Gatsby, Part 3
We didn’t know what to expect; how long he would last. As Gatsby reached eight years old, we started holding our breaths. The average life expectancy of a lab mix is 10-12 years. The average life expectancy of a Great Dane is 6-8 years. Would we get the shorter end or the longer end? Having made it through the dark, early, years of parenthood, we had found our stride again, and Gatsby was once more our baby, receiving every bit as much attention as the children. He had mellowed, no longer demanding the long walks or the zooming playtime in the yard. He spent most of the day on our bed upstairs, claiming it as his own and groaning, disgruntled, when he was nudged off at night.
Our first scare happened after we’d been away for a weekend. Our friends had kindly taken him while we were gone. They loved him as their own, and he fit right in with their four children. When we picked him up, they said he hadn’t eaten much. They had assumed that it was because he missed us. I scratched my head a little, thanked them, and took him home. While Gatsby would always prefer to be with us, it had never prevented him from having a good meal. That evening, he showed no interest in his food, and he slept more than usual. Maybe his stomach was upset. Maybe he was tired from playing with four children. When I went downstairs the next morning, Gatsby couldn’t stand. We rushed him to the vet, where he was diagnosed with Lyme and Anaplasmosis, another tickborne illness that effects the blood’s ability to clot. If the dog’s platelet count gets down to 50, they can spontaneously bleed to death. Gatsby’s platelet count was 53. They treat him in the hospital and keep him overnight, giving him antibiotics, fluids, and try to keep him still so he won’t bump into anything and bleed. They observe him the following day and want to keep him another night until his levels go up, but they call us and say he is so miserable being there that they think he has a better chance of survival at home.
We collect him and carefully lift him into the car, gingerly placing him on a nest of blankets. He gives a weak wag and laps my arm, looking deeply into my eyes, as though searching for answers. “You’ll be ok,” I tell him, willing it to be true, desperate to make it so, and he is. When he sees the children, he forces himself unsteadily to his feet, sniffing and licking them, and they gently pet him. He rests, and the next day he is able to walk. He eats, and, by the end of the day, he trots. When the vet sees him later in the week, he is surprised at how much he has improved. “It was really up to Gatsby,” he says, scratching him gently behind the ears. “It could have gone either way. He has a strong will.”
A year later he is strong-willed through a chemical exposure that leaves him unable to lubricate one side of his nose and one eye. We have to give him drops every time we interact with him. The dog ophthalmologist says the condition will be permanent. Gatsby proves him wrong.
Years pass, we brace ourselves. He has some lumps removed. He has arthritis. He loses his hearing, which is why he barks all of the time, because he thinks he hears something. When he is twelve, he tears his ACL. They find a heart abnormality and aren’t sure if he should have the surgery at his age. We go ahead with it, and he comes out of it better than dogs half his age. He develops a neurological disorder where he can’t feel his back legs. He can no longer go up and down stairs. He can no longer jump onto our bed. His back end sags as he stands. He pants. His brindled face goes from brown to gray. He has an abscessed tooth. He slips on the hardwood floors. We make a path of yoga mats through the house. He still loves Christmas, and being in whatever room we are in, and watching tv. Mostly, he finds where we are, and he sleeps. He moves with us to one more house, his fifth, gaining a bit of relief with the single-story design. He learns his new boundaries, enjoys lying in the grass, his sleek, black coat absorbing the sun, his alert eyes keeping watch.
On March 12, 2020, the day before schools close and businesses shutter due to the pandemic, before the world changes before our eyes, after he has been with me for greater than one third of my life, Gatsby clings to me. He sneezes repeatedly, and blood sprays from his nose. He lies at my feet, and he implores me. He is fifteen and a half and he is ready. I will never be ready, but I cannot deny his wish; not after all he has given. We wait for the children to come home from school. The traveling vet comes to the house. She has never seen a giant breed this old, she says. She loves him already. We talk to him, and love him, and my husband puts on a glove, and Gatsby mouths it, just like he did that first day at the shelter. We thank him for taking care of us for all of these years, and we tell him we will be ok, and we hold him as he takes his last breath and leaves us hollow.
