Iggy
Iggy’s 13 years old now, and she’s finally starting to show the signs of a “geriatric” dog. She’s lost a lot of her hearing, so she startles when she’s sleeping and you suddenly sit next to her to feed her her heart medicine hidden in a piece of cheese, or walk in the front door and rouse her from her deep dream state enjoyed on her special pillow. The transition has been kind of shocking because she’s always been so alert and ready for anything. Before she’d smell that cheese from 3 rooms away, or be waiting at the front door (surely minutes before I arrived at home) upon hearing my truck door slam outside. She even lets strangers in the house now, with a minimal amount of the ankle-grazing that used to last for a least a half an hour when a new person (or those people she didn’t feel an affinity towards) came around. You can still rely on her for a random nose-in-the-crotch stealth attack with new people, so she hasn’t lost all her zest, but for the most part, she’s pretty much not interested.
Because she is an amazing creature, still, and because we have spent all of her 13 years on earth together minus her first three months, and because I know our time left together is extremely limited (apparently dogs with enlarged hearts don’t have very long life expectancies), I have decided that Iggy, in her final days, can do and have whatever she wants. This means unlimited treats (not the crappy kinds from pet stores) of whatever she likes, in unlimited quantities. She’s always been a dainty eater so won’t overdo it to the point of making herself sick, but I let her have what she wants until she is satiated. So she gets lots meat that I collect from people’s plates at the restaurant before scraping their dishes clean, and lots of other things like cashews (her favorite) and egg yolks and Annie’s Cheese Puffs. It’s especially entertaining to watch her eat the cheese puffs one by one, and listen to the satisfying crunch, and see the glee on her face when she sees that, yes, she can have another one after she gobbles down the last, until she just doesn’t want anymore. I would never do this in the past because…well, it’s not good for her, right? And spoiled dogs are irritating. But things are different now. This is also a costly proposition, but how can I not give everything I possibly can to this being who has given me so much?
Another rule I have let bend is bed-sleeping. My yard is dusty, and so is Iggy after afternoons spent digging holes (a new pastime) and burying things in it. But she likes to sleep at the foot of the bed. So I let her. I do draw the line at the pillow zone, as there does need to be some demarcation between hygiene and love for one’s dog, and she tends to try to rub her dusty snout in the cracks where the pillows meet…I love, love, love her but still forbid the pillowcase as snout-napkin scenario and probably always will. Anyway, she can rub her snout in between the sofa pillows if she really has to. Oh yes, she’s allowed on the sofa.
And walks around the neighborhood used to revolve mainly around where I wanted to go and what I wanted to see, or what errand I needed to run, and so were limited both in time and geography by what I determined. Lately I have decided to let Iggy determine our trajectory and the length of our walk. I make sure I leave plenty of time open before I need to return home so that she’ll get her fill and not feel deprived of something when we start to turn back. And I wait for her to sniff whatever she wants, for however long she wants because…god damn it, that is living! And our new style of walk, while sometimes posing a great challenge to my ability to remain patient, has also brought to me some wonderful gifts. A few weeks ago, following Iggy’s route (upon her insistence, as she has now quite willingly adapted to this new regime and will have it no other way, unless I really plead with her) we found ourselves in front of a building that had dozens of olive trees in full fruit-thousands of beautiful, plump, black olives, many of which were falling on the sidewalk waiting to get swept away and tossed in trash later in the day. I’ve always wanted to try my hand at curing olives but never seemed to have the time. On this day, because Iggy called the shots and I had enough time to not worry about having to get back home right away, I had the time. I knocked on the door of the building (which used to be a private residence but was recently converted into a contractor’s office) and asked if I could harvest the some of their olives. They were very gracious and said yes, and Iggy waited patiently while I gathered the best looking ones, depositing them into her would-be pooper scooper plastic bag (luckily it was not needed for the duration of the walk). While I harvested, one of the contractors came out to chat with me, telling me the history of the trees that were over a hundred years old, and the people they were planted by, a Forbes and someone else whose name I can’t remember right now, who had brought these trees from Europe and who later had buildings named after them on the University of Arizona campus. The olives are curing in brine right now, and we’ll see how they turn out.
On another walk, Iggy became entranced by a pile of leaves that had an irresistible and, apparently, inexhaustably fascinating smell, and so I just stood around for several minutes until she had had enough. I was getting bored. Just then I looked up at a pedestrian crossing sign (truly, I was bored) and noticed something different about it. It was hula-hooping. Someone had placed a decal on it and our pedestrian was doing the hula hoop! I busted out laughing, something I hadn’t done in a while (or at least not yet that day) because…well, it was funny!
This is what it looked like. I found out the other day that it’s a String Cheese Incident thing. But in the moment it was just hilarious. And I never would have noticed, before.
It’s unsettling to think that there will be a time sooner than later when Iggy will be no more. I’m trying to just savor every moment we have until then, and to make her life as happy and enjoyable as possible while she still can enjoy it. It’s weird to think that something you love so much, that has been in your life for so long, will soon leave you. It’s not the the first time for me, and as mortals living amongst other mortals, it is something we will all experience. And it’s strange to see her morph into something slower, more delicate, and more vulnerable. Age spares nothing, I guess. But what a lesson in accepting what is, and loving it, and ultimately, letting it go, she is teaching me. She has been a gift, and will always be.
But she’s still around, for now, and tomorrow we will be going to the store and stocking up on cheese puffs, and cashews.
1 year ago