Nine Years.

Photo copyright Wings, 2020; all rights reserved.

It's been nine years tonight. Technically, not until 10:42 PM, and actually, I think that was before they moved up DST so drastically, so even that's probably not right. But because of the lateness (and the bitter cold right now, too), I took care of her resting place, take her cedar and tobacco and water, before we came in for the evening.

Dom was another accidental dog, like her sister. And she owned us all, thoroughly. She had been used as a bait dog before she came to me, and she had the slash marks on her forehead to prove it. Also a broken left front ankle that had been left untreated; the rescue vet (again, before she found me) rebroke it, fused it, and allowed it to get badly enough infected that, a few days after coming to me, it was swollen and bleeding again. They feigned ignorance. 

I took care of it. As always.

It wasn't too long before it didn't really cause her much pain, but it had been broken for so long before any attempt at mending it was made that it had withered; no muscle tone, no ability to hold her full weight, although eventually she would be able to put some weight on it again, enough to run full-out with her sibs, enough to do the doggy version of a handstand when she wanted to follow her brother's lead and mark turf on a lamppost, and couldn't figure out any other way to hike the necessary parts high enough. She was a grubby little thing who loved both eating and rolling in the deadest things you could find, and she was also a little princess who preened in her rhinestone-studded pink collar and pink glamour-girl sweater.

And she worked it all for all it was worth.

When, in the early months of 2011, I had to leave for about five weeks, she and the others stayed behind to keep Wings company. We had no clue anything was wrong; she was her usual hyperactive self, and she wrapped Wings that much more tightly around her paw by deigning to ride on the back of the ATV with him.

And a few days after I got back, she developed what looked like insect bites on her head, around her ears. Nothing worked on them, and then suddenly she developed a grossly-distended stomach. At the vet, someone inadvertently referred to the adorable "little pregnant dog," not realizing what we had already figured out and the ultrasound would confirm. In the space of a week, she went from appearing utterly healthy to being visibly riddled with tumors, which told us they'd been growing for some time . . . probably since the point, two summers prior, when we'd used that stupid topical treatment on them all.

Dommy was the first to go.

On this night nine years ago, it became obvious around ten o'clock, a little before, that the time was here. It was too late to call anyone. And so I sat on the cold floor of that toxic tin can and I held in her my arms and on my lap, and let her slip away a little over forty minutes, safe in my arms. And I wept the whole time.

She was the first to be laid to rest in the spot most of them now share, a long, wide strip of beautifully shaded land beneath the big blue spruce, with wild sunflowers and Guatemalan sage and wild raspberries. And, of course, the space she still occupies in the hole in our hearts.

We love you, Dommers. You're with us, every day.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2020; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.