Mabel's Saddest Day

From yesterday morning, presurgery.

I wrote the following yesterday afternoon and last night but didn't post it. Her night was restless, and as of nine this morning, we still can't get her to drink or eat anything. She's drunk only a tiny bit of water between early yesterday evening and now, but she's thrown up twice--once when we took her outside before bedtime and again about half an hour ago--since the first time she threw up, in the car on the way home from the vet's office. The absolute disinterest in any and all food wouldn't worry me so much if she weren't also displaying a complete disinterest in--and refusal of--water. Normally, this dog would drink a river dry if you'd let her. We're worried about her.

***
6/23/08
6:00 p.m.

When I took Mabel to the vet’s office Friday to have her sore paw checked out, at which time we also found out she had a bad case of colitis (by chance, I saw her do her business in the yard as we were on our way out to the car to leave, and I noticed that it looked bad, so I took it in as a sample), I asked the vet what he thought about our pregnancy hypothesis. The overall exam was a pretty quick one, as was the check to see if she was pregnant. But he was sure she wasn’t; he couldn’t feel any puppies, and because she had to be at least 5 weeks along if she was pregnant (and a dog’s gestation period averages only about 63 days), he should have felt something. So, we determined, Mabel was dealing with a false pregnancy. I chalked up her weight gain in the area to false-pregnancy hormones and the fact that we’d been feeding her quite a bit to help her gain weight. (Note the “he” in this paragraph; we didn’t get to see Mabel’s much-loved usual vet.)

I took her in this morning for her spay surgery, and when we went to pick her up late this afternoon, her vet—the usual one we love—pulled us into an exam room to talk about how the surgery had gone. She looked like she’d had a long day. I’m glad I hadn’t yet told you (like I’d already told several other people) that Mabel was just having a false pregnancy.

When the veterinarian performed the surgery, she found nine puppies, she told us with emotion in her voice. Two of them were already dead, and their bodies were doing what bodies do once life is over and could have made Mabel very sick if the pregnancy had continued. The other seven, the doctor said, were very small. Given the shape that sick and starving Mabel was in when we found her and all the intravenous and oral medications she’s had in the last 5 1/2 weeks, there’s really no telling how many of the puppies would have made it in the end or what kind of condition they would have been in upon birth. Carrying the litter to term could have been extremely dangerous for Mabel. And we know too that caring for and finding homes for the surviving puppies likely would have been just impossible for us when we’re so drained already just caring for Mabel and all the other animals we have now. And of course, there are so many dogs, pit bulls especially, out there looking for homes already, adults and puppies alike.

But it is still a terribly sad day. We know that ending the pregnancy was ultimately best—best for Mabel; we can list all the logical reasons in support of that. But for her, our hearts are still heavy, and our eyes are still filled with tears. I believe that she knew she was pregnant. I believe that her heart and her body both were preparing to care for the little lives inside her (indeed, we witnessed some telltale behavior). And I believe that she can now, or will as she comes more and more out of her grogginess, sense that those little lives are gone, and I believe she will mourn that loss, if she isn’t mourning already. So much, so much—she has been through so much. And now there is this, this suddenly having something so natural and good taken from her, an experience that was solely hers, an experience she was anticipating. There are so many reasons that this is what had to happen, yet the guilt I feel is tremendous because I still can't help but feel that today we took from her something that we did not have the right to take from her. Some selfish, abusive humans didn’t get the puppies they wanted to sell, and they'll never again have Mabel to exploit. But Mabel didn’t get the puppies she wanted to love.

She is moaning and crying a high-pitched cry as I write this. I am crying as I write this. It is a room full of pain and sorrow.

***
10:48 p.m.

It is almost 11 p.m. now. I wrote the preceding account several hours ago. The night has been really rough for Mabel, and we haven’t been able to coax her out of her bed for anything. Even getting her outside before bedtime and then—much worse—back in was a nightmare; it turned out to be a matter of forcing her rather than “getting her,” which is incredibly difficult when she’s just had surgery, and we can’t simply or easily pick her up, especially when she won’t even come out of a lying-down or sitting-down position. She is simply refusing to move, and when she was standing outside in the yard, still as stone, staring at me as I begged her to come to me, she looked just like she did the night we found her—frozen in pain and fear. Both when we were trying to get her out of the office and through the kitchen to the back door, to encourage her to go outside, and when I needed to move her from the office to the living room, so that she could sleep next to me (there’s no way she was going to make it to the basement bedroom tonight), her bed had to be dragged across the house with her in it. She’s had very little interest in water tonight and zero interest in even a small amount of food or treats, and a series of efforts to get a Rimadyl down her throat to help with the pain were completely unsuccessful.

More later.