The story of Little Big Minnie: Ode to a Chiweenie
On November 11, 2019, it was one year since Minnie, our beloved Chiweenie, passed away in her sleep. It took me that long to be able to muster the courage to write this article about her, as I knew it would be painful. For the same reason, it also took me almost two months to bring myself to finish it. The fact that she died in her sleep makes it sound like the ideal situation for a dog to cross over (and it certainly could have been much worse); but things weren’t as easy until that peaceful moment… Let me start from the beginning. Minnie was already four years old when I met her. As a little puppy, she had been given to my husband’s youngest for her 13th birthday, back in 2005; and she had been well-loved and cared for by my husband, his ex and their two daughters before we ever made our acquaintance. That happened shortly after my husband and I started dating. I was instantly captivated the moment I saw Minnie. Such a strong personality in a little yet overweight body, with beautiful doe eyes and very expressive Chihuahua ears that sometimes made her look like Yoda… I had been told that she was never very friendly to people right off the bat; they had to earn it, and until then, they had to deal with her very very intense and “ferocious” barking, along with a very standoffish and even snappish attitude… I watched her put my youngest brother through that ritual for a couple of years; he tried to go “dog whisperer” on her and “train” her, to no avail; she only changed towards him when he gave up, sat down by her side and paid his dues by giving her a lot of attention, caresses, etc, acknowledging her place in the household. Our landlord had to go through the same lengthy process… But she chose to bypass that ritual with me (to my husband’s utter surprise), and we became instant friends. In all my years of being acquainted with that special little dog, I witnessed her bypass the usual meeting ritual with only a handful of special people who are fierce animal lovers, such as another brother of mine and his fiancee, and a couple of my friends. Once I met Minnie, her family delighted me with fun and cute stories about her, such as the fact that Minnie liked to burrow (she was found hiding under a bunch of couch pillows when the family first went to pick her up, and kept this habit of hiding under blankets to the end); the fact that Minnie used to love to take naps on the back of my younger stepdaughter’s legs, using her legs or butt as a pillow, whenever my stepdaughter was watching TV stretched out on the floor; the fact that Minnie used to be my older stepdaughter’s sleep companion, cuddling with her under the blankets every night; the fact that Minnie and the pet ferret they once had became best buddies, and used to snuggle and playfully chase each other around the house; the fact that Minnie used to slip out of the house every now and then, and make them chase her around the neighborhood, having a ball playing catch… But the one characteristic that defined Minnie above all else was her gluttony. I’ve never met a dog that adored eating more than that little one (hence her overweight little body). The most famous story by far about Minnie’s gluttony was told by my older stepdaughter. Her boyfriend had stopped by her house, bringing two cheeseburgers for his meal. He unwrapped and placed them on the living room coffee table and went to get a glass of water in the kitchen, which was just a few steps away. In the couple of minutes that it took him to get a glass, fill it up and get back to the living room, Minnie had already devoured both cheeseburgers! Quickest tongue in the West. While my husband and I were dating, she’d come along with him to visit me at my home, which met with her approval; especially my large fenced backyard. She also met my own dog companion, Molly (a Ruby King Charles Cavalier that I adopted when she was 4 years old; please see The Story of Molly the Ruby Cavalier). They became best friends and would run around my house in playful chase. When we got married in 2010, she also moved in with my husband and my youngest stepdaughter, who then left to go to college (eventually their cat Hershey moved in, too; please see The Story of How I Became a Cat Person: Hershey). As the little spitfire that she was, Minnie soon established herself as the boss of the household, putting everyone else (including Hershey, the Queen of the Universe) in their place. We settled into a nice routine, which included taking long walks around my neighborhood with Minnie and Molly. We were often followed by Hershey, too. A few months after moving in, my husband went on a 10-day meditation retreat, which he tries to do once a year. One day, while he was away and I was taking the dogs for a walk, Minnie yelped in pain and her back side collapsed on the sidewalk. I had no idea what had just happened. At that time, I didn’t know about the Chiweenie tendency to have back problems, and the dangers of having short legs, being overweight, etc. We used to let her jump up and down from from the sofa, which I later found out was a no-no for dogs of this breed. All I knew was that she was in extreme pain. I rushed to the vet, who let me know she had a slipped disc. He gave the the available choices: a four-day cortisone shot treatment, followed by oral cortisone; or a very expensive back surgery with a 50-50 chance of recovery. The surgery had to be performed within 24 hours of the slipped disc episode. That was a very difficult choice to make by myself. Both my husband and I had recently filed for bankruptcy, following the 2008 economic crisis. We were in process of rebuilding our finances from scratch, and had no savings or credit, and no one from whom we could borrow four or five thousand dollars within a day. So I opted for the cortisone shot treatment, which also meant leaving her at the vet for 4 days in one of their small cages. I stopped by a couple of times and brought some chicken for the staff to mix with her regular food, but I wasn’t allowed to visit with her. They didn’t want her to get excited and start moving around, as that would interfere with her healing. I didn’t know at the time that she’d had a prior issue with her back; but later I found out that she had recovered with the same cortisone shots treatment before. When I was finally allowed to take her home, I was shocked to find out that the next few days would define if she would be able to live or have to be put to sleep. Being able to walk again or not was far from the main issue at that point. If she recovered enough that she could have normal bowel movements on her own, she would be ok. If not, there was nothing else they could do. So we went through a very difficult and heart-wrenching few days together. She was in pain in spite of the oral cortisone medication. She had no bladder control, so she kept having accidents in her bed, soiling herself. I got extra beds and started lining them with incontinence pads. I had to get up several times during the night to change her bedding and try to keep her as clean as possible. I prayed and gave her Reiki sessions. After a few stressful days, she was finally able to have a bowel movement on her own, and I was overjoyed that she would live. I still had no idea if she would ever be able to walk again. When my husband was driving back from his retreat, we spoke on the phone and I gave him the sad news. With his help, I started creating systems to make the process of caring for Minnie more manageable. We set up a rotation system to check on her and clean the messes during the night. As it turned out, she was never able to walk on her own again. Her lack of control and exposure due to weakened muscles were causing her to have frequent UTIs and bladder infections and need antibiotics. Eventually we learned how to gently induce her bladder and bowel movements, and were able to put her on a daily schedule. That worked most of the time and greatly reduced the onset of infections; but there were still plenty of untimely accidents until she passed away. In spite of her predicament, once Minnie recovered enough not to have frequent infections and pain, she went back to being her joyful and active self. She loved to stay close to us whenever we were at home. She would also get out of her bed and drag herself around the house, chasing Molly or playing with her toys. That was often the cause of messy accidents, but it seemed like a small price to pay for her shenanigans. One day, I decided to put together a make-shift harness using a luggage shoulder strap and wrapping the cushioned area with one of the many small hand towels we had available for Minnie’s care. I used it to carry her backside, so that she could |
walk around using her front legs. She absolutely loved her newly-found freedom. She ran with it and chased everything and everyone on her path, including some squirrels out in the front yard, making it hard for us to keep up with her at times. With that harness, we got back into the habit of walking both dogs, and took turns holding Minnie’s backside. My husband started calling Minnie “my six-legged dog.” She became a sensation and stole many hearts wherever we went. As she got older and weaker, Minnie started having more difficulty supporting her body with her two front legs, in spite of the fact that she had built her upper body strength by walking every day. We shortened and slowed down the walks; but she still loved going out, so we kept that up almost until the very end. Through one of my cousins we heard about a vet in Lakeland (about an hour and a half from where we live in Orlando) who offered chiropractic sessions that were supposed to help Minnie recover, or at least not get worse with time. They also had hydrotherapy sessions. As our financial situation had started to improve, we decided to give these treatments a try. For over a year, we (or sometimes just my husband) would drive to Lakeland for these treatments; every week at first, then every two to three weeks for a while. Eventually we found a hydrotherapy place for dogs near our home. Although these sessions didn’t get her to walk again, they helped her stay fit and healthy; so we also kept them up almost until the very end. In addition, the Lakeland hydrotherapist asked us to stop giving Minnie commercial food and gave us a recipe to make at home, to help her lose weight and stop having skin allergy issues. At that point we started cooking both Minnie’s and Molly’s food every two weeks, storing half of the batch in the freezer. We still cook Molly’s food to this day. Over the years, we got two different dog wheelchair models and tried to train Minnie to use them. Those wheel carts didn’t work because she had recovered enough movement on her back legs that she would swing them while swimming or walking with the harness. So it was as if Minnie felt that she was sitting on something, and she just wouldn’t walk. I also ordered a couple of customized harnesses, which never worked as well as my original make-shift version; so that’s the one we used all the way to the end. Occasionally, Minnie would have a mild back crisis and had to be on anti-inflammatory and pain medications for a while. For those occasions, I made a cart out of my seed-spreader, so that we could take Minnie for rides during Molly’s walks. She loved those rides! One of Minnie’s favorite things to do was to sleep on cushions between my husband’s legs while he sat in his recliner to watch TV. Whenever she noticed that he was about to sit down, she would start hopping on her front legs and dragging herself out of her bed, in anticipation to be with him. I would replace him when he was at work or out of town; but I was very aware that my legs were just an adequate and temporary substitute. My husband was her light, her all. Although Minnie made newer loving friends in me and others over the years, she never forgot her original family, and was very loyal to my stepdaughters and other members of my husband’s family to the end. If you’ve had the patience to read Minnie’s story up until this point and are getting the impression that my husband and I are saints for being so patient and caring towards our little dog, let me dispel this impression by saying that we both had plenty moments of impatience and even despair over the years. The frequent accidents and messes all over the house, her strict schedule and constant need for attention, the limitations that caring for her imposed in our lives, the friction in our marriage… We couldn’t travel together or be away from our house for more than 4 or 5 hours at a time; a half-hour delay often meant coming back to a big mess around the house. We tried fencing her in a smaller area, but she would still drag herself out of her bed and have accidents if we took too long to get back. A couple of family members, namely Raul’s sister, offered to help a few times. We also tried to hire and train someone to take her of Minnie a couple of times. However, people weren’t comfortable with or capable of doing everything it took to care for her, mainly because they were afraid to hurt her. Several friends and family members suggested that we should put her to sleep. But Minnie was full of life, more than anyone else in the household, including us. With her happy and joyful disposition, we never could bring ourselves to even think about putting her down. She was our little guru, teaching us to live life day by day and be in the moment. It wasn’t perfect, but for the majority of the time, we were happy to do it and wouldn’t have it any other way. In 2018 (8 years from the time she lost the use of her back legs), when she was 14 years old, she got very sick. The vet said she had advanced kidney disease and pancreatitis. She recovered from the pancreatitis with medication, and we were advised to switch her to a low-fat diet and put her on some supplements to manage the kidney disease. But she started losing weight, no matter how much she ate, and we tried adding freeze-dried chicken hearts to complement her diet. However, the kidney disease kept progressing. One afternoon, right before feeding time, she suddenly passed out, with her tongue hanging out. My husband felt she was ready to go, but I wasn’t ready to let her. I reacted instinctively and started blowing air into her nose and mouth, as I cried and called out her name. My husband joined in by doing compressions on her chest, and we managed to revive her. Minnie being Minnie, she was ready to eat a couple of minutes after she came back, and devoured her dinner as if nothing had happened. I made a vet appointment for her, anyway. By the next day she started throwing up and stopped eating. The vet prescribed nausea medication, some antibiotics for an internal infection and a special kidney support can food. She lived for 5 more days, getting weaker and weaker. Part of me was fighting for her, and I kept doing whatever I could to help her recover; but there’s was a voice in the back of my head saying that we needed to get ready to say good-bye. I suggested that my husband would take Minnie to visit with his older daughter. They also took the opportunity to FaceTime with his younger daughter, who lives in Hawaii, so she could say good-bye. One day, as I watched Minnie deteriorate, I talked to her. “If it’s your time,” I said, “please go on your own terms, when you’re ready; easily, painlessly and preferably in your sleep.” I begged her not to make us choose for her. As I write these words, I can’t help but get very emotional and experience deep pain all over again. I still feel guilty for first making her hang on because I wasn’t ready to let her to go; putting her through 5 days of decline while I fought for her to stay; and then taking the easy way out by asking her to go on her terms. But that was the best I could do at the time… The best thing about it was the fact that my stepdaughters and Minnie had the opportunity to say a proper good-bye. Also, because the nausea medication was helping, Minnie had a great last day. She ate much better, to the point where I actually felt encouraged and thought she might recover. We even took her out on a seed spreader ride, along with Molly. She was very alert, watching everything around her, enjoying the moment as usual. At bedtime, we noticed that was extremely weak. My husband mentioned the next day that he had to position Minnie in her bed and move her legs for her, and that he should have known. I said my last good-night to her. She slipped way in her sleep that night. I found her the next morning, rigid in the same place where my husband had arranged her, as if she were still asleep. We buried her in our backyard, wrapped in palm leaves and covered with rose petals. A few days after her passing, I saw her in my dreams, younger and plump as she used to be. I’ve often imagined her running around on all fours and eating to her heart’s content in Dog’s Heaven. That little dog left a HUGE void in our hearts and in our lives; our household has never been the same, even with all the other animal companions we care for, including a very playful rescue kitten. Thank you, Chiweenie, for the gift of your presence; for your beautiful little big heart; for all the love and loyalty you freely lavished upon us; for teaching us about patience, joy and unconditional love; for all the laughs and all the tears. For a little dog, you had such a big presence in our lives… And you still have (and will always have) a big place in our hearts. Gisele Marasca-Vargas; 01/02/2020 |
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