To love a dog

- Wanna get a dog?

We had just moved from our 18 square meter small apartment to one that was more than double the size so the question no longer had a purely practical answer. I had never really seen myself as a dog person and already as a teenager I decided to never get a pet again after my guinea pig died and left me in great sadness. Therefore, it was tempting to still answer “no” when Linnea asked the question. But with an upgrade in accommodation and a stable, by mutual agreement child-free, relationship in my back, the idea of taking care of a dog surprisingly attracted me. As if to make our lives more complete, and with it take another step towards "Being An Adult".

When Linnea realized that the possibility was on the horizon, she began to tell me more and more about her thoughts about dogs. She linked me countless articles, pictures and videos featuring all sorts of breeds. While I was toying with the idea, I was initially skeptical towards small breeds as I had always experienced them as too prone to endless barking - and brindle would be my only objection regarding the coat pattern. Other than that, I kept an open mind as we pondered our options. It would turn out, however, that Linnea had a preference for a certain type of breed, namely French Bulldogs. Despite their modest height I was soon convinced that it was our breed, not only because it’s a beginner friendly breed, but because all frenchies objectively are very cute.

We knew that the breed, however easy to care for, suffers from a number of ailments. Because they have short noses, it’s very common to see respiratory difficulties and the short tails often results in a skewed spine. Therefore, it was important for us to find a breeder who was aware of this and bred “the other way”, so to speak. Frenchies with a slightly longer nose bridge and perhaps even a small tail. To my surprise, Linnea soon found a suitable breeder who was just a few miles outside of town and it didn't take long before we booked a first meeting.

We got a ride, this was before Linnea had gotten her driver's license, to the breeder by a mutual acquaintance and when we arrived there were German Shepherds and French Bulldogs scurrying around inside the fences. When we opened the front gate and stepped in we were heartily greeted by the little bundles of joy who were, of course, very curious of us. I did my best to meet up in excitement but my mind was elsewhere, I wanted to get into the house and see Dolores as quickly as possible. And pretty soon we were sitting there, on one of the breeder's couches, with two puppies in our laps. Dolores and one of her brothers. They were so incredibly small, I remember preparing myself for them to be just that, very small, but for them to be basically guinea pig size came as a surprise as I sat there trying to be as tender and careful as I possibly could. Their ears were hanging down, that was also something I didn't know - that their characteristic ears don't stand up until after a few weeks. I quietly noted that Dolores was significantly cuter than her brother. And she had a brindle coat. From now on the best kind of coat. We left a blanket to allow Dolores to get properly acquainted with our smell in a safe environment, a blanket that would then naturally start to smell like the kennel and thus form a safe point in the other direction for the day when she would be allowed to come home with us.

And before long, the big day arrived. Linnea had Dolores in her lap on the car ride back home, so there was a little bit of distance from my side, the ownership and responsibility itself was still a bit theoretical so to speak. But then we got home to the apartment where we said goodbye to our acquaintance and sat down on the living room floor with Dolores. At first she just laid there in the middle of her blanket with her soft puppy belly up in the air, smacking her lips contentedly. Then she flipped over and began to stumble about in her much too large collar. The ears had stood up at this point but they were still much larger than her head so they bobbed around with each step. Then it hit me with full force. We were now responsible for this little creature's well-being. This individual. This life.

The first few nights we tried to get Dolores to sleep in her basket next to our bed. We took turns lying with our heads at the foot of the bed with one arm down in the basket so that she would settle down and fall asleep. However, we soon discovered that she fell asleep much better and, above all, slept through the night without interruption if she was allowed to lie next to us in bed, so there really was no question about it - she was a bed sleeper and that was that.

Then followed everything that raising a puppy entails. The tireless playfulness, the mischief-filled days and the endless curiosity. Every day was a new project, how do we teach Dolores to relate to the outside world in the best way? How are we as educational as possible? How do we balance play, exercise and rest? It was also a toss-up between sitting in the sun marveling at how wonderful she was as she darted around and leaning, half-asleep, against a lamp post in pouring rain on cold autumn nights while she was peeing (a whole night is a long time to hold one). Sometimes we didn't make it out in time and the accident was a fact. There was a period when we thanked our lucky stars that there are cleaners like "Piss Off". And the teeth. I cannot emphasize enough how sharp little puppy teeth are and how easily they penetrate the skin with an ill-measured chomp after a toy. Let’s just say blood ensued. We also decided not to spay her, a decision that has to be made with every female dog, as there were a lot of side effects we didn't want to risk.

She slowly but surely grew up into a very nice dog, both physically and temperamentally. A dog that was praised by every vet and dog connoisseur she met. It felt in parts, at least for myself, that we couldn't have done this for her no matter how hard we tried - but that she was great all on her own and we only helped nudge her in the right direction. She ended up knowing more tricks than I could remember rehearsing in one session, she knew sit, lie down, back up, high five, spin, eight (run in a figure eight between the legs), fetch, stack, let go, (give me the) paw, chin, wait, go ahead, come, up, down, go to bed, where is [the person hiding], right, left, wave... Even in text form I'm sure I'm forgetting some. And she never lashed out or showed aggression, we taught her early on how to deal with unknown situations and "dangers" (which she learned to deal with by familiarizing herself with what scared her and then it wasn't dangerous anymore). We were also blessed to never run into any aggressive dogs, at least not under uncontrolled circumstances where a fight could break out, and thanks to her never being bitten she also never learned to distrust strangers. Every new encounter was a potential friend. And that was for the best really, because she wasn't the biggest dog in the world so to speak. Frenchies are already quite small in stature as is, but Dolores was small even by the standards of the breed. I distinctly remember one time when a slightly bigger dog tried to mount her, but he went at it in the wrong direction, so he tried to hump her in the face and she just stood there and accepted the situation until we of course aborted it. So incredibly kind.

Since the breed has risks related to the big eyes, the standing ears, the wrinkles on the face and so on, we always made sure to take care of her hygiene and look after her needs. She got supplements for her coat, we regularly brushed her teeth, gave her toothpaste with enzymes, had tooth powder on her food, put a special kind of lotion on her paws, wiped her face clean, brushed her fur and cleaned her ears. Thanks to this, she had a very soft and clean fur, not at all as rough as many other frenchie furs can be. Clear eyes and strong healthy teeth, constantly praised by those who examined her. We found a special dog food that covered all her needs in an excellent way at the same time as being one of her favorites. It wasn't, however, very common so we only had one single store in town that carried it. In other words, it meant always keeping an eye on the stock so it didn't run out when that store was closed.

Then came the time when she started getting in heat, something I thought happened far too soon. In my eyes, she was still a little puppy! We got her dog panties that had pads and thus protected our interior and in this way we lived for a while before she finally showed signs of false pregnancy and since that can lead to worse complications than the previously mentioned castration, we decided to go ahead with the procedure. The operation went well, but her legs were very weak when she got home, so she had a hard time standing up. There’s a picture of her eating and her hind legs are barely carrying her and my heart still screams when I see it even though I know it's completely normal and it was just a day or so of recovery before she was back to the same old Dolores again.

The years came and went and we created a routine together, me, Linnea and Dolores. We had schedules for rest, walks, food, bedtime, medications and vaccinations. Yes - Dolores showed signs of mild allergy for which she simply was given a monthly shot to curb. This whole thing with being caretakers for a dog was something we started to nail down and we really were a small family. Dolores was, to our dismay, very fond of all kinds of poo that she could find on walks and sometimes we didn’t have time to stop her. One night she vomited half-digested feces from an unknown animal in bed... You get the picture.

One day when Dolores jumped up on the couch to lie down next to me, she slipped a little with her hind legs and barely got up. I let out a little laugh because it was so comical, but Linnea looked at me with concern in her eyes and said that it wasn't simply a miss on Dolores’ part but that it could be due to her back. Dolores then started showing signs of leg weakness in all sorts of situations so we made an appointment with the vet. It turned out she had spinal disc hernia. Quite extensively, between several different vertebrae. It must have been so painful and I realized she was very good at hiding when she was in pain. It had progressed to the point where she had started to lose feeling in her legs, something you could tell by folding a paw upside down while she was standing and then she wouldn’t immediately turn it right side up when you let go. This is when I realized I had to get much better at reading her smaller signs. She couldn't tell me with words. The amount of herniated discs made the vet question how well she could recover, but we were none the less given daily exercises for a longer period of time as part of the rehabilitation program she would have to undergo. Both we and Dolores were very thorough. We did the exercises several times every day for a number of months, we got a ramp that Dolores was taught to walk up and down instead of jumping and to the vet's surprise, Dolores made a full recovery. I was so proud of her, that she managed to do all those exercises so many times for so long, even though they couldn't really be put up as something fun. Of course she got treats afterwards, but for obvious reasons we couldn't end the training sessions with play.

She had a small dot next to her nose that was missing fur, no bigger than a pea. We asked the vet what it could be and they explained that such growths are common and as long as they don't change we could leave it alone. I had no problem with that at all, she was such an insanely beautiful dog - what’s a small dot next to her nose? Nobody’s perfect. But after a few years the dot increased in size and after a tissue sample it turned out to be cancer. Operable, but still, cancer. Malignant. We were clear on Dolores having very good chances of getting rid of this via the operation, which we of course immediately booked, but despite this the anxiety came creeping. The brain knew it’d surely be fine but the heart doesn't always listen. It was in the middle of the pandemic and there was a feeling of isolated powerlessness that was growing inside of me. We had been given an appointment in the middle of the week, in Ystad, so when the day came, Dolores and I had to jump on a train and head to the vet there. We arrived early in the morning and I remember it was especially difficult to convey my feelings and interpret how they were met when we were all hidden behind ill-fitting covid masks. In any case, the plan was that she would be sedated with anaesthetics during the morning, undergo the operation a bit after that and only some time later, towards the afternoon, would I be able to see her again. They informed me of the risks of sedating an animal with anaesthetics and I had to sign some papers. It felt surreal, like I was signing their innocence in case Dolores died from the procedure. I kissed her head, deeply smelled her fur and whispered that I loved her, then let the vet lead her into the building. I went and sat down in the cafe section of a nearby hospital which was open and allowed the public to stay on the premises. I had a lunch box with me that tasted nothing and the hours felt like eons of time.

After about five hours, or five centuries, I was notified that Dolores was awake and that I could re-enter the veterinary quarters. When I arrived I had to go into a side room as Dolores wasn't quite in a condition to walk yet. I was greeted by the smallest little dog I had ever seen, she looked so lost and scared. I know it's easy for us humans to transfer our emotions onto animals and project how we think they experience things, but this was so clear that I almost started crying outright. Even though I knew it was obviously because the anesthesia hadn't really worn off yet. Dolores was clearly very unsure and at first she didn't even recognize me, she waddled anxiously as I sat down and put my hand on her back and whispered “I’m here now”. She slowly crawled onto my lap and we just sat there for a minute or so before it was time for the report from the surgery. They had had to remove quite a lot of tissue, a couple of centimeters in width and depth between the nose and the cheek so they weren't sure what she would look like when it healed. Probably never like before anyway. I couldn't care less what she was going to look like after this, I just heard "the cancerous tissue was very successfully removed" and that was all that mattered. She tried to walk by herself but I had to carry her most of the way to the train station and even though she went just before the train left, various accidents still happened in my lap during the journey home - she couldn't control anything and mostly laid there panting confusedly. I hated myself for not having a driver's license and constantly whispered reassuring things to her as the train crawled along at a snail’s pace.

We scheduled another meeting where they would take a new tissue sample to see if the cancer was completely gone or if they missed something. Above all there was a risk that cancer so close to the nose could spread down into the lungs. We walked around as if in a haze until the booked time arrived. We were of course happy that the operation went well and that Dolores was slowly recovering, but we didn't know if the cancer was completely gone. Then the call came one day when Linnea was at work. Dolores showed no signs of cancer either in the tissue around her nose or in the rest of her body. She was officially declared cancer-free. Linnea cried with relief, so much worry and agony finally over. So much mental gnashing that finally came to an end. I myself was mostly dazed, it felt like we had won a war but that it’d costed us something precious. And then came the anxiety. I apparently had felt much worse during this period (after all, it was several months from the first referral to the final report) than I allowed myself to recognize. I broke down mentally and found myself in the coldest and deepest anxiety I've ever experienced. I've been through depression before but this was something new. I couldn't for the life of me function during the day, it felt like I was staring into nothingness with an ice cold in my chest, I couldn't sleep because of heart palpitations, I cried and shook and tossed between deep depression and outright panic attacks. I ended up in the psych ward and was prescribed a number of medications - medications that were the turning point back to life again. After only a few weeks of reasonable sleep every night and days that were at least bearable if I distracted myself, I found my way back to a functioning everyday life again. And Dolores was healthy.

We went into the same safe routine as before. We had scheduled walks, four a day plus extra on occasion. We had our play time, our exercise sessions and lazy afternoons on the couch in the warm sunshine. Both Linnea and I recognized, and could read, every little twitch and sound from Dolores. I had truly developed a deep friendship, far beyond what I could imagine one could have with an animal. We were never apart and lived as if in harmony - we gave each other security. I knew she was always there when I needed company, distraction or comfort. She knew I was always there for whatever she needed. Every morning Dolores got breakfast first, then I got mine. Every night I carried her from the sofa to the bed whispering how much I loved her and that she was the most beautiful being in the world.

One day I noticed that Dolores was breathing a little faster than usual, like she was in pain. But since she didn't have the little shivers she gets when she's in pain, we decided to wait a few days to see if it went away on its own. In the meantime, we kept track of the number of breaths per minute to see which way it was going, and it really went up and down. One morning she had a completely normal breathing rate, another she was up to 70 breaths per minute. We got worried and called the vet who advised us to wait over the approaching weekend as it didn't seem urgent. That weekend, for the first time, she didn't want to run after sticks we threw in the park. We began to suspect pneumonia and were glad that we had already been given an appointment on Tuesday. Pneumonia is a serious disease but can easily be treated with the right medicine.

Tuesday came and Dolores had no particular desire to get out of bed, she preferred to sleep in. Of course she got to do that. I went into the bedroom at nine o'clock, sat on the edge of the bed and patted her softly while whispering that she was the most beautiful thing I knew. She looked at me and smacked her lips a little before getting up and walking out into the living room. A bit of breakfast wouldn't be so bad after all!

The time for the appointment came and Astrid, our vet, praised her physique as usual. Nice eyes, nice ears, nice paws, teeth, weight, fur, mood. Everything except the breathing, which she decided to take a closer look at with an x-ray. I had to put on a lead apron and necklace and go with her because I knew she wouldn't like lying on her back. Together with a nurse, we carefully put Dolores in all sorts of angles so that they would get good pictures. I stood leaning over her so she could see my face the whole time and that made her calm. I praised her and said that it would be over soon. After a couple of minutes it was done and Dolores was allowed to come up into my arms again, safe from the weird table with the big robot arm. Astrid recieved the pictures on her computer just outside the screened-off section and as soon as she brought them up on screen, she exclaimed with a worried tone "oh, oh no, this doesn't look good at all, can we get daddy in here?". My mouth dried up and the four or five steps out to her computer felt like an eternity.

"Look, can you see this? These are her lungs, and they’re supposed to show up white. But instead they’re cloudy, it’s like dark clusters. And they're everywhere, it's way too much to be tumors, but at the same time it's not likely to be anything else."

"Then what else could it be, if not tumors?"

"It could be lungworm, but it's highly unlikely unless you've been overseas. I think you should go to the larger animal hospital and get a second opinion on this and find out what it could be if not lung cancer. I'll call in advance and inform them of the situation." Okay, the plan was simple. We go home, drop off some stuff and pick up some other stuff and then we go up to the animal hospital and get to the bottom of what this mysterious thing could be in Dolores' lungs. It doesn't have to be cancer. It doesn't have to be.

Just as we get home my mum calls. I answer and she immediately notices that my voice is not as usual. I start to explain the situation but get stuck when I get to what we fear, I choke up and my voice cuts off. I sink down on the hall floor and tell her as composedly as I can that "Dolores may have lung cancer". The first serious thought that this might actually be the case enters my panicked brain that has shut me off from all logic and embedded itself in foggy optimism. I regain my composure after a few tears and we decide to get in contact again when we get back home, there’s no need for panic until we know what’s what. We leave.

When we arrive, no one has any idea what's going on. They didn't know any details about the case and it took a while before they even realized we had a dog with us. Dolores and I had gone into their food section to browse among the goodies that dangled from countless meters of shelves. Pretty soon, anyway, we were brought to a room where we were to look at the original x-rays together and talk the situation through. Several people came and went and a few more looked in through the door window. We got questions like "why didn't you come in sooner?" from judgmental looks and after a controlled speech of defense we were finally told that the x-ray machine they had wasn’t available until the following day and in Dolores' condition there was just no way she could be allowed to sleep at home, she would have to spend the night in the hospital in a cage. I asked what we could expect to find out with a second x-ray and the vet said “it's hard to tell, probably just that it really is lung cancer”. I slowly began to realize that they have said everything they’re allowed to say to give us enough reason to put Dolores to sleep. I held my little dog tighter and tighter while Linnea sat next to me and cried. Letting Dolores spend her possibly last night in a cage with strange tubes and without her security, just so we could be a little more sure it really was lung cancer felt selfish. Letting her suffer more would only be for our own sake, our stubbornness and unwillingness to face the obvious.

"Have you made a decision?"

"Yes, we have, let’s... let’s call it quits. We have to let her go."

Then followed a series of different affirming phrases that they say to everyone in our situation, but I didn't listen. I just tried not to lose my mind in front of Dolores, I wanted to be her rock until the end. I was sweating so much her fur got sticky.

"We'll get a room ready for you."

I asked Linnea to take Dolores there because I needed to go to the bathroom. I had cotton mouth, I needed to pee like never before and was dizzy with what I would probably describe as fear. When I was done in the bathroom, I started looking for said room. I found one that had a drawn heart on the outside and realized that had to be it. I opened the door and inside I found Linnea with Dolores together with a reticent man. He explained he was the one who would carry out the process and went through the details as to prepare us. We were handed treats to give Dolores, she could eat as much as she wanted. The whole jar if she wanted! Her lifelong gluttonous dream of having unlimited treats to eat finally came true - but she was too out of breath to really enjoy it. She quietly ate out of our hands while we cried. The man went off to get needles and drugs. I knelt down in front of Dolores and tried to be as composed as I could, praising her for how good she had been all day with x-rays and needles and what have you. Linnea ran towards the sink because she was about to throw up and I felt my scalp itch. My head was burning and I was out of words. The door opened and the man who now had everything he needed asked me to put Dolores on the table. There were plastic flowers and a battery-operated light. "I'm going to inject a sedative that will put him under" (he misgendered Dolores throughout the process) "but I won't give it all at once because the breathing difficulties could get worse by this and cause the dog discomfort. So I inject it in two intervals. When the dog isn’t conscious anymore I finally inject the drug that will stop the heart. No discomfort."

He asked me to hold one of Dolores' front legs tightly while he prepared the injection, at first I interpreted it as that it would be painful for her, but he simply didn't know that Dolores tolerates needles no problem. He gave her the first dose and we waited idly for her to get drowsy. After a few minutes she got wobbly and we helped her lie down. The last time she’d ever lie down. He injected the rest of the sedatives and after a while she was fast asleep with her chin in my hand. He took out a new bottle and started measuring. I had time to think "so far it's just sedatives, she's just sleeping, we can abort, this can be stopped" and then the final drug was slowly introduced. Time stood still. Me and Linnea cried as we stood bent over her and said nothing. The man examined Dolores briefly, looked up and said softly "I'm sorry" and backed away from the table. I looked down at Dolores who was no longer asleep. Now her heart had stopped beating. A life of joy, love and wisdom was slipping from our hands and her beautiful brown eyes stared blankly into the room. I hugged her where she lied and told her I loved her so much. I let go of her little head for the very last time and turned to Linnea. We embraced each other as my world fell apart. I sobbed uncontrollably against her shoulder and we held each other tightly. Dolores was no more. Dolores was no more.

After a while we decided to leave the room. "Dolores isn't here anymore anyway," I said. Linnea agreed and we opened the door to a world that would never again feel the warmth of the clear light that was our dog.

I don't remember how we managed to fall asleep that Tuesday night, but for me it was undoubtedly with the help of medications. We didn't see the point in eating or doing any chores. We ate tasteless food to survive. Sat on the couch all day and let movies roll while we cried. Linnea took the next day off from work and then worked from home for the rest of the week and I struggled with my cracking sanity. The fact that Dolores was no more was an absurdity that challenged my sense of the world being as it should be. The sun rose every morning, that fucker, as if nothing had happened. Like there was a whole world out there ready to move on without Dolores. I wanted to scream. I wanted to prevent everyone else from happiness. How did they dare to live their lives when my just ended? I stopped seeing any meaning to it all, it was like I was forced to give up a part of myself that I couldn't afford. I had failed to protect the life that was my responsibility to protect. What if I had discovered the cancer earlier, could Dolores have been saved? What if it was lungworm after all. I have killed the individual I loved more than myself.

Obviously I wasn't equipped to handle the situation, so I went to the library. I searched for books on the subject of dealing with the loss of a dog. The one I chose was called "Farewell to a friend - About the grief after a dog" written by Anders Hallgren. I scanned it at the library, thinking that anyone who sees the book in my hand will understand that I am going through something terrible. That the world is empty and cold for me. But no one seemed to care much. They probably didn't even see the tears running down my cheeks all the way to the library and all the way home again.

The book taught me many things. It described my reactions and thoughts in a very insightful way. There was never talk of the spiritual or that kind of nonsense - there was a focus on pure psychology and the facts surrounding the loss of a dog. How so many people have been through this before. How much it hurts. I was allowed to feel, and was guided through, things I was instinctively ashamed of ("I wasn't this sad when grandma passed away", "I gave the go-ahead to kill Dolores", "if we had waited that last night she might be alive today", "nobody seems to understand, really, how bloody awful this is").

This would take time. Of course, I understood that right away. But with the help of the book I was able to accept that I might now have months, years, of grief ahead of me and that it didn't make me a worse person for it. Everyone’s processes have different lengths. As the days passed and the weeks turned into months there were times when I could start to smile again. Feeling that something, at least momentarily, was fun. I naturally felt guilty about this, like I was betraying Dolores' memory, but the book had given me the tools to deal with it. What I wasn't prepared for, however, was how disappointed I was in my surroundings when they responded positively to my temporary expressions of joy. "Well, are you happy now that I seem to have stopped being a sad bore?". "Do you think this is true joy I’m displaying?!". "Dolores is dead and you miss who I was. Damn it. Dolores is dead. She's dead. I'll never be whole again.".

It’s been over a year now. On the day this text is published (originally posted in swedish 2024-07-20), Dolores would have turned 12 years old. I have started to be able to see pictures of her and think of good memories and smile, giggle and feel love. The anxiety and the loss are still there too, but have started to take the back seat when the emotions come. Writing this text has torn me apart all over again and has caused many more tears - but I still felt ready to write it. I will always love Dolores and I will miss her until the day I am gone. I say as I said a year ago:

I don't believe in gods. I don't believe in life after death or heavens and reunions. But never before have I wished so deeply that I’m wrong.

"When tomorrow starts without me
and I’m not here to see
If the sun should rise and find your eyes
are filled with tears for me

I wish so much you wouldn’t cry
the way you did today
While thinking of the many things
we didn’t get to say"