We were on Rittenhouse/Gary Rd and traffic was at a standstill at the Combs intersection. There was probably an event at the Olive Mill or something, so we had plenty of time to have the following discussion. I don't remember the exact words, but you'll get it.
Brian: "We could just go look..."
Me: "That's such a trap."
Brian: "We won't buy one, we'll just play with them.'
Me: "We can stop if you want to..."
Brian: Immediately pulls the car over to where the puppies are.
I think you know how this part of the story goes.
So we pull over and jump out of the truck. As we walk over the guy with the sign approaches us and tells us he's only got one puppy left and she's in his truck.
So we go with him to his truck and when he opens the door, this sleepy little bundle of fuzz tumbles down off the seat, clumsily makes her way to the ground and starts licking Brian's toes. (He was wearing sandals.)
I'm pretty sure for Brian it was a moment similar to when the doctor puts your first born child into your arms. He immediately fell in love with her.
...So much so that he left me with a complete stranger on the side of the road at Rittenhouse and Combs to go to an ATM and get cash and then battle traffic to get back.
The guy gave her to us for $300 which was the most Brian's bank would let him take out at one time. I don't know if the AKC papers he gave us were legit or not, but that was an incredible price for such a fantastic dog. He said it was because she was the last one of the litter and he just wanted to go home.
We drove home with her in Brian's new Avalanche. I was instructed to keep her on my lap so if she peed it would be on me and not on the truck.
She was the absolute cutest puppy and Brian was head over heels for her. I loved her too, but no one ever loved anything the way Brian loved Tess.
She went through her phases of peeing and chewing and shedding and...well the shedding wasn't a phase.
She was never more than two feet away from Brian at any given time and if he was gone to work she'd get something of his out of the laundry and carry it around or cuddle it.
We went on a cruise in 2011 and visited with my parents in Florida. We were gone for one week, and about three days in Brian told me, "This is fun, but I miss Tess. I don't want to leave her again."
She was always a little clumsy and a little derpy. She just didn't know where her body was or that her tail was in motion. She was always super excited to see... pretty much everyone. Everyone was her best friend but Brian was her soul mate.
We had a whole house full of people over to watch a football game or a movie or some such. Brian went out to get something out of his car and she sat at the door and cried until he came back.
They were so fun to watch together. She brought out the best in him. He taught her how to climb a ladder so she could get into the above ground pool at our San Tan Valley house and she would just swim and float and hang out with him. She would watch TV with him and he would take her about once a week to McDonald's to get a cheeseburger and fries. She slept at his feet every night.
When Brian got sick, Tess knew something was wrong. When he passed, we brought her in to say goodbye and although it took her a minute, she finally caught on and just laid down by his feet. She watched over his body while we called the people who needed to be called and made the arrangements that needed to be made.
She wasn't the same without him. Cooper bounced back, but Tess was really never the same. I tried to love her as much as I could and to make sure she was getting plenty of attention. I just couldn't love her the way Brian did. No one could.
Tess became very important to me after Brian died. She was a living connection to him. I got a little paranoid about her health. Anytime she slept too quietly I would check to make sure she was breathing. She had an incident where her eye got a little droopy and I thought maybe she'd had a stroke. Every time she got a little lump or bump, I would have the vet check it to make sure it wasn't anything.
I thought a lot about how I would manage her end of life care. I didn't want to cut her life short, but I didn't want to keep her away from Brian when the time came. I made that decision almost 4 years ago. She would never have surgery. She would never go through anything with an extended recovery time or that would leave her less capable of enjoying her life.
Tess was here for me when I needed her and she was an amazing and loving companion to me. We shared a soul mate and it bonded us. She was incomplete without Brian and we had that in common.
Even though I had spent so much time thinking about it, when she got sick the decision making didn't come easily.
She was bleeding in her urinary tract and we couldn't figure out why. We did test after test. Two ultrasounds and an x-ray. Urinalysis and blood work and cultures and nothing gave us even the slightest clue. All the while she was losing blood faster than her body could produce it.
Her last blood test indicated that she was still actively bleeding and that she would need a transfusion soon if it didn't stop. Their best guess was that she would need kidney surgery to stop the bleeding and I knew I wasn't going to put her through that.
The blood transfusion was my stopping point. If the problem didn't resolve and she needed a transfusion, we would just call it.
When I took her in for another blood test, she was so anemic they decided she couldn't afford to lose even a single vial of blood. She needed a transfusion.
Everyone knew what that meant, but as a Hail Mary, we tried blood pressure medication and ordered a TCM product that had had some success treating dogs with bleeding due to stomach cancer.
The thing is. She was in really bad shape.
She had no blood volume left and at some point, her heart was going to fail. I wanted to be with her when she went. I didn't want to come home from work and find her or to wake up and see that she's not breathing.
I made the appointment. I didn't wait for her medicine to arrive. No one really had any confidence that it would work. I knew the decision I was facing was unavoidable, so I made it.
I wanted her to be with Brian again. I know I did the best that I could for her, but it's harder to make a decision like that when there is a financial benefit in not doing everything that could be done. Was I really acting in her best interest or was it about the money and the stress and the inconvenience?
Regardless of motive, I believe the action taken was, in fact, in her best interest. I don't think her life would have been improved by any of the options we had in front of us.
I miss her. I miss her companionship and how she was always nearby and the sound of her tail thumping on whatever it was that she didn't know it was thumping on. The house is so quiet now, but an interesting thing has happened.
I used to get really sad looking at pictures of Tess and Brian together. I would think, "This should still exist. This is something that was right in the world and it should still exist."
After we let Tess go, looking at pictures of her with Brian makes happy. I know that they are together and when I see them in pictures I can feel that it exists again.
Links to my favorite Tess Photos and Videos:
Best of Tess Photo Album
Best of Tess Video Playlist
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| Brian was pretty sick by this point. I'm pretty sure Tess knew. |
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