Pure Joy

by Danielle Steel

  Even when we lose our pets in the appropriate span of time, it is never easy and always seems too soon.

  My daughter Sam lost her childhood dog, a black miniature dachshund, Mia, who reached the end of her life at fourteen. As dachshunds are prone to, in the last few months of her life, she developed severe back trouble and lost the use of her back legs. We lovingly drove her home from L.A. to San Francisco to help nurse her, and she had everything from steroids to acupuncture and improved remarkably. She could walk again! And she finally seemed well enough to go back to Sam. I was planning to drive Mia back to L.A. after well over a month with me, and Sam was jubilant at having Mia come home and at how well she was doing. And then Mia played a final trick on me. All the plans were set for the drive to L.A. the next day, with the vet’s approval, and that night, hours before her triumphant return to L.A. (which seemed miraculous given the shape she’d been in two months before), Mia died quietly in her sleep. I couldn’t believe it and was bereft for Sam. I drove to L.A. the next day anyway, and instead of handing Mia over to Sam, I had the unhappy task of telling Sam the bad news. But I wanted to tell her face to face, so I could put my arms around her and hold her when I told her. It was a terrible loss to Sam, but fortunately she still had Chiquita, the sixteen-year-old Chihuahua who had moved from New York to live with her. But we will always miss, love, and remember Mia.

  The same thing occurred when my son Maxx lost his Boston bull Annabelle, also of his childhood. She was in perfect health and never showed her age, at fourteen. She acted like a puppy, and two days before he was to leave town and join me in France, Annabelle fell gravely ill in a matter of minutes. There was no warning, no slow winding down to prepare him. She went from fine to critical condition within five minutes, with seizures. He literally flew down the hill with her in his arms, the few blocks to the vet, shocked and panicked. He spent twenty-four hours at the pet hospital with her, never leaving her side, as I got hourly reports from him in France. And much to our relief, she improved enough for him to feel comfortable leaving. There was no explanation for the seizures, except possibly her age. She appeared to be on the road to recovery. He spent a few more hours with her before he left, fed her, and held her, and he had made me promise that I would check on her through the night by phone from Paris, while he was on the plane, so I could report to him when he arrived. And once again Nature made the decision for us. Literally, as his plane took off from San Francisco, Annabelle went to sleep peacefully and never woke up. He called as soon as the plane touched down on the runway. The vet called to tell me immediately, but I lied to Maxx when he landed and called me. I couldn’t bear telling him news like that over the phone, and it nearly broke my heart to tell him when he got home to the apartment. The loss was devastating. Annabelle had been his shadow and beloved friend for fourteen years. There is no replacing the companions of our childhood.

  Sam’s dog Mia (the chocolate eater) at thirteen

  Cassio Alves

  I think too, like losing a person we have loved, that losses bring up other losses in our lives, and remind us of them, and hit us hard. I will never forget how sad Maxx was to lose his boyhood dog. (And Sam when she lost first Mia, and later Chiquita.) Annabelle and Chiquita were probably our sweetest, most loving dogs.

  Maxx grieved Annabelle terribly for the next many months, and finally I gave him the Boston bull puppy that put balm on his heart and whom he loves dearly. Annabelle will always be the boyhood dog he adored, but I’m happy to see that there is room in his heart for Nancy too.

  Losing a pet can happen peacefully or in a more traumatic way. Some animals (and people) wind down over time, and you see them show all the signs of their age, and where things are headed. And sometimes they seem to be doing so well that they take you by surprise when things take a sudden turn for the worse. If they seem to be deteriorating slowly, you have the benefit of time to prepare you. And sometimes how well they appear can be deceptive. Twice now we have been fooled by unusually spunky old dogs who literally fell apart within hours, which is much harder to adjust to, and traumatic for their owners, who just didn’t see it coming. (Again as can happen with people. My incredibly lively grandmother died almost instantly, while running between appointments and very busy with the joys of life. Although she died at an appropriate age, nearly eighty, her energy level, and how full of life she was, led us to believe she would live forever, and we were stunned by her sudden passing. The same happened with my ex-husband’s grandfather, who lived to be 103 and still had all his faculties, was very sharp, and went to the office every day. He was a remarkable person, and I think we also came to believe he was eternal. But mortality catches up with all of us eventually. Old people and dogs can fool you if they still have a lot of energy and are in good health.)

  Chiquita at fifteen, still smiling!

  Samantha Traina

  We experienced that with my daughter Sam’s second dog, Chiquita, two years after she lost Mia. Chiquita was sixteen by then, and full of bounce and energy. I loved watching her trot down the hall when she came to visit me. A vet we took her to guessed her age at eleven or twelve, when she was actually sixteen. Chihuahuas are notoriously long-lived, sometimes until twenty, and often until eighteen or nineteen. She was in perfect health, except for cataracts that became a problem two weeks before she died, and didn’t bother her until then.

  On a Sunday, she was fine, running up and down the hall, visiting everyone, and having fun. She and Sam were staying at my home, and we always enjoyed visits from Chiquita, she had no other health problems other than her eyes, and that was very recent. And on Monday morning she woke up and seemed ill, didn’t eat, and was confused and a little dazed. She’d had a full checkup only days before and had a clean bill of health, appropriate to a dog half her age. We took her to the vet that Monday morning, assuming it was something minor, but being careful because of her age.

  By lunchtime they called and said she was not doing well. She was having symptoms of a neurological problem, and her kidneys were not functioning well. And for the next thirty hours, she slid downhill so fast we didn’t know what hit us. Mercifully her kidneys failing put her in a dazed state, so she wasn’t suffering. And all our vets were hopeful that the situation would turn around. There was no warning of this sudden failure of her bodily systems, and by the next day she was in extremis, and thirty-two hours after the first sign of the problem, she was gone. We were all in shock, and poor Sam was devastated. The good news was that she didn’t suffer, and I suppose it’s better when people and dogs die quickly, don’t linger in poor health for a long time, but when it happens like that, there is no time for those of us who love them to prepare. One minute they’re fine, and the next minute they’re gone, and we are bereft. It was a hard blow for Sam, who loved her so much and assumed she had a few good years left in her, given how healthy she was.

  Chiquita’s death also brought up some issues that pet owners sometimes have to deal with. At sixteen, a great age for a dog, sometimes medical personnel can put up less of a fight to save them, and are more inclined to let nature take its course, and let them go. She got the very best medical care possible at the hospital we took her to, but the possibility of putting her to sleep came up more quickly than it might have if she were younger. My theory was, and always is, that if she wasn’t suffering (and she wasn’t), there was no need to rush to that decision. Euthanizing a dog is always an option. And saving a dog’s life can be costly, and an expense some people may not want to undertake, or aren’t able to. We wanted to fight for Chiquita’s life right till the last minute, and I didn’t like the suggestion of putting her to sleep. I wanted to give her a chance to rally, and so did Sam. The vets at the hospital cooperated with us.

  Chiquita (left) and Mia (right) when they were dignified grandes dames

  Cassio Alves

  But things went downhill so quickly that Chiquita died while Sam was rushing to the hospital to see her, having left work to do so. She was working in an
other city that day and had to get home in a hurry and take a flight to get there, and Chiquita died as the plane landed. Chiquita was so out of it by then that she wouldn’t have recognized Sam anyway. But arriving at the hospital to see a very sick dog, and instead finding one that had just passed away, was traumatic and devastating for Sam. Life happens that way sometimes, and no matter how much we wish we could, we just can’t control timing. Losing Chiquita so quickly, even at sixteen, was a shock for my daughter, and for all of us. She was such an adorable little dog. And you just don’t know when life will turn on a dime and everything changes in the blink of an eye. But it was a blessing for the dog that she was only sick for two days, and she didn’t suffer. We’re grateful for that, although we will always miss her.

  Like loving a person, loving a dog can eventually lead to heartbreak, but without question it’s worth it.

  Even if you lose a pet you love, think of getting another one, after the appropriate amount of time for you. Don’t deprive yourself of that kind of love and joy in your life. We lose people we love, and we have to be able to go on without them, no matter how difficult that is at times. You have to be able to open your heart again, or a piece of you will die with them, and that’s never a good thing. No matter how much we loved them, we have to cherish the memories, laugh at the fun we had, and love again.

  Tallulah

  Victoria Traina

  EIGHT

  A Sibling for Your Dog?

  I’m probably not the right one to write about this, considering the fact that I have nine children, and restraint has never really been my style. “Less is more” has never resonated for me, and “More is more” makes more sense. In terms of my children that theory worked out really well. And with eleven dogs and a pig at our very outrageous maximum, my perspective may be somewhat different than most.

  It all depends on what you feel you can cope with, what you can afford, what your comfort level is, and then there is the love factor too. I would have regretted it forever if I had walked away from Minnie that day. She would have haunted me, and I’m so glad I was unable to resist her. We were meant to be together.

  Sometimes I have a tendency to take on more dogs than I should—my soft heart does me in. The favorite griff I have now, Gracie, looked so sad as an “only dog,” and I really thought she needed a friend after my other two griffs died of old age. I was going to get one, but two came up for adoption at the same time, and Brussels griffons are somewhat rare, and I ended up adopting both of them within weeks of each other. And then a year later a beautiful red griff came available and I bought her, so suddenly I had four. Hope and Meg, the two I adopted, are not as exceptional and are in the “Alice” category, as I mentioned earlier. They’re really nice dogs but don’t have outstanding personalities. Or maybe they would be better on their own or in a smaller group. Gracie and Ruby would be easier and more manageable on their own. But here I am trying to do right by all of them, and they have good lives, and are well loved and cared for when I’m away. But now Minnie has my heart, and is one of those very special dogs that you fall in love with a few times in a lifetime, like Greta and Gracie, and the pug I had as a child. But I will admit that there are times when I wish I had three dogs, instead of five, when I am trying to spend time with them.

  Worse yet, only yesterday a pet shop I know in Paris, one that specializes in Chihuahuas and Yorkies, sent me photographs of a long-haired white teacup Chihuahua puppy, not quite as pretty as Minnie, but she was very sweet. I spent the day agonizing about it, severely tempted (she was so little and so cute), thinking about how hard or easy it would be to travel with a second dog. (According to my daughters, it’s not easy traveling with two dogs. I’ve never done it.) And would it be more fun for Minnie to have a little friend, or would it upset her, and is she happier alone? It’s hard to know, and I didn’t want to commit to a dog long distance without spending time with her. And what if having her around turned Minnie into a dog, like Elmer the Basset, after the arrival of Maude? Those things are hard to predict. As I mulled it over, I could already see myself with a second Chihuahua. Finally, torn in all directions, I called my vet in Paris, and for a variety of reasons, he advised me against it, and I was off the hook, and said no. Some of us just can’t resist a dog in need, or a puppy, and I seem to be one of those.

  You can’t guess how your existing dog will react to a new dog in the house. In most cases they adjust, but not always. Sometimes it simply doesn’t work.

  My daughter Victoria moved to New York with her Chihuahua and got a second one. And the first one, Chiquita, liked neither their New York apartment nor her new sibling, Tallulah, and my daughter was suddenly constantly refereeing between two warring dogs, one of whom was sulking over her new home, and Victoria felt severely torn between the two. Her older sister Samantha offered to step into the breach and babysit Chiquita for a while. (We all babysit each other’s dogs if the dogs are sick, or their owners have to travel.) So Sam took Chiquita to L.A., and don’t ask me why, but Chiquita absolutely loved it, was ecstatically happy, and got on perfectly with Sam’s miniature dachshund, Mia. It was again one of those matches meant to be made. I’m sure Victoria missed Chiquita, but she saw her often at family events, and Chiquita was so happy with Sam that she moved in and stayed. And she and Sam were inseparable for the rest of Chiquita’s life. She lived more than a decade with Sam. It was a switch that really worked, for both owners and the dog. And Victoria’s Tallulah was much happier as an only dog. Sometimes, as an owner, you have to make a sacrifice for the well-being of the dog. Some dogs don’t do well in groups or with a “sibling.”

  My son Maxx was faced with a difficult sibling situation too. He had his beloved Boston bull terrier, Annabelle, who was his shadow and went everywhere with him. Although she had boundless energy, she was still of a certain age, and had her habits and routine as an “only dog.” Trouble started when he got an English bulldog puppy, who had all the exuberance and energy of the puppy she was, and the subtlety of a Sherman tank with her powerful bulldog body. She was physically much bigger, tougher, and stronger than Annabelle, even as a puppy. And she drove Annabelle totally nuts, leaping on her, tugging at her face, pushing her off the bed, and when all else failed, lying on top of her slobbering on her and playing rough. Annabelle looked as though she had been sentenced to torture. Nowhere that Annabelle went to hide from her was safe. The bulldog would find her, leap on her, and want to play some more. Annabelle looked like an old lady being mugged on the subway by a juvenile delinquent. The trainer who tried to calm the bulldog finally told my son that if he wanted to give Annabelle a miserable old age, he could keep the bulldog, but out of respect for Annabelle and her long years with him, she advised giving the bulldog puppy away. Annabelle could not adjust to a sibling. It was a hard decision, and he really enjoyed the funny bulldog he had named Noelle. But he loved Annabelle unreservedly, didn’t want her to be unhappy, and she really was no match for Noelle, who meant her no harm but seemed like she was going to “play her to death.” Maxx bravely searched for another home for the English bulldog puppy, with the help of the trainer. She moved on to a family that had a male bulldog who looked like her twin, and had the same energy level—he was named Meatball. Meatball and his family seemed perfect for Noelle, and they got on famously and have since grown up together. The right match for the dog was made, although a sacrifice for Maxx. I was very proud of him for doing the right thing for both dogs, Annabelle and Noelle.

  Love in any form is a crapshoot, whether with people or dogs. People change, or turn out not to be what you expected, and sometimes so do dogs. If you buy a puppy, you can’t tell what it will be like as an adult dog, or be sure what its personality will be. And if you adopt an adult dog, you may find you have a gem, or you could wind up with problems created by someone else. It’s good to try and find out why the owner is giving them up. Because they’re moving away or have health problems themselves, or is there something wrong with the dog? Rescue dogs
can be wonderful, but some have issues too, particularly if they were abandoned or abused.

  Obviously, I miss having children around me and devoting my life to them. My life is very different now that my children have grown up, even with one still at home. There are different chapters in our lives. And in these current chapters, I have more time for me. For years, I was too busy to read magazines, never had lunch with friends, didn’t go to the hairdresser. I was either taking care of kids, or my husband, or writing books. Now I have time to do the things I haven’t done for years, and sometimes it’s actually fun.

  And at this point in my life, I have time for dogs. So probably taking on another dog doesn’t seem daunting to me. For a woman with nine kids, how scary can two Chihuahuas be? But would another dog be good for Minnie? Particularly one of her own size and breed. Dogs instinctively gravitate to dogs of their same breed. Right now I decided no, but if I fell in love with another one, would I be able to resist? Maybe not. I don’t know. Or maybe reason would prevail. It is certainly easier traveling with one dog. And Minnie is so used to being the center of attention now, I’m not sure how well she would adjust. I have a feeling that Minnie likes being an “only” dog.