December is turning out to be a  bittersweet month for us.

Not tomorrow, probably not this week, and maybe not next week, but soon we will have to say goodbye to Magnolia Moose Pickle (aka Maggie, Large Marge, Farticus, Stinky, Magpie, Magda…).

It’s a bummer that a  dog’s life is so much shorter than ours. In a lifetime, that can add up to a lot of goodbyes. She will be the 5th one we’ve had to let go in the last 10 years. It doesn’t make it easier; but it does give you more perspective on why it becomes important to let them go sooner, rather than later.

Maggie came to us in early 2000. It was a cold, blustery March evening, and pitch dark. Some nice people on their way into town had hit her on the highway; there was no way they could have seen her. She was lying in a ditch with icy water. She would have died.

They came to our house to see if she was ours. Soon, she was. We collected her out of the ditch and brought her home to our basement. To warm her up, I fed her chicken noodle soup. To this day, she still drools, always hoping… 😉

She was in bad shape; she was in heat, wormy, had the mange, her pelvis cracked in 3 places. She’d had puppies at some point, and her tummy still sagged. Who knows what happened to them. The vet said she was about 2 years old.

When you rescue a dog, you can sometimes piece together their history by their behavior. She wore a choke chain; we surmised that she’d been kept on a chain, tormented/teased by older children, and abused by someone (or several someones) in a big heavy coat. Her body healed; her spirit took a little longer.

Dr. Wayne Dyer calls people who come  into your life to teach you lessons ‘scurvy elephants.’ Maggie was our scurvy elephant.

She taught us patience.

She taught us that sometimes what you see on the outside is not what’s really there.

She taught us that love really can wear down rough edges.

She taught us that while you never forget really, really bad things, it is possible to forgive.

She showed us that she had a large vocabulary, and that she could actually understand words, and names.

She showed us that really, she would have preferred to be an only child.

She was a Doofus Maximus; big, goofy, with a sense of humor and she loved to tease. You could always tell she was teasing by the way she held her ears.  She was naturally loud, boisterous, and an incredible escape artist. She embodied exactly what you would imagine a Weimaraner/Rottweiler mix to be.

She was my alarm clock (and still is), making sure I’m up by 5:30 or 6:00 whether I want to be or not. And she loved to carry my purse.

She could be intimidating; she knew it, and liked it. But inside, she was a big, sensitive, dramatic baby who just wanted love and attention.

For 12 years, she went to work with Jimmy nearly every day. Two years ago, she retired herself. The long hours in the truck didn’t agree with her anymore, and that left hip, the one damaged when she was hit by the car, began to limit her mobility. Short trips with me, and once the shop office was done, a nice soft bed at the shop suited her much better.

She is now about 16. She is not the same dog as she was.

Tired most days, and no doubt stiff and sore, she has increasing anxiety when we’re out of her sight. Even in the house, she’s not content unless she can see us. She has more bad moments than good ones. She doesn’t hear or see very well, and doesn’t remember many people. The world is a much scarier place for her now.

We do our best to make life easier for her, but we’ve arrived at a point in time where it’s becoming harder to watch her. She has increasing trouble walking, and can nolonger navigate stairs; there’s no muscle left in that hip, and when I lift her into the car, I can feel those hip bones grind together.

She doesn’t want medication; she began refusing that last year. And we’re not going to force her. Because then it’s more about us, than her.

We know where this is going. She has no desire to live forever, any more than we do. If we wait much longer, we risk an injury. And then she will suffer. Because we love her, we’re doing the last thing we can do for her: we’re letting her go while she still has some dignity. In the meantime, we’re keeping her life as comfortable and peaceful as we can. Soon, we will say goodbye.

And we’ll think of her as she used to be,  running and playing with everyone else in heaven, with her head out the sunroof, and the wind blowing her big Dumbo ears.

In our lifetime, we’ll go through this again and again, and it will hurt every time.

But we’ll keep doing it. Because the joy they bring us and the things we learn from them not only make us better people, but brighten our lives more than you can imagine.

Thank you for the ride, Magpie. You’ve been a huge presence in our lives, and we’ll miss you.