A note on my dog, Zoe

Scoping out a deer Dear Family and Friends,  Yesterday, my vet and a vet-internist, using ultrasound on Zoe, found that her kidneys presently are in excellent shape. Her health problems are arising from cancer. If I understood what my vet told me, Zoe has numerous small tumors in her abdomen, between skin and organs. She took a chest x-ray to see if the chest is clear, but she thinks that several tumors were there as well. If tumors were isolated to the abdomen, chemo therapy could be attempted, but the condition is more widely spread. The prognosis is death within a few weeks to two months, as cancer invades all of her vital organs. Zoe is on no medication, no pain killers. Rather, the vet told me to feed her and exercise her as she wants and can handle. When she can no longer engage in her activities, my vet is willing to euthanize her. What course of action we will take, I do not yet know.  That Zoe is very seriously ill occurred to me on Sunday, 5 January, when she was weak, lethargic, and confused. The symptoms looked to me like what happened to my Lab, Rummy, at age 4, when he was dying of “acute chronic kidney failure.” Zoe’s blood work was normal, which was surprising. The problem showed up through urinalysis, with the presence of proteins in her urine. These proteins, generated by the carcinomas, are causing vomiting, lose stool, much thirst, frequent urination, and so far that one incident of mental confusion that so alerted me. The vomiting began around Thanksgiving, and I thought that it was connected with what Moses and I went through with food poisoning.    If Zoe has two weeks to two months to live, I will look after her as well as I can, and do with her the activities she loves: walking in the park, running on Sweeney’s farm, chasing rabbits at Windy Nob, hunting for birds and deer on Sweeneyland, eating her favorite foods (meat, pasta, veggies with cheese).  No doubt being with Moses and me is a source of joy in her life. Even on the way back from the vet yesterday, as the dogs were on the back seat of George Wood’s pick-up, Zoe, who had no food to eat all day, gave her attention to cleaning Moses’ ears and licking a wound on his back. She is ever the mother.  Zoe was born on 26 October 2005. I brought her home from Lone Willow Kennel on a farm in South Dakota on 21 December 2005, the day after Rummy died of kidney failure and seizures.  I named her “Laura” in honor of Doctor Zhivago’s beloved Laura, but after three days, given her character, I changed her name to Zoe, from the Greek word for Life in the sense of vital life, true life, as distinct from bios, meaning biological life.  When I registered her with the American Kennel Club, I had to give her a unique name, so I chose Amazoa, a combination of Latin and Greek, “she loves Life,” and a play on the Amazon women of Greek legend: the large, powerful, dominant tribute of women encountered by Jason and the Argonauts. Zoe was always large and powerful for her age, heavily muscled, and as the first born of 10 pups, she has ever been Alpha female. When I chose her, I watched her play with her two chocolate-Lab brothers, and utterly dominate them in playing with a ball. Zoe’s father was a black Lab, her mother a chocolate. In sunlight, to this day, a tinge of chocolate shows up in a suitable under coloring especially on her head and haunches.     As I have told a number of folks, Zoe has the healthiest ego of anyone I have known. Mature, confident, self-controlled, she has been calm, steady, and unflappable. When meeting folks for the first time, she seems “hyper” because she is so friendly and dominant, but that impression was superficial and utterly misleading. Zoe is steady, knows her mind, and knows how to achieve her desires. I have never seen the least sign of aggression in her. When a larger female dog bit her in the neck when running, Zoe barely glanced at her and just kept on her running task. She knows what she wants, and she has known well how to get me to give her what she wants. To Moses she has been a devoted and tender mother, but also the dominant one. These two dogs have never fought or bitten in aggression. Their roughest play has come from tugs of war. Zoe’s joy has been in the hunt, which I call “running.” She flushes out game birds, chases rabbits, but her real thrill has been chasing deer. (Early on she learned that antelope outclassed her.)  I have a photo of her running in a herd of deer she came upon and chased.    That is enough for now. We will seek to make our last days together good and happy, despite the coming end. “Today while the blossom still clings to the vine…”  Yes, I feel much sorrow, and still some mild shock, but we will press on together as a family, a pack. While taking care of Zoe and enjoying her gift of Life, I will keep my eye on Moses, and begin our transition into life one-on-one, which will be a big change for both of us. Out of respect and concern for Moses, I do not intend to get a second dog; Zoe could handle such a change, but Moses would feel left out and would be jealous, something not in Zoe’s nature. As anyone who knows them can see, these two Labs, much like mother and son, are utterly different. You can guess which one is more immediately obedient and easier to handle. But Zoe is the one who lets me know what she wants, and Moses expects Zoe to tell me his needs, or for me to figure him out. He lacks her communication skills, and I will see if they improve when he has no parent or sibling for the first time in his life.  Thank you for your expressions of love, concern, sympathy. They are much appreciated.  “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven….”