Good Dog

Fergus died today. We put him to sleep at the vet at about 8 o'clock. He hit the same spot all three of the Medeiros family dogs have hit at a certain point. Today was the day he couldn't get up.
My mom called me at work, about 5 minutes before closing time, to tell me to come straight home, that Fergus was at the vet. That was enough for me to know.
Because, he was thirteen, old for an 80 pound pampered Irish Setter, and honestly there have been many times in the last few months where I had to look at his big red body long and hard to make sure he was breathing.
He was never in pain. I guess that at about 11:30 today my dad busted out the vacuum cleaner and Fergus didn't bail out, as he usually would. After some prodding and encouragement, it became apparent. So I got home at about 5:10, had a grilled cheese sandwich, and dug his grave with my brother.
I kept thinking to myself, "someone is going to walk by and say 'looks like you're digging a grave!'" but of course nobody did. I've never dug a grave before. Pet graves, according to literature picked up after the fact, have to be three feet deep. We went about five. There were about four layers of soil. The goldish stuff is easy, the black stuff is hard, and underneath some of those layers is a brownish tan sandy layer.
We went about three feet by five, I guess. The digging wasn't so hard. Most of the roots were in the first two feet, not many rocks. Just dig down, not across the surface of the pit. The real pain was being in this tight space at five feet trying to lift a five foot shovel full of dirt out of the hole.
Then we all went to the vet: my mother and father, my brother, my sister's kid (age 7). My sister couldn't make it; she was at a Kenny Chesney concert, which is inexcusable -- not given the circumstances, just in general.
Before we went I called the kid out front to explain to him what was about to happen.
"Do you know what's going to happen at the vet?" I asked.
"Not really," he answered.
"What's do you think is going to happen?"
"Fergus is dying," he repeated several times. "Fergus is dying and... Fergus is dying, Fergus is dying."
I think this was his first real death.
I explained that people who love their dogs, at a certain point, have to choose to let the dog die happily and peacefully before their lives become painful.
It was an easy decision to not make the crossover into human euthanasia issues.

Anyway, we went. We all petted Fergus, mostly me, my brother, and my mom. I think Fergus is easily one of my mom's best friends. I love him.

So the way they do it is one overdose of anesthesia followed by another dose of heart stopper -- not Sodium Pentathol, my dad asked -- or maybe it's brain stopper. The second agent acts slower, so the animal is totally out when the death occurs. So the vet gave the shots -- into an IV that he already had in his leg.

Fergus looked pretty cool. I mean, he wasn't in pain. But the thing is, he was... retired. He was disinterested. He looked up at us from time to time. But his decision was clear. He wasn't eating -- he didn't eat supper last night -- he wasn't drinking, and he wasn't getting up. His breathing was shallow. It was obvious. I didn't even ask the vet any questions which under much less important circumstances I would.

So she gave him the shots. And that anesthetic must have been pretty nice, because Fergus got a big smile on his face. Now, the drugs don't cause death in some neat short timespan like I expected. In fact, after about three minutes, he half-sat up, the first time he did that: elbows down, chest and head up, torso and rear legs prone. And it was freaky as I wondered: My God, is he suddenly okay now that we have administered a lethal dose of drugs?
But it was the drugs. He sat up for a minute or two, and I took advantage of the opportunity to massage the left side of him, which had been against the ground, as I had only massaged his right side earlier. He wagged his tail one time, when my mother rubbed her face in his face. He gave no kisses, as he was never much of a kisser. Me and mom got probably 15 between us in his life. That's about one every two years for each of us individually.

Then he laid his head back down on my leg and drifted off. His breathing became more and more shallow, although not strained, and then stopped.

He was still warm and lifelike there. People kept petting him after he was dead. I'm sentimental but I didn't. He was dead.

My mom and I both cried a little at the vet's. She cried again when we were putting him in the grave. We wrapped him in his bedsheets.
"Are his eyes closed?" the kid wanted to know. "Yes," replied mom, who had closed his eyes at the vet's.
I had brought him to the backyard in the wheelbarrow.
"His eyes are wide open," the kid said. "His eyes are WIDE OPEN," he said. They were. "Does that mean he's alive?"
"No," mom answered. "Do you want to feel his heart and make sure?"
He did, and was assured.
I got into the grave and my dad and brother handed the dog down. It was tight in there. I squatted as low as I could and let him fall gently to the floor of the grave. The blankets -- there was the blanket from the vet's directly around him, the sheet my mother lined the trunk with, along with garbage bags, and his Irish-looking green-and-red plaid bedsheets -- fell over his head, which had been peeking out, rather nicely.
"Make sure his face is covered," my mother said, her voice cracking. I told her it was.
I climbed out and we covered him. Because the dirt is looser going back in, there's a small mound out there. The back yard has little pea-stones on top, which lay over the little mound. It will settle with the rain.