2009-08-22 - 4:14 p.m.
R.I.P. 01/19/2008 to 08/20/2009.
My dear, sweet, intense, crazy, beloved dog bolted out of the house while we were leaving the other day, on our way to open house for the middle school. Jimmy, fortunately, was in the house with my boyfriend. So Rosy bolts out and runs and she has done this before about a million times, right? But for some reason, each time, the road has been less busy (did I mention we live on a main road??) and people saw us running after her and were able to stop in time. She also only ran in the road a couple times, she usually instead ran in the backyard and tried to assault the neighbors' yards and their dogs.
Thursday was not like any of those other days. She got out and I reached down with an injured hand and her harness grazed right underneath my fingertips. My hand would've been doubly injured if I would have grabbed her but then the result that actually did happen was more fatal than my hand would've ever experienced.
She went toward the road and I couldn't see her. I yelled at Chloe to go get the frigging leash. She ran back inside. I went to my car and flung open a door cuz that's been my main m.o. I just fling open the door, drive into the field or wherever she's at and call her into the car, slam the door, and drive home with the leash hooked to her. So I fling open the door this time and I watch as she crosses the eastbound lanes of traffic. I yell and yell and yell and then she crosses the westbound lanes of traffic.
Her mission is completely halted by an alarm company van. She is off the ground, her side against the van's bumper, she briefly turns her head and looks at the van's grill as if questioning what the hell just stopped her from running to the firehouse, and the van tries to slow down and the deceleration makes her fall to the ground. She rolls under the van, a tire runs over her, and she rolls again, violently bouncing on the road. I barely remember looking for cars as I run across the road to her, more cars are about to come, and I grab a front and back leg and pull her five feet off the road and into the firemen's driveway (we live right across from a firehouse).
I scream and scream and scream and scream. I scream NO! & OHMYFUCKINGOD! & ROSY! several times over and over in different orders. I see across the street Joe standing with the kids and I yell for everyone to get back in the house and don't look over here. I see the van driver walking hesitantly up to me cuz he had stopped, which was nice. He didn't have to but I appreciate he did. He is young and tattooed and I stop screaming over Rosy for just a second to turn to the van driver who is telling me over and over that he's so sorry, and I say: "NO, no, you have no idea how much of a hardhead she is, she never listens, she bolts out of the house every now and then, she has been doing this for months and I'm surprised it took so long to happen. This is NOT your fault, she did this to herself. I tried to warn her a million times, trust me." He still said sorry and he was still covering his mouth in disbelief and probably he was a little freaked out by my continuous screaming and begging for her to die.
Yes, I begged Rosy to just die. I knew by my immediate assessment of things that she would never make it AND if she did still have a beating heart, she would've been in so much pain and so crippled and I wouldn't have been able to afford surgery at all. I wouldn't have been able to afford painkillers. But she was obviously bleeding internally. She heard my voice and I think she could feel me but I'm also pretty sure that she was broken inside and unable to move. She bled from her mouth, her tongue was sticking out and flipped under her jaw and I held my injured hand against her chest feeling her heart beat, begging her to die so she wasn't in pain. The heart beat was pretty regular for about a minute and then it tapered off and I couldn't feel it at all. I told everyone (firemen, Joe, van driver) that she died and I kinda shrieked and burst in to tears all over again and started rubbing her side and chest and all of a sudden her tail was wagging and her heart tripped into beating again and it was all about the tachycardia. It literally sped up and up and up inside her chest going faster and faster.
Her tail kept wagging and she tried to turn her head and her eyes wandered toward me searching for me, she kinda whimpered a little and I talked to her, kept holding her chest to monitor her heartbeat, telling her it was ok to go and that I loved her. I rubbed her ribcage and she tilted her hips back so that her belly came up a little. She was completely addicted to having her belly and nipples rubbed all over. She was like the opposite of a crack baby, for realz. She had to be rubbed on her belly A LOT. So I rubbed her belly and at the same time her heart beat slowed and slowed and got farther apart with the beats and I leaned down and kissed the side of her head and told her I loved her. I didn't feel a heartbeat anymore but I checked her neck anyway. She finally had died. All of that was about, I'd say, six minutes total.
The firemen had called animal services for me cuz in the midst of my screaming, I rattled off something to them about not wanting her to suffer and being too poor for surgery and asking them if they had anything to inject her with to put her to sleep. They put her on a tarp and Joe and a fireman carried her up to the firehouse garage and placed her behind one of the columns so the firetrucks could still get in and out, and also, I think, so my children couldn't see her laying there. They also took their truck & hose down to the site and sprayed it clean of the blood and poop that came out of her. I stayed for a little while in the garage with her absentmindedly petting her and rubbing her belly and still feeling her warmth. I kissed her head and noticed how dark her tongue had turned b/c of the lack of oxygen. I kept realizing what I was doing and then I'd get up and wash my hands and use the rough paper towels to dry my tears and snot and then go right back to petting her again before I realized I would need to again wash my hands. Finally, they told me I could leave and they had my number and they would have animal services call me if they needed anything.
We went to middle school open house anyway after quickly getting ourselves together and regrouping. On the way home we were stuck in a line of middle schooler parent cars when I saw the animal services van pulling out of the firehouse driveway. I abandoned my car and jumped into his lane flagging him down. He realized who I was when I started sobbing about my dog and how I was sorry and how she just wouldn't stay in the house sometimes when we were leaving. He said it was ok and he was just glad that he could do something to help me and my dog.
Open house was hell btw, and I kept seeing everything replay in my mind. That replay button was stuck in the ON position until this morning. Seriously, the whole scene of it played over and over again in my mind. This happened Thursday and now it's Saturday and I'm finally able to forget a couple things. Now all my replay memories are in this entry. And my mind is safe from the guilt and blame and heartbreak that kept on going.
She was my sweet baby with the perfect eyeliner. She used to lay in my bed and she didn't like to be touched if she was sleeping or falling asleep. If your feet strayed into her area/zone she would viciously startle awake and snarl at your touch. She owned Jimmy, that was HER BOY. And Jimmy was HER puppy brother. At least that's what she seemed to think. He was the only one that was closest to her size in the house she used full reign over dominating him when she realized I stopped letting her dominate me. She would wrap her arms onto his shoulders and lick the wax out of his ears as he cried out for help b/c she took him down to the floor.
All that's gone now. She was my sweet baby. My sweet Rosybella Bean Box. My Ohz the Bean. Sweet, bold, little girl. She will be remembered by me, my kids, the cats she tried to attack, Jordan (the neighbor dog and suspected BOYFRIEND!) & Harley (another neighbor dog and probably another boyfriend), and my boyfriend's dog, Taylor who she had the hots for too. I know this cuz she was caught licking his weenie. A lot.
