<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font color="#333333" style="font: 13.0px Lucida Grande; color: #333333"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">On Monday I went with my mother to have her Jack Russell Terrier helped out of this life and into the next. Daisy was almost 15 and wasn't eating or drinking, was emaciated (down to 9.7 pounds from 16 several years before), and just wandered slowly around the house with a vacant look in her eyes--when she wasn't sleeping, which was pretty much all the time during the last week. She really had become just a ghostly presence--silent and wraithlike. She wasn't having fun anymore,<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: medium; "> which meant that she was actually enjoyable to be around. No incessant, persistent yapping and jumping on people or just being a Jack Russell Terror in general. (I'm really, really not a terrier person!) </span></span></font></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal 'Lucida Grande'; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); min-height: 16px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><br></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font color="#333333" style="font: 13.0px Lucida Grande; color: #333333"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">As I wrote in a Drool post last year, my mother consented to getting a dog during my father's last months with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis twelve years ago. She didn't want a dog, but she loved my dad enough to do so for him. She hoped that, if the dog didn't give him a reason to live longer, at least it would make his last months happier. Thanks to the PBS series "Wishbone," Dad really wanted a JRT, despite the fact that breed wasn't at all suited to either my parents' lifestyle or their current situation. My sister found Daisy in a questionable rescue group, and Dad was delighted with her. Daisy seemed to know at once that her job was to be his company during the day. She'd spend all day quietly on his lap in the recliner, but when he went upstairs to bed, she'd suddenly turn into a ball of fire that tore all over the house and behaved like a normal JRT. It was as if she knew she was officially off duty for the night.</span></font></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#333333"><br></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#333333">My sister and I had hoped that after Dad died, our mother would become more active in training Daisy. Alas, that didn't happen. For the rest of her life, Daisy remained unreliably housebroken and unaware of any commands other than "sit," which she would hold for just a few seconds while continuing to yap at my mother in a grating voice that sounded like a rusty gate hinge. In fact, what happened was that Daisy wound up training my mother by yapping for however long it took until my mother got up and did whatever it was Daisy wanted. This made being with both of them at the same time not always pleasant. Daisy was a great example of what can happen when you don't put the time and effort into teaching a dog good manners: people don't care to be around such a dog.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#333333"><br></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font color="#333333" style="font: 13.0px Lucida Grande; color: #333333"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">My mother loved Daisy despite her bossy, noisy characteristics, and over the years they developed into a good team that worked well together. It was hard for Ken and I to tolerate Daisy for more than about an hour at a time, but my mother saw only her good qualities and, after Dad died, came to really depend on her for companionship. Daisy was also a strong, living link to Dad and thus became considerably more to my mother than she would have been otherwise. My sister and I suspect Daisy's death has resurrected our mother's grief over Dad's death eleven years ago all over again. Our mother told my sister on the phone the morning of Daisy's death that she'd be "all alone now." It's going to be hard for her to not have the presence of another being in the house. My sister and I aren't encouraging her to get another dog, however, because of her health. A couple of budgies, perhaps, but not a dog.</span></font></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal 'Lucida Grande'; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); min-height: 16px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><br></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font color="#333333" style="font: 13.0px Lucida Grande; color: #333333"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">Our Elsinore went with us to the vet's so she could lend some moral support and be a dog for my mother to pat on the way home. My mother thought that, since Elsinore and Daisy had a cordial relationship, Elsinore should be allowed to see what happened to Daisy. She didn't want Elsinore to end up searching her house the next time she was over and then being puzzled as to why Daisy was no longer in it. I'd had Daisy over at my house for one day the week before because she wasn't having a good day, and my mother had appointments to go to but was worried about leaving Daisy by herself. Normally Ken and I didn't let Daisy come over because she was so disruptive, obnoxious, and prone to peeing wherever she wanted. But by that point she was obviously declining and blessedly silent, so I figured she'd be bearable for a day. I also figured Elsinore, who's a very astute and sensitive hound, had a pretty good idea by the end of that day that Daisy wasn't long for this world. </span></font></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#333333"><br></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font color="#333333" style="font: 13.0px Lucida Grande; color: #333333"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">But Elsinore went with us, and I explained to her what was going to happen. Young Charlie didn't come with us because he would have been one too many dogs to handle in addition to my mother, who doesn't walk well, and Daisy, who needed me to carry her. I suspect Charlie was really more fond of Daisy's toys than of Daisy anyway, especially her hedgehog. Immediately after Daisy died, Elsinore gave Daisy's rear end and head a cursory sniff and then didn't approach the body again. She and Daisy had always gotten along, but I wouldn't say that Elsinore had ever harbored any deep and abiding affection for Daisy the way she does for her basset friend Owen, for example, so I'm not concerned about her actually missing Daisy. In fact, we've all been over to my mother's house several times since Daisy's death, and neither Elsinore nor Charlie have shown any concern over Daisy's absence.</span></font></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#333333"><br></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#333333">My mother tells me that five days later she still feels numb. She hasn't been able to put away Daisy's crate, bedding, or bowls yet. She's also hasn't been able to bring herself to talk on the phone with family and friends about Daisy's death, though she was able to write a short death notice for the people who knew Daisy and Dad. This week has been consumed by the construction of a wheelchair ramp in her backyard that's not going well and has had to involve a local councilman to try to get the historic zoning commission to relax its regulations so the ramp can be ADA compliant. In some ways this headache has been a blessing in that it's given everyone something else to focus on. But I think once the situation is resolved my mother will begin the real grieving of a rough-coated, pugnacious, high-spirited, irrepressible, and loving little friend who has left her to return to the man who loved her first. I wish there was a way to make this easier for my mother, but I know there isn't.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#333333"><br></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#333333">Elizabeth</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#333333"><br></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#333333"><br></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#333333"><br></font></div>
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