It was a regular day. She jumped in the car to go to the courts with us, but a few minutes later when we arrived, she wouldn’t get out of the car. This, in isolation, was not unusual, particularly if the barometric pressure was down. If a storm was either imminent or in process, Z always would rather have stayed in the car. Our theory is that when we adopted her, just shy of six months—a rescue from West Virginia, still shaking from the van ride north with other howling animals—we promptly drove eighteen plus hours from Rhode Island to Michigan. She settled into her fabric crate, right next to a beamingly happy seven-year-old G, and slept with three used pillowcases belonging to X, G and me. After that, she always loved being in the car and would choose it as her safety place, essentially her moving crate. One day when we were on a daily walk in Brooklyn, she even tried to convince me to get into someone else’s car as a thunderstorm threatened.

Here she was, on an August afternoon, not willing to get out of the car. My laugh froze when I realized her reluctance wasn’t a game (like we normally regarded it). She could not move her back leg, or so it seemed. G came over and agreed that Z could put no weight on it, but she also noted that Z didn’t wince or cry out when she tried to touch her. It was 4PM. I called the vet, and we raced over. I started to go through my childhood routine of what-ifs. What if Mommy dies. What if Daddy dies. What if…

G kept her cool. Arriving at the vet, she waited in the car with Z until our appointment. Still Z couldn’t move. I was haunted by the thought of the stages of dying in which loss of hind leg mobility can be a step. Trying to keep it together, I watched as Z was lifted out of the car and into the clinic. The vet palpated her paw and immediately said it was not paralysis. Her paw was warm, and Z was responding to touch. A few minutes of examination later, the vet said: it’s in her eyes. See how they’re shifting? That’s neurological.

Z had vertigo. Or a brain tumor or a stroke. Maybe two out of three. We were encouraged to wait and see if it would pass. G went out to the car; the vet went to do something in the back. Just the two of us left, Z stood up as if nothing had happened and walked to the cookie jar. I panicked that she was going to fall, but she walked perfectly. She sat for not one but five treats! G returned and gasped. The vet returned and couldn’t quite believe it.

Twenty-four hours, no recurrence. In the past eight months, it only happened one more time that was obvious to us, but she became notably less stable on her legs.

What amazed me most was how unfazed our notably nervous nelly of a pup seemed to be. The vet said that animals with vertigo typically learn to adapt to feeling sort of dizzy, often walking like a drunken sailor. When I experienced vertigo—at a point when my life was literally spiraling out of control—my physical symptoms paled in comparison with the spike of anxiety I would feel when my inner balance went haywire. Believe me, when Z experienced anxiety it was obvious for the world to see (fireworks, loud sounds, brooms, reactions to some medicines, the aforementioned thunderstorms—six months in a shelter left a permanent impact on her, despite our best efforts.) Vertigo did not scare her. Something did shift in her brain, though, and she stopped being afraid of thunderstorms around this same time.

For all of G’s early years, she wanted a dog. She wrote “dog” in early handwriting on the grocery list, and when X was on business trips, she would argue, “Papa’s not here. Let’s get a dog now, Mama!” For the last half of first grade—after our elderly cat passed away—she studied Cesar Milan as if her life depended on it, awaiting adoption “gotcha” day. G always adored Z. That said, the journey from six to seventeen was not all-about-the-pup, whereas for me, Z was my everyday. The responsibility for looking after her fell largely on my shoulders. But that was ok. I desperately wanted her, too. I was just surprised at how much work she wound up being. There were times when Z appeared to be G’s closest confidante, and others when she scolded me from bringing the dog everywhere with me, “why don’t you leave her at home like a normal dog owner?” She may not have realized I was living my own childhood dream of keeping my dog by my side. I remember being envious of a homeless man on the Santa Barbara pier for the fact that he could keep his dog with him. Growing up, I had to say goodbye too many times, often when I needed my pets most. And then they would disappear when their time was nigh, often without preparation or an acknowledgment of any desire to say goodbye, typically when I was away at camp or school. (I recognize this was done with positive intent.)

To my mother’s enormous credit, she made dog ownership look like a piece of cake. By adopting retired show dogs, we always had perfectly behaved, magnificent specimens of her favorite breeds: Scotties and Westies. They lived their latter years with little reference to their past although I do recall Mother saying at one point, “Miranda loves your father most because her owner was a man.”

Nevertheless I remember how the parade of my childhood dogs would listen to me and hear my stories, dry my tears with their fur, and sit beside me on the back porch stairs. How I would take them on the occasional walk and pet them endlessly. Or so it seems to me in hindsight. It’s entirely possible that I spent as much time (or less) with the dogs as G did with Z. In fact, I was overseas with my mother for 2.5+ years of my childhood during which the closest I got to our dogs was via airmail letter reports from my dad. This did not stop the important role they played when I was home, when I needed them. When I felt so misunderstood.

Last semester, G had to do a dance exercise in which she was asked to represent her life in movement using the nine viewpoints (Anne Bogart). She started by writing out adjectives and few descriptive words or names: dependent, lost, etc. A lot of downers. But then there was “Z” and her action/movement was essentially a flood of joy. Her face lit up and she pounced as she would with her canine sibling. This action was more profound than any words: how much our dog meant to our girl. Six to seventeen are years of lessening insulation against peers, society, media, cruelty, existential angst, separation, and loneliness—years mostly in advance of when the tide turns and self-definition throws a life raft into a seemingly endless ocean of vulnerability. Z was G’s joy, her island, sometimes even her projector: “Mama, she doesn’t want me to leave.”

Recently a friend was discussing the debate over whether to get a dog, and I wrote her privately to say I wouldn’t change what we did but if I had known how much work it would be, I might have made different decisions. This was after ten years of owning an amazing yet troubled dog. This was before I saw G’s dance exercise and the joy of Z choreographed in a split second. How can you quantify that? I would do it all again twice for that pounce of light in a sea of dark memories—the happiness and stability Z provided in the chaos of growing up. I wondered if I should write my friend back to refute myself. And yet.

It was a difficult ten years. Perhaps it would always have been, with or without a dog. Z may well have been a relieving presence, offsetting some of our stressors. But it is still true that she was highly nervous, suffering from acute separation anxiety and reactivity to other dogs. No medicine ever seemed to work, right down to the end; it seemed her mind was stronger than any pharmaceutical. Living on the farm, she loved to eat what the cows discharged and found skunks long in advance of us even smelling them, leaving an aroma in our house for weeks. She found porcupines and responded wildly to dogs of all ages and sizes (and an occasional man for no apparent reason). Taking her everywhere helped with some of the challenges, but it created others. And yet.

G’s ten plus years of growing into a teenager and young adulthood correspond with ten years, de facto, in which I had no marriage, no partner, and quite a few different homes. “I want someone to be happy when I get home,” I once said before adopting Z, to which X replied only half joking, “Get a dog.” Getting Z fulfilled that goal except that since she was always with me, she rarely had to greet me. Regardless, she would race from any corner of the house to find either G or me whenever our eyes began to fill or even our hearts became heavy. It was as if she could smell our tears, even yesterday. “Leaning in” was Z’s way of giving a hug, her classic move. Sure, she needed us, but we needed her just as much if not more.

However, I need to admit here that I was not always a good dog-mom. Z was probably the only one who could get me genuinely angry, whom I would tell off to her face, who could truly drive me to the brink. But she always came back with more love, appearing to believe in my eternal capacity for redemption, accepting even that “worst self” I tried to hide from everyone else.

All around, there’s no other copilot I would have wanted. She was a comfort I never sought to quantify: I slept knowing she would tell me if there was an intruder; I walked because she needed exercise; I got kisses at my lowest moments; and I was, well and truly, never alone in a decade of people departing in death, divorce or simply growing up. A friend said that animals are our angels, here for us the way angels tread, in magical and profoundly healing ways. I believe her. Z was proof.

A few months ago, I met a total stranger who said she left a domestic violence situation after a dog died at the hands of her abuser. She was sobbing as she told the story of arriving at a safe house where she learned that more people find the strength to leave violence when an animal dies than any other reason. It’s their final wake-up call. If this is not angels at work, I don’t know what is.

I remember when my dad was diagnosed with lung cancer. Being older parents, my mother had introduced me long prior to the idea that they would die. My reaction to his diagnosis was: phew, he made it this far! And: I’m glad I live nearby. I want to see as much of him as I can. Z’s attack of vertigo had something of a similar effect on me. Her diagnosis included the word “old” or “geriatric.” Coming home from that vet visit, I said to G, well, this was a dry run. Maybe we should talk about what we would do if things were more serious. Thousands of dollars on an MRI and more tests? Or let her be unless she’s suffering? We agreed on the latter, with the possibility of herbal remedies and home care.

Unwittingly, we entered the gloaming. The time of gratitude and expanded moments. I saw G stopping more to engage with Z. I became vastly more patient, my heart ever more tender—although the subsequent issues with incontinence and digestion were tough on all of us.

She was always our angel puppy. She brought us so much, beyond measure. My days over the past ten years were almost entirely shared with her, the ups and downs and in-betweens. Whenever I drove without her in the car, there was an absence that seemed disturbing. It cracked us up that when G got her own car, Z was just as happy to get into either one. A car ride would always be on her top ten along with: running in tall grass, chasing squirrels, Theresa’s luscious treats, cat food snacks, any snacks, when G got home, when X came to visit, long walks, and the fact that we stopped being vegan. (She hit pay dirt when we switched to Keto—and well-timed, as she began to have trouble digesting dry food.)

I felt her slowly retreating, moment by moment. And then she seemed fine again. But it was inescapable that, since August, she had a UTI, vertigo, and then incontinence, regular spit-ups which got increasingly worse, becoming daily. For a while she was clearing her throat like a five-pack-day smoker, then she stopped doing that and started snoring, sleeping almost all of the time and dreaming with such lucidity that we could almost imagine her virtual adventures. She began to pant a lot, tire easily, and groan fitfully when she moved or rested, trying to find a comfortable spot. For nine years we rarely went to the vet except for regular shots—we had seven vet visits in the past eight months. Yesterday afternoon, we helped to walk her home.

Today the waning moon is in Libra
A day of goodbye and letting go
Of Zee close to me
And near-constant prayers for her safe passage
She has been so good to us
Escaping deep trouble (just barely)

On the horizon, I see her
Catching the elusive squirrel
Taking down the little puffy white dogs
Eating to her heart’s content
And drinking and keeping it down
(Relief from diapers and not keeping it down
Relief from a struggle to breathe)

I have no knowing certainty
But a quiet yes and an appeal
To the angels on the other side
To receive her and set her free
She travels ahead of us
Where our boy is ready to greet her
Waiting at the door
With a green light at 2:22PM
It’s the best I can do––
Stitching together faiths and hopes

On this beautiful last day with us
The sun shines and she lies
In the shade of the picnic table
Where I write these words
Forever our shepherd
She restored my soul

It’s hard to wait, now that we know
The bridge we are about to cross
Nears by the minute
Too much time and not enough
Never enough

I do not regret a single day
I cannot doubt today
(She groans, as if in reply)
I cannot imagine tomorrow.

Rest peacefully, dearest girl
Zee
1/19/09 – 4/23/19

*Homage to Ram Dass, “we’re all just walking each other home.”