The economy and wisdom of nature can be sublime.
Daxter, our 12-year-old Rottweiler, knew his time had come. When he went out to the back yard and crawled under a bush on a cold Wednesday night, Grandma called my office at church and “suggested” I come home.
“I think he’s dying,” she said in a voice that insisted without speaking, “other things can wait.”
When I arrived, Jake had beat me to the house and had carried Daxter in from the back yard. Grandma and Jake were cleaning him up, but he seemed to be alert enough. We already had an appointment for him at the vet early Thursday morning. He had been coughing.
When I arrived, Nancy described how Daxter had gone out in the cold and laid down under some bushes. He did not respond when she called. Jake had carried him into the house just before I got home. Nancy said she did not want him to freeze to death.
During the night he went outside several times, and on at least three occasions, went again into the bushes and lay down. It was as though he was waiting for a visitor he knew would come. We brought him back in each time. As Nancy expressed concern about him freezing, I thought, “freezing is not such a bad way to go.”
His behavior reminded me of something I had once read about the Lakota people. When a brave felt that he had reached his last winter, he would leave camp, go out into the wilderness, and die.
So I wondered, “Should we just let him go outside and choose his way to go? Are we being selfish by bringing him inside each time.?” He went outside for the last time about 3:30 in the morning. After a while we went out and found him once again, on the ground under a bush. Nancy spread a blanket on our bedroom floor, and I carried him back in. We sat on the floor next to him, talking to him. His breathing was labored. He really looked fatigued this time.
I wondered what he was thinking. Was he going outside out of respect for the house? Did he not want to make a mess, be a mess, indoors?
We began to discuss whether we should wait for the 8 a.m. appointment or take him to an all-night clinic. Nancy called Acres North, and they gave us the number of an all-night place and warned us it would be expensive. By now it was after 5 a.m. We decided to take our friend to the all-night clinic, but that we should call Jake first.
Jake had not been sleeping well, either. By the time he arrived it was almost 6, and we were discussing the morning obligations we had for various grandchildren and getting them to school. Jake loaded Daxter into my car, and Nancy drove. I would use Nancy’s car to take Lily to school at 7:20. I started working on some e-mail and getting things ready for Thursday classes and meetings.
Before 7, Nancy was back. I only heard / understood part of it: “Daxter was gone.” It was inevitable. We had been talking the last few months about how old he was for his breed. All through the night I had felt that he knew it was his time. Now it was done. I put my head down, and cried for the loss of a wonderful creature, a friend, a part of the family. He breathed his last just as they reached the clinic.
We put the blanket in the garden cart and lifted his body out of the back of my car into the cart, and then wrapped him in the blanket. We wheeled him into the side yard and began digging a grave next to places Daisy and Julie – the Schnauzers who had raised him – were buried.
Nancy went to take Lily from seminary to her bus stop, and Jake and I started digging. When Nancy got home, she called Ben, and before long, there were three of us digging. Soon, Ani came over with the baby.
When the pit was getting too deep to dig without standing inside it, we squared it off and lowered Daxter into the ground. With all of us there, we had a prayer of thanksgiving for the blessings he had brought into our family. He gave the lie to the bad rap Rottweilers seem to have. A kinder, gentler, sweeter animal I have not known. He was that way with children, with other dogs, and even with adults. We said “farewell.” Then we shoveled the dirt onto him. and started the rest of the day.
He knew it was his time. He went out to the bushes to die. Did we do the right thing? Were we selfish for bringing him in out of the cold?
