The Name of the Air

My old spaniel is winding down. She is fourteen or fifteen, at my best guess, which is toward the top of the expected lifespan for her breed, and she has slowed palpably in the last few months. She still follows me from room to room, but more slowly, now, and once she gets to the next room she immediately flops in a heap on the floor or the dog bed and doesn't move again until I do, at which point she heaves herself up again and follows me to my next destination, where she collapses again. She doesn't always finish her food; not that she ever did, but she leaves more in the bowl, more often. She no longer jumps up to greet me when I come to the door, and even her wonderful spanielly backside wiggle of a wag is subdued, these days.

I don't think she's in pain. I don't even think she's unhappy. She's got me, and a soft place to sleep, and she and the baby have come to a standoff in which they sort of mutually ignore one another. She's just old. She smells old, too, that ripe old greasy funk a really old dog exudes; within a day after a bath, she is pungent again. She went blind a few years ago, from glaucoma, and it's gotten harder and harder for her to navigate the house as time has gone on; I think her other senses are dulling a bit, and the way things (furniture, toys, whathaveyou) move around with a toddler in the house is hard on a blind dog, even if we do try really hard to put everything away as soon as we can and in the same places. I lay down on the wrong side of the bed two days ago and she tried to jump up, collided with me, and fell down in a heap - it's hard to remember that even such small patterns are essential to how she moves through the world, and I fail a lot of the time.

The thing is, I don't think there's going to be any way out of my regrets when she goes. I try to spend some time with her every day, petting her and telling her what a good dog she is, but it comes down to about five minutes, if that, between work and baby and partner and the time I take for myself. I could be petting her right now, and instead I am typing about how I don't pet her enough. I want her to know she is loved, which is just such a ridiculous human conceit; she's a dog, and she knows her place in the pack, and she knows I'm her person, and I'm not sure "loved" is a concept that even comes into her worldview. Approval, maybe, and she knows I approve of her. She isn't fretting about not being able to see, or how she's not as spry as she used to be; dogs don't really have "regret" or "nostalgia", I don't think. But I fret about it. I've loved her longer than I've loved my husband. I've loved her longer than I've loved my kid. Not better, not more, but longer, and that's important too.

I'm not going to know how to say goodbye. I keep thinking I should do more while she's here, like that will make it better, but it will never be enough. I just...I wish I could fix it for her, but I can't.

The Name Of The Air

It could be like that then the beloved
old dog finding it harder and harder
to breathe and understanding but coming
to ask whether there is something that can
be done about it coming again to
ask and then standing there without asking

— W.S. Merwin