Sit. Stay. Mourn.

Being so close to taking the NCLEX (still no word on the date) I find myself distracted from this important event by our dog, Kailie.

To really understand the situation, some backstory is necessary. Kailie came to us from my ex-girlfriend. Yup, you read that right: ex-girlfriend. Back when I was a young Indian Brave this woman and I, (whom I shall refer to as “S”) were and item. It lasted a while, and we parted friends, staying in infrequent touch ever since.

Now the weird part.

The Queen and I have known each other for our entire adult lives. We literally met our Freshman year of High School. We never dated during school, but had an attraction that both shared. It so happens that S didn’t treat my then-friend and future-wife very well during the period we were together. Oh yeah, it gets better. You can’t make up this type of stuff.

Fast forward a couple of decades, and now S is dying of cancer. I take a couple of days to spend with her since she has no real family, and end up promising to take care of her kids (how she referred to her dogs, since she never had any). The inevitable happens, and after we arrange for one dog to be placed with a friend, we take the other into our family.

Kailie is a great dog. Potty trained, loves people, doesn’t chew on stuff, likes travelling in cars, loves being wherever her people are (inside or out). Her one difficulty is she was never socialized with other dogs. S rescued her and her sibling from the pound, and then kept them away from other dogs for the entire time she had them. They spent 90% of their time inside, and even more in the last months of her life.

After over three years of loving Kailie, we reached a point where she couldn’t do anything right in the eyes of the Queen. She shed. She walked on flowers. Her food was expensive. She pooped. She was left outside for longer and longer periods. There was no active animosity, but the woman I love had taken a dog in under odd circumstances, having never had more than a guppy in the past. It reached the point where we actively searched for another family to take Kailie. We almost had her placed a couple of times, but her inability to be around other animals was a problem. We posted online in a couple of different places. We worked our friends and acquaintances. We put up flyers.

It finally came down to bringing her in to the pound. I was the bad guy, and I left her there with strangers. It broke my heart walking out of that place. I called periodically over the next week and half, checking on progress to see if she was doing OK or maybe even getting adopted. They had no info for over a week, just that her evaluation was pending. My next phone call I found she had been “put down” because of behavior problems and difficulty adjusting to the environment. She stopped eating, was vomiting, and had diarrhea.

Intellectually, I know that we didn’t really have a choice with the way things were going at the castle. We tried every avenue we could. But I just keep thinking how sad and lonely she must have been, and how I was the one that left her there.