From the Mouths of Dogs by B.J. Hollars

Author:B.J. Hollars [Hollars, B.J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BIO026000 Biography & Autobiography / Personal Memoirs
ISBN: 9780803284913
Publisher: UNP - Nebraska
Published: 2015-09-08T16:00:00+00:00

7

Bingo Was Her Name

Happiness is a warm puppy.

—Charles M. Schultz

A few weeks after my visit to Bob’s House for Dogs, forty-seven-year-old Emily Townsend was faced with a terrible choice. For the past few months, her beloved dog Bingo — a four-year-old Labrador-Chesapeake mix — had endured an onslaught of health issues, the combination of which had dramatically diminished the dog’s quality of life. Chief among them was a genetic ACL disorder that affected both of Bingo’s back legs, making it difficult for the dog to walk. There was no denying Bingo’s suffering, though Emily’s decision as to whether to euthanize was further complicated by her dog’s relatively young age.

“Bingo’s been a medical disaster from beginning to end,” Emily had confided in me. She and I are colleagues, and over the years we’d grown accustomed to swapping dog stories in the hallways before class. Yet prior to her admission on Bingo’s poor health, I’d had little knowledge of just how dire her dog’s situation had become.

As Emily explained, even if she were willing to shell out the $8,000 necessary to cover the cost of a pair of knee surgeries, there were other expenses to consider as well. Such as the year and a half recuperation time, which would require Bingo — and by extension, her caregiver, Emily — to be restricted to the bottom floor of their home throughout the recovery, a less-than-ideal situation for all involved.

Yet neither the economic nor the personal costs deterred Emily from the surgeries. What deterred her was the knowledge that even if the surgeries proved successful, Bingo would never again be able to run or play.

“How do you tell a dog not to run?” Emily had asked me. “How do you tell a dog not to play?”

In August, while standing outside my office door, Emily filled me in on the decision she’d ultimately reached. How, after exhausting all other options — including regular visits to a specialized veterinarian located seventy miles to the west — she’d come to the conclusion that the best she could do for Bingo was to let her go.

During a hallway run-in two months after Bingo’s death, it was clear to me that Emily was still trapped in grief’s icy embrace. Bingo’s death had proved to be a traumatic experience for her, though the trauma had less to do with the death itself than her role in it, of being placed in a situation that demanded she make an end-of-life decision for her dog.

“Anyway,” Emily said, wiping a few stray tears from her cheeks as we stood in the hallway outside my office door, “I’m not sure I’m ready for a new dog yet, but . . . keep your eyes open. You know, in case you run across anything . . .”

As I soon learned, Emily wasn’t interested in just “anything.” Having been the human companion to four wonderful dogs, her past pets had set the bar quite high. As we continued chatting, she began painting a portrait of precisely what she was looking for: a cat-loving, female black Labrador.

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