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Luca slipped away peacefully with his face pressed to mine on Sunday morning. It was the very last thing I could give him in his wonderful 8.5 years with me, and the hardest thing I have ever had to do.
Dog people know what I mean when I say that Luca was “the one.” No dog in my lifetime has ever been as close to me or meant as much. We were soul mates from the moment he picked me. He really did pick me. At the breeder's house, she let loose a litter of 10 that scampered around her living room, all 5-week-old balls of energy and fuzz. One very confident pup walked right over to me seated on the floor and climbed into my lap.
Luca was the dog that made me a dog person. There’s no way I could ever have been able to manage a pack of dogs in my house if the first one had not been him. He helped me teach each new one, serving as the perfect role model, never needing to assert the clear position he had in the pack. He didn’t need to.
Luca traveled the country on our annual summer road trips. He saw Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, swam in the Gulf of Mexico and the lakes of Minnesota and Michigan's U.P. He even posed for a picture at the southernmost tip at Key West. The photo in the link above is of him in his prime with me in the mountains somewhere, maybe Colorado. The memory of my pride in this photo has lasted much longer than the details of the location.
He dabbled at sports. We spent one summer taking sheep herding lessons. He had fun at nose work seminars. And for the last several years, he’s enjoyed a weekly agility class, though he never trialed, and mostly went along because he knew it was fun for me and the other dogs. We took long hikes to the park nearly every week, and shorter walks through our city neighborhood. It was a rare outing that someone didn’t stop to comment on how handsome he was. To which I always replied, “Thank you,” even though I had nothing to do with his drop-dead gorgeous good looks.
He was the kindest, deepest, most patient soul. He could catch ice cubes in his mouth, and would play dead like a vaudeville ham if you fired a pistol-shaped finger at him. And every night he would hop on the bed for belly rubs.
Last Wednesday, he went in to our vet for his annual checkup. Other than a little diarrhea, which was already clearing up on its own, there were no complaints. He was feeling and acting perfectly fine. The vet palpated his abdomen and found what she thought were some lumps that shouldn’t be there. She tried to show me how to feel for them, but I couldn’t feel them. She took an x-ray while I waited and showed me three or more large gray masses. She also had us come back the next day for an ultrasound which confirmed the worst possible diagnosis: advanced metastatic hemangiosarcoma, with multiple tumors on his spleen and his heart. Treatment wasn’t possible.
Our vet told us that based on the advanced stage of the tumors and their location, Luca had perhaps a month, at most, but wanted us to understand that he could go quickly and at any moment. Hemangiosarcomas are tumors formed of cancerous blood vessel cells, which grow and fill with blood. If one of these tumors breaks, the internal bleeding would cause death. Alternatively, they could continue to grow so large that he would be unable to breathe. Because there are no symptoms of this disease, it is almost never discovered until it is too late. For most owners, the first clue is the collapse of the dog. In this respect, the small comfort we had was a little time to understand what was happening, and to prepare. We hoped to spend a final week with him filled with everything he loved and had already made the heartbreaking decision: an appointment for euthanasia next week.
On Saturday, just two days after the diagnosis, we took Luca and the whole pack for a long ride to a State Park where we took a walk through the woods on a horse trail. On the way home, we stopped at Sonic where Luca shared a cheeseburger. That evening, a friend came by to see us and Luca. He was still in such good spirits it was hard for any of us to really understand just how sick he was.
Saturday night at bedtime, one of the tumors in his abdomen began to bleed. It was obvious to me what was happening; I could feel the fluid collecting in his belly. I stayed awake with him all night, stroking him, thinking, hoping, he would simply fade away at home.
On Sunday morning, we got up, he ate a little breakfast, then went outside on his own to pee and poop. Thank goodness he still had that dignity. We drove the half hour to the emergency hospital where I explained what was going on and what I wanted for him.
In a little private examination room there, on a cool tile floor, he lay down and rested his head in my lap. They left us alone for a while and I stroked him and thanked him. In his last moments, before they injected the drug that would stop his heart, I laid on the floor with him, with his face touching mine. He was gone in an instant. There was no noise. No last breath. No tremor. Only release.
I know that telling this story has only been for myself. I’m crying as I type this, and hoping that by jotting down these memories it might help me to hold on to them. To keep that last day in my memory. Eight and a half years. It’s only 3000 days that I had with this beloved creature. How many of those days can I recall? How I wish I had made the effort to make every one of them special.
In the end, the feeling that overwhelms me when I remember Luca is pride. I was proud that he was mine, proud of the person I became with him in my life, and proud of the life I was able to give him.
Thank you, fellow Leerburg board members, for always being here for great advice, good friendship, and for being among the only people I know who truly understand the meaning of this loss.
Cinco | Jack | Fanny | Ellie | Chip | Deacon 
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