By Mike McLaren
He thinks of things, I think. It’s hard to say what goes on in the mind of a seventeen-year-old Chihuahua who is blind, deaf, and has no teeth. Bluto suffered a stroke a while back, on a Thanksgiving afternoon. My wife and I, and our daughter and son-in-law, walked into the house after a three-hour bike ride and watched our little guy fall off the couch that, at one time in his life, he could easily vault onto and leap from to get a treat. But he could barely stand, and his head hung to his left. At first we thought he’d gotten hurt in the fall, but watching him turn circles to his left as he stumbled across the backyard, we realized he’d suffered a stroke. My wife had done the research.
To our surprise, our little guy seemed to have recovered from the stroke by the New Year, but it was clear he was not like to ever regain anything close close to his his previous spryness.
These days I have to help him outside to pee—at three o’clock in the morning, then at 3:45, and again at 4:30. He usually makes his way back inside the house by circling toward the back door, some days making the leap from the patio, up over two steps, and into the mudroom. I don’t know how he does it blind, because on occasional days he misses and slams his haunches into the metal threshold.
Sometimes I intercept him before he leaps toward an unseen destination, just to ensure he doesn’t get hurt. On most days, though, I hold my breath and let him make his own way into the house, thinking the challenge is good for maintaining his cognition. But I don’t know how the mind of a dog processes the world. One of these days he may get hurt because I put too much faith in they way I think nature can take care of herself and her creatures.
These past sixteen years, my little “mighty-mite” has done so many things that have made me question whether humans are smarter than other animals on the planet. I have no idea what kinds of knowledge, ideas, and emotions run through the gray matter of a five-pound canine—though I know he loves me, and he knows I love him, because he runs to dad when he gets shook, or when his sister-of-another-mother beats him up. I also know he likes to be devious. Several times in his life he has stopped, cocked an eye toward me to make sure I wasn’t looking when he tried something sneaky, like pull a pound of cheddar from the loaded grocery bag on the floor. Poor little guy had no idea dad had such great peripheral vision I could snatch him up just as he pulled the cheese from the bag. He got away with it once, scarfed down a whole pound of cheese before I knew what was happening and before I could stop him. The delirium in his eyes for the next two days… I thought it might cure him of the habit to rifle a loaded grocery bag for a full brick of cheese. But no. He tried several other times, when I had too many bags and needed to set a few down to get the others onto the counter; I kept my eyes wide open on my way to and from the kitchen, always getting back to the bags in the nick of time to stop him from devouring another brick of cheese.
He always seemed so disappointed to be thwarted in making off with the goods. So sometimes, just to give him a little fun, I would play a play trick on him. I would leave a grocery bag on the floor with nothing in it but a one-pound brick of cheddar. The gleam in his eyes was fun to see as he nose-dived into the bag. He did not know that, by the time he crawled to the bottom of the bag and made his way out with the corner of a pound of cheese in his teeth, I was there to snatch him up as he backed into the open. We’d wrestle for a moment, that five-pound Chihuahua and me, until I could wrench the cheese from his maw.We no longer play that game. It’s heartbreaking to watch him try to lock naked gums in a tiny mouth onto a quarter-inch-thick brick of English cheddar. I don’t think he would stop trying if I didn’t snatch him up.
Since his stroke, he’s lost weight. His ribs are visible, and his midsection is nearly invisible. But he is familiar to me, his face still looks like my boy, and there are many times when his fear and anxiety taper off and he sniffs the air trying to find me for some good ear scritches and neck rubs. There are days, though, when I wonder if the petting I give him feels uncomfortable. I’ll start scratching his back or his haunches, and he’ll lurch spastically to get away.
But then sixty seconds later he’s nuzzling my calf just to make sure it’s still me, so he can follow me around the house, the yard, the garage… .
I rescued this little fella sixteen years ago, at a time when another Chihuahua who lived with me was dying. I had emptied my music studio of all furniture to help her not get lost in a maze. It was hard enough for her not to get trapped in a corner of the room. I kept the door closed to muffle the sounds of her screaming. I was adamant that I would never put down any animal I rescued, but a guitar student of mine gave me sage advice: “the best friend is the one who can make the decision they never wanted to make.”
I swore to myself I would never “kill” a dog I rescued. But seasons change. To this day I regret making Tiva suffer my self-righteousness for so long. As she lay in my arms at the vet, and as the needle pricked into her, I will never forget the return of her little smile, and the sudden clear look that came in her cataract blinded eyes that said, “thanks, dad.”
I do not want to make the same mistake with Bluto. But for the current moments he pees (too much and can’t hold it), poops, barks incessantly when he senses someone in the kitchen, and tucks hard into my or my wife’s chest when we pick him up and give him scritches in his armpits.
I’ve seen both sides now of “should I pull the plug, or should I not.”
I think of Tiva and the disservice I did to her. At this very moment I see the joy in Bluto’s posture when he flops onto a sunspot in the house and hunkers down for a long, hot nap. I see his voraciousness when I bust up a treat onto his dish, and the way he attacks his breakfasts and his dinners. But that’s all he does. He lays in the sun until he becomes delirious and can barely walk when I wake him—and he eats. The rest of every day he whines as circles the expansive backyard or the small space of the living room—until he passes out right where he’s at.
This time, when the end has come, I will not yield to my own predilection. My wife and have decided we will pay close attention to what our little boy tells us. My boy will tell me when it’s time to “pull the plug.” I just need to be smart enough to listen, and to be willing to obey.
Addendum
August 6, 2024, my boy barked up a storm at 4:38 in the morning, and when I got downstairs to pick him up he plunged his head into my arms and chest and would not let me put him down. He told his dad what I needed to know. Bluto passed over the Rainbow Bridge, August 8, 2024. The vet who came to the house assured my wife and I that we had waited until the right time—waited until my boy told us he was ready.
I hope someone will do that for me when it’s time.