Zeus went to the Bridge tonight..... It was time. And he's earned his wings.
I met Zeus when he was just a couple of weeks old. He came to live at the Vet Tech school in early 2000 with his 3 brothers, one sister and his mom, who was little more than a puppy herself. We named the puppies after Greek gods.... There was Athena, Apollo, Ulysses, Zeus and the smallest puppy we called Titan. Us vet tech students learned pretty fast how much work is involved in raising puppies! But for all the hard work (and loads of laundry I did at home), the payoff was daily doses of puppy breath, playing chase around the lower level of the vet tech school with all 5 puppies and laughing until my sides hurt at their goofiness. By the end of March, 2000, all of the puppies except Zeus had potential homes. The resident veterinarian had adopted his mom. The rule at school was any animal that came to the school lived there until they were adopted, regardless of how long that might be. We had a couple of cats that had lived there for years. It wasn't a bad place at all, it just wasn't a home. As we moved closer to the end of the school year, the other puppies went off to their forever homes, except Zeus. Now, there was nothing wrong with Zeus, he just didn't get picked.
In April of 2000, my mom's German Shepherd, Mandu, had to go to the Bridge because she had spinal issues and she could no longer walk. At the time, my dad was in a nursing home and we decided not to tell him about it because we didn't want him to be sad or be worried about Mom. We figured we'd cover that later when Dad was able to come home. But things didn't work out like that..... My dad fell in the nursing home and by this time he was so frail that we were pretty sure he probably wouldn't be leaving the hospital.... My dad died on May 2nd, 2000.
Within a couple of weeks, Mom had lost both her husband and her dog... In other words, everyone she took care of. She seemed sort of lost. After finals, the students were leaving for the summer and poor little Zeus hadn't been adopted yet. Seemed like a no-brainer to me. At first, we were just going to bring him home on the weekends so that he could learn about things like carpet and beds and bathrooms and all the other things that a dog that grows up in kennel doesn't get to experience. So he came home for the weekend...and never went back. Mom fell in love with him and he adored her. He grew to be so much bigger than she really needed, but she loved him nonetheless and they managed together.
Zeus loved watermelon and bananas. He always shared Mom's yogurt with her. In fact, I don't think my Mom put a morsel of food in her mouth at home that she didn't share some of it with Zeus... He was such a gentle soul that he almost seemed fragile. If you scolded him or yelled at him, he would just wilt away. He had terrible thunderstorm phobia and a few times caused some damage in his anxiety. But he always loved us. And he smiled....
He'd been deteriorating rapidly over the past few months. He was no longer able to go downstairs to the bedroom, so he had to sleep in the living room by himself. He needed help getting up and down the one step to go outside, even though we built him a ramp this summer. He wouldn't go near it. Once in a while during the summer, he'd go outside and run around like a puppy, but those times became fewer and fewer. Last night, it seemed like he didn't know where he was and he was terribly anxious. Today, he slept most of the day, and when he was up, he wandered around like he didn't know where to go..... So, at nearly 16 years of age..... he was telling me it was time.
Godspeed to the Bridge, Zeus. Good dog......
-mourning from the Dark Side
listening to "The Last Goodbye"
"Night is now falling
So ends this day
The road is now calling
And I must away
Over hill and under tree
Through lands where never light has shone
By silver streams that run down to the Sea
To these memories I will hold
With your blessing I will go
To turn at last to paths that lead home
And though where the road then takes me
I cannot tell
We came all this way
But now comes the day
To bid you farewell..."
- Billy Boyd
