TW: pet loss, grief, mention of dog attack. This might be a long one, I'm unpacking a lot right now.
Almost 2 years ago (February), I had to say goodbye to my very special and beloved pug, Blynken. I had her since I was 17... she was a stray who came into my life from the underside of my neighbor Eliot's Ford Focus. She was hard to capture, but I received a text from another neighbor, Riley, one night while I was at ballet:
RILEY: I have your dog!
ME (thinking he was talking about our family lab, Peppermint): ??? just send her back home
RILEY: the pug you tweeted about.
Riley, his brother, and his friend Colton - all athletes - had triangulated Blynken like a little football and captured her before she could get into trouble or hurt during the coming January storm. When I arrived, still in my pink tights, she was hanging out in their garage. Big eyes, sweet and soft puppy fur... such an innocent expression. She had been timid with everyone else, but she let me pick her up.
I didn't let go until the day we had to say goodbye. I was actually really intense, protective, and precious about her. We didn't do tons of walks because I was afraid of her overheating, I didn't take her everywhere or make her a patio dog even though she was fine whenever we did those things because I didn't want her to have to deal with strangers. I don't think I really treated her like a dog, cuz I didn't really see her as a dog. But she was a dog. I just really made her my world, and tried to protect her from everything.
As I learned with Blynken, you can try to protect the things you love... but the world will still happen to them. To live a life is to have things happen to you! But scary things happened to her all the time, and I think that is part of why I was so clingy with her. She survived at a few cancer scares, eating a huge weed cupcake (ugh I feel so bad even remembering it), severe pneumonia, and (most important to this story, and her most famous near-death experience) an attack by a neighbor's dog. So she was living on lots and lots of borrowed time. Each incident made me more protective, and less able to relax about my dog's safety. I was so paranoid she would eat a grape, develop diabetes, or idk. Get attacked again. Thankfully she didn't know I was paranoid, and she had a lot of fun cuddling, being cozy, and living her life with me, despite my overprotectiveness. And after a long year of severe cognitive decline throughout 2023, it was our choice to let her go in the living room of our apartment in Chicago in 2024. I accept the life I gave her even if it was protective, because it was our life, and we really took care of each other. She was my unconditional friend.
Now that it's been almost two years, I felt open to the idea of a new dog with Jess, despite turning them down again-and-again-and-again.
Suddenly, on January 10th, I guess it was time. We adopted a new puppy from a shelter in the suburbs. We met her and brought her home. A beautiful, black and white baby girl we named Minnow. And it's like everything in me cracked wide open.
The thing is, Blynken's cognitive decline was really painful for me. I watched a really beloved pet become super fearful of everything, pacing, and crying. I had to clean up so many messes, and spent thousands and thousands of dollars I didn't have at the vet to try and help her. Once she passed, I think I had to pack up her death into a little corner of my memory and just leave it at that. [to be continued. I need to take a break from writing this ♥]