The definition of euthanasia is simple: death by injection for a terminally ill pet. Of course, it’s much more complicated than that.
No wonder there are so many euphemisms for the final exit. We talk about "putting a dog to sleep" or "putting him down" or "taking him to the rainbow bridge," a reference to "Rainbow Bridge," a popular (and anonymous) poem that describes the peaceful place "just this side of Heaven" where our animals go to wait for us.
All this was driven home for me the morning of Nov. 2, 2002. That’s when my oldest dog, Daisy, died in my arms.
I’ll never know her true age. I adopted Daisy in 1994 from the ASPCA—actually, she adopted me. She always had a bossy, imperious attitude that moved me to nickname her "Miss Dog." To improve her chances of adoption, I’m convinced that the scheming bitch tampered with her paperwork to lie about her age. ASPCA records said she was 1 year old; 6 was more like it.
When she came home, circumstances had just forced me to start freelancing—a daunting proposition for someone accustomed to a regular job. One day, I noticed how Daisy made short work of a massive chew-bone. Most dogs would have taken a week, maybe two, to polish it off; Daisy took just two hours.
I thought, If only I could work like that.
Duly inspired, I wrote like my living depended on it—and my favorite subject was my dog. A muse with four legs and a tail, Miss Dog rapidly became a media hound, her name and image appearing in The New Yorker, Allure, Travel & Leisure, Redbook, Vogue Paris, and The New York Post.
She dominated the media, but food was Daisy’s first love, notably poultry, especially gourmet roast chicken. Following her lead, I began writing about food, too; an article I wrote for Food & Wine began with (who else?) Miss Dog. Thanksgiving was Daisy’s kind of holiday: she’d spend all day by my parents’ oven, keeping watch over "her" bird.
Still, Daisy wasn’t above scavenging, which occasioned her narrow escape from the Death Angel’s grip. She’d grabbed a chicken carcass in Saint Vartan’s Park, then slipped her collar, dashing away with her trophy across Second Avenue and 36th Street. A taxicab promptly bounced off her midsection. That night at the Animal Medical Center, the prognosis was grim.
The very next morning, Daisy was back home and everything was fine. I sometimes wonder how the cab fared.
But the Death Angel returned, and this time it was personal. Daisy had been incontinent for weeks. It was a cruel twist: my Lady Paws, who always looked for sidewalk grates so her dainty feet would never touch urine, was waking up every morning in a puddle of her own. She spent hours furiously licking herself clean. There was outrage in her eyes.
She couldn’t hold down food—not even roast chicken. Daisy’s kidneys had completely failed. All she had to look forward to was further deterioration and indignity.
It was time to take Miss Dog to the Bridge.
The night of Nov. 1, Daisy took a Pepcid-AC tablet to ensure she’d hold down her last chicken supper. In the morning, at the hospital, the vet installed a catheter in Daisy’s wobbly left foreleg so expertly, Daisy wagged her tail approvingly, as if to say, Check out this chic bracelet! She walked around, greeting new people in the waiting room. Then I followed her into an exam room, where she lay down on a blanket. We spent a few quiet minutes together—it was important that Daisy not see me cry—then the vet came in to administer the final injections.
Daisy went limp. Her heart stopped, but her eyes stayed open, her tongue protruding from her mouth. I couldn’t stop petting Miss Dog and saying "I’m sorry." But it took me a while to tear up, because the procedure had been so deceptively easy, and so positive, I’d forgotten to cry.
Daisy made a writer out of me. Did she do it to ensure herself a feature-length eulogy? I wouldn’t put it past her.
