A girl and her sick dog.

Lots of people have dogs as pets. But my dog is more like a roommate. Maybe it's because she's big and we live in a small space. Maybe it's because she's always hogging the bed (see photo where she's in the exact middle of the queen bed) and not cleaning up her messes. Whatever the reason, I always pause when people ask me if I live alone and eventually answer, "Not really..."


The thing is: My dog, Jango, and I have been through a lot together. We have fun and happy adventures and we comfort each other when we're sad or scared of thunder. We're family. Which is why I almost fell apart* when she got really sick last week.


I won't go into the details -- this isn't a medical dog blog. But I will say that Jango got sicker and sicker and at one very bad point, even our vet didn't know how to help her. 


It's surreptitious that I had chosen When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön to read this month, because she has a chapter that came to my aid. A theme throughout her work is that pleasure and pain will always be cyclical. Life isn't about working hard so you can only experience the former; it's about being mindful of your reactions to both and seeing how they relate. 


In this particular chapter, she specifically encourages us to recognize suffering as suffering. Instead of trying to get rid of it or go around it, we should take notice of what we do when confronted with it. The ultimate goal in this exercise is to see how suffering is intertwined with joy.


I am not proud of how I react when my dog gets sick. First, I panic and chide myself for being a bad dog owner who "lets" her dog get sick. (I believe Chödrön would call this "spinning out.")


Then -- I really hate this part -- the total irrationalness continues and I look for someone else to share in the blame. In this case, it's my ex-husband. I concoct some ridiculous fantasy in my head in which he had responsibly offered to take custody of her instead of me, and she's anywhere that's not Manhattan bounding happily on acres of lush, forested land, completely healthy. (This unreality becomes even more absurd when I remember that it was me who demanded I get the dog in the first place.)


Finally, I go to the worst place possible: I think about what I would do if she were to die. This causes even more panic. Often, there's crying. Ugly crying. I start to wish I never had gotten her in the first place.


Ugh. I know I'm supposed to be doing this introspection without judgment, but this "taking notice" of my reactions is about as fun as a when I found a live mouse in the glue trap under the fridge. 


Though I have to say, once I started paying attention to my reactions, my suffering diminished slightly and felt less consuming. I was able to recognize that what I was feeling wasn't reality -- it was only the reaction of a sad, scared girl who loves her dog. Acknowledging that helped me to calm down.


The pets and people we love are going to get sick sometimes; we can't count on many things in life but we can count on that. The fact that their sickness makes us suffer proves how important they are to us. We are lucky to have things in our life we desperately don't want to lose.


This is the realization that brought me comfort and joy and helped me calm down so I could be present for Jango. (The administered IV fluids and antibiotics which finally made her better played a role, too.)


*Did you see what I did there? I subtly referred to the book the blog is currently focusing on, When Things Fall Apart. If there was any doubt, rest assured: You really are reading the work of a wordsmith.