norma has always owned a house full of dogs and a cat or two. She has been Joan's longtime housesitter, a sort of Mary Poppins the pugs. She bathes them, heats tea bags to soothe their eyes, sews cloth donuts to soften their pressure sores and a myriad of other things. This little puppy, like so many others she has cradled, is certainly in good hands.

Trouble

There are few things cuter in the world while simultaneously more trouble than a seven-week-old pug puppy. I got to see three of them yesterday. This is little Rosey, who occupied her time while we were chatting with her humans chewing on my friends shoelace.