On June 2, 2000, two sweet Yorkie babies came into our lives. Ten weeks old and weighing around two pounds each, they had no difficulty wrapping themselves around our hearts. One boy. One girl. Brother and sister. Litter mates. Fluff and sweet puppy breath and boundless love.
The previous week, my Yorkie girl of 14 years -- Cami -- had slipped the ties of body and earth, her muzzle nestled against my neck. I felt her last breath, then she was gone. Although I suspected in the few weeks prior to her passing that her end was near, I couldn't know that everything would happen so quickly. Yet it did. And I was devastated.
My husband and I had once said, "No more dogs," when she passed, but the void left demanded to be filled. So exactly one week after she left us, we visited a pet store and found three sweet Yorkies clamboring over themselves to claim our love. All from the same litter, they told us. Two boys and one girl. I chose one of the boys. My second daughter chose the little girl and said she was too sweet not to take home. Besides, we all reasoned, it was selfish to have a lone dog for those times we left home, if only for a few hours. The two Yorkies could keep one another company. That's how we came home with Lucy and Ernie.
I had forgotten what it was like to have puppies around -- chewing anything their jaws fit around, peeing indiscriminately on the carpet, training (or rather, trying to). Having two increased the difficulty of them learning their own names. Most of the time we just called them "Babies!" or "Puppies!" and they responded. Besides being carpet-ruining, peeing machines, they both possessed sweet spirits so innocent that I couldn't stay angry for long.
Lucy is on the right, always so silkie and silver. Ernie's coat shone thick and dark, until about a year before he passed when his fur noticeably thinned.
March of 2011 we noticed a large lump on Lucy's chest. The vet removed it -- cancer, he said, adding that it would come back within a year, and she probably had 18 months to two years at most. The following February, her front legs gave out suddenly on a Saturday afternoon and she suffered seizures off and on. We took her to the emergency vet the next morning. Without xrays, most likely a brain tumor, the vet said, adding the seizures would come more often and increase in severity. Best to put her to sleep, she said with the utmost sympathy. As those trusting brown Eeyore eyes looked into mine, I couldn't make that decision. I couldn't have those eyes staring up at me as we chose to end her life. We took her home. The vet was right, of course. The seizures continued. Five hours later we returned to the vet's. Lucy was mid-seizure when the drugs entered her body and ended the suffering.
I was bereft. May of 2011 I had been forced to retire by my body betraying me with disease. Lucy was my stalwart companion, rarely leaving my side, demanding cuddles and falling asleep across my chest numerous times. She earned her title of ultimate lap dog. Ernie loved me, but he was everybody's buddy. Lucy's especially. Where she was, you found him too. After her death, I not only coped with my own loss, but his grief as well. For the next three to four days, he trotted from room to room throughout the house and searched for her. When he couldn't find her anywhere, he demanded to go outside and roam the yard. Picking up on her pee scent sent him running around, sure he could find her. Eventually, he realized only his humans were left so he'd make the best of it. And I was glad I had one remaining Yorkie furbaby to love and cuddle.
When not calling him by his given name, we'd refer to him as E-Boy, Buddy, Little Guy, Good Boy, or simply Puppers.
At the age of twelve, and minus his sister, Ernie became a paradox -- the quintessential old man with his fixed ways and habits, yet a puppy too, leaping from ottoman to chair to couch with the vigor and strength of one many years younger. Squirrel chasing tapered off, not for lack of desire, but for cataracts slowly diminishing his sight. His hearing also slowly went by the wayside, though he never totally lost it.
As to habits, he rose when he wanted, snuggling into our bed's warmth until good and ready to leave it. To go outside and tend to his business, he rattled the vertical blinds by ramming his head into them, then backing away and staring down the nearest human. Or he simply stared. As in, stood a few feet away and stared at you until you got up and asked what he wanted.
We lovingly and jokingly referred to this as "The Pose." As in, "Ernie's in The Pose." Not sure why he did this, but he looked darn cute when he did.
My husband and I traveled to the Midwest in May of this year, taking Ernie with us. My lap was his perch for the trip. Along with his yellow blankie, of course.
When my husband fixed his own daily lunch of a sandwich and chips, he slipped bits of meat, cheese, and chips to E-Boy. Soon, we prepared a little lunch all his own of cut-up lunchmeat-of-the-day and a few bites of cheese. Ernie's inner clock focused on 11:30 am for lunch, so if Jim wasn't in the kitchen at that time, the little guy started bugging us with a low woof in case we forgot just what time it was. Around 4:00 pm, we fed him an additional treat. His inner clock soon attuned itself to that as well, resulting in the same woof reminder. Dry food remained in a bowl for him to eat whenever. Two in the morning seemed to be his preferred munching time.
Ernie usually woke us around 3:00 a.m. to go out to pee, then settled back in until 7:00 a.m. or thereabouts. Jim was the middle-of-the-night guy; I was the morning person. I quickly learned that in the morning, Ernie would pee in the grass, then come back onto the lanai and trot all the way around the pool only to go right back out and poo. If I brought him into the house right after his pee, Jim or I would find the stinky tootsie roll soon after. Ernie trained me well.
In the evening around 9:00 pm, our furbaby decided it was bedtime. If we weren't in bed, he jumped onto the sofa beside one of us and scratched a paw against one of our arms. This became his signal for "Cover me up because I'm ready to go to sleep." We'd grab a small yellow blanket and do just that as he laid down the length of a person's thigh and proceed to go to sleep. If I was in bed, the same scratching motion meant he wanted under the covers, where he positioned himself against my body and slept.
Not long before his passing.
About two years old. Full grown, though still very much a puppy.
Throughout the day, Ernie either laid in his special doggie bed beside my desk as I wrote on the computer, or he laid by Jim on the sofa--usually on the same little yellow blanket mentioned earlier. Occasionally, Jim would cover him up. Ernie was definitely a Florida dog and despised the cold. We had a doggie sweater and sweatshirt for him. In November he'd begin shivering from the "chillier" temps, so the sweater went on. Either sweater or sweatshirt covered him until February or March. In that same vein, if a spot of sun shone on the carpet or elsewhere, he did his best to take advantage of the warmth.
I placed his bed in the sun one morning. Of course he promptly got in and laid down.
Although we always had problems with Ernie building up matter from his eyes, the right eye had more trouble. Last Thursday I noticed a swelling under that eye and promptly called the vet. The next morning the vet said he could have an abscess from a tooth and showed me the heavy tartar. They could clean his teeth that day so I left him there. At 4 o'clock I picked him up, awake and alert. Plus his breath smelled wonderful.
The next morning, he was also fine. During the afternoon, Ernie seemed to have some difficulty breathing, as if laboring, and he slept more than usual. By the evening, he struggled to breathe, so my husband and I rushed him to the emergency vet. Radiographs showed a very enlarged heart -- the result of chronic heart failure, the vet said. His lungs were also perfused with cloudiness, though she couldn't say from what. I asked her pointedly if his condition was treatable. Her answer? "We can make him comfortable." Translation: Treatable? No.
My husband and I made the difficult decision to put him to sleep. I told him to call our daughter and see if she wanted to be present. Yes, she said, I'm on my way.
They took us to the same room where we watched Lucy's life slip away while I held her 2-1/2 years prior. A vet tech brought Ernie, a light blue blanket wrapped around him. An oxygen tank sat nearby as Jim held the end of the tube near to Ernie's nose so he could breathe decently. We both told our little guy how very much we loved him and how much joy he had brought to our family for all those years. Carly arrived and spent time holding him too and saying her goodbyes. We let the vet know we were ready. But how ready are you ever? I wasn't. The thought of losing him killed me. But it also killed me to see him suffer struggling to breathe. I held this sweet tiny companion as the vet administered the medications. Carly thought she was going to be sick and dashed out of the room. Within a minute dear Ernie was gone, my sobs filling the air. It was after midnight Sunday morning, September 7th, 2014.
Later, Jim and Carly told me the vet's eyes were filled with tears. She hugged each of us, and left so we could say our final goodbyes. Eventually, the vet came back. We cradled Ernie's body as we handed him over to her. Along with his little yellow blanket. We told her to make sure they wrapped him in that blanket before they put him in the little box that would carry him to our home.
We buried him later that day in our backyard, just beyond the pool screen so I can feel close to him when I'm out there. Yet I know it's only his little failed mortal body lying under the dirt. His spirit has gone elsewhere. And that is what I miss the most.
.JPG)
