Your Dog’s “Bucket List”

Last week, out of the blue on a Monday morning, my little 6-year-old dog had a grand mal seizure.

For those of you who are fortunate to have never dealt with this before, seizures are terrifying when they occur unexpectedly. Even though I knew what was happening intellectually, I was an emotional mess as I waited an eternity for it to end.

I had already planned an emergency trip to the vet. Xephyr woke up and fell off the bed, was circling oddly, and couldn’t find his crate for breakfast. I was on my way to get dressed when the seizure happened.

I won’t drag you emotionally through all of the horrible details from that day, and the follow-up visits to get more tests and an ultrasound. The seizure was caused by low glucose, which was triggered by a large mass on his liver that is interfering with the insulin balance. If I’m very lucky, I’ll have a month, maybe two, before I have to say goodbye to my dog who should be less than halfway through his life.

I’m also blessed to have had, other than the last two COVID years, a very active life with my dogs. Especially compared to most household pets, my dogs have lived full and enriched lives. Xephyr has traveled out of state to a national trick dog convention, has made trips to the mountains to be my teaching assistant, has gotten to play in wide-open spaces with a pack of friendly dogs on multiple occasions, has been a demo dog for foreign students learning about canine conditioning, and has been my full-time companion for the last two years as I worked from home.

My Advice

And that brings me to the “bucket list” part of the post. I’m not going to call this one “today’s tip” because I don’t want people to look at it as something that only has to do with training or competition. Here is my advice.

One of my “bucket list” items for him was to finish his Trick Dog Champion title.  We completed it two days after his formal diagnosis.  Click the image below to watch it.

The only things I’ll change for the time we have left are to let him get away with a little more naughtiness, take some extra pictures and video (since the hundreds of photos and hours of video I have now will never be enough), and feed him things I normally wouldn’t let him have. I have no regrets about Xephyr’s experiences in life. I only wish that we could continue to have those experiences together for much, much longer.

Go give your dog(s) a hug. They are never with us long enough. I’m off to put a check mark next to another bucket list item – maybe it will be feeding him a whole hamburger.

I lost Xephyr September 14, 2022. If you’ve lost a pet, I wrote an article on dealing with loss and the things that helped me cope with losing Xephyr. You can read it here.

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Cover photo: Courtesy of Howling Moon Photography.