After Andy

DISCLAIMER: This post will be sad. I'm sad as I write it, and by the end, you'll probably be sad as well. (Unless you're, like, cold and heartless or whatever.) So if you don't want to be sad, I suggest reading through the archives and finding a LOL-worthy alternative (how about this?) - and I promise, I'll be back to my normal dorky self real soon. Thanks for understanding, y'all.

*And by the way - in order to really understand this post, you'll need to read this one first.

I write for a living, but I'm having so much trouble finding words right now. How can I explain the depths of my love for the soul I bid a tearful goodbye to yesterday? Sure, he was a dog. Just a dog, some would argue. But anyone who has ever loved a four-legged friend so much will understand that there is no such thing as "just" a dog.

Though the classified ad in the paper had screamed, "FREE BLACK LAB PUPPIES," we knew he wasn't a full-blooded Lab when we saw his curly tail ... but he was adorable - tiny, sweet, and shy - and we loved him from the first time we laid eyes on him. We called him Andy because I swear he told me that was his name. At least that's what popped into my head and wouldn't leave, so even though it rhymed with Curtis's ex-girlfriend's name, that's who he became. Our Andy.

Andy was our first baby. He was part of the logical progression of family-building, our practice run for parenthood. Through the potty training, the chewed-up shoes, the adorably aggravating puppy stages, Curtis and I learned how to take care of another needy little being. Together.

We couldn't have predicted that a harrowing five-year battle with infertility would threaten our chances of ever having a "real" baby. Between seemingly-endless cycles of fertility drugs and invasive, dignity-stripping procedures, our hopes of having children dwindled. I clung to my Andy, the closest thing I ever had - the closest thing I ever thought I would have. He was my consolation, my only outlet for the maternal instinct that swelled within me. I shed many bitter tears into his shiny black fur, his warm weight cuddled close, temporarily easing an ache that wouldn't go away. Into him I poured my grief, my frustration, my feelings of inadequacy. In return he gave me constant, unconditional love.

Even after we finally had our boys, Andy remained as close to our hearts as ever. Which is why, when he bit Colin's arm several years ago in response to a startle, we chose to give him another chance. We thought it was an isolated incident. And for a long time, we all lived a peaceful coexistence - until two weeks ago, when our two-year-old fell on a sleeping Andy and was bitten in the face. It took forty stitches to close his wounds, and was a heartbreaking jolt into the reality that Andy was a threat to our children. Whether the bite was in response to an accident or not, he could have done far more serious damage. And that left us with an agonizing decision to make.

I immediately took to my blog and Facebook to ask for help - and my wonderful readers, friends, and family members offered up so much advice and encouragement. It wasn't all positive - I got several of the standard "if it had been my dog, he would have been killed instantly" type responses, and was even questioned as to whether I had the "mommy instinct" that led me to protect my children - but even those comments, as hard as they were to read, were made with my family's best interests at heart.

I began exhaustively researching our options. I called area Lab and elderly dog rescues and no-kill shelters, all of whom gave me sympathetic explanations that they just couldn't take a dog who has bitten a child. Through tears I posted a long ad on Craigslist, begging for a child-free home for Andy. The only result was a cluster of e-mails echoing what the Animal Control people had already told me - that if Andy were to ever bite anyone else, we would still be liable. One lady said she had re-homed a rescue dog who ended up biting someone, and she lost everything because of the resulting lawsuit.

For two weeks we hoped against hope. Weighed all the terrible options over and over again. Felt the choking, breathtaking sorrow as we considered - for the first time in ten years - life without Andy. And finally, came to a conclusion.

Yesterday morning, Andy had bacon and eggs and a big drink of cold water for breakfast. Curtis and I, just the two of us, took him out for a drive in Amish country. On the first 50-degree day of the year, Andy rode with his head out the Jeep window, just the way he loved to: ears flapping in the wind, soaking up the beautiful sunshine.

He got to run around without his leash, splashing gleefully through the early-spring thaw. He chewed on a beef-basted rawhide bone. He took a nap with Curtis. And in the afternoon, he was taken to the first vet he ever saw, the "pediatrician" of his puppyhood. Just before four o'clock, sedated and in the comfort of Curtis's arms, he was calmly and humanely put to sleep.

We buried him in one of his favorite locations: my grandparents' yard. He had spent many hours running freely through their orchard, weaving through the tall grasses in their field; it was only fitting that it be his final resting place. We wrapped him in a blanket and placed him gently in a hole that Curtis and his brother had dug by hand that morning, right beside the barn. We prayed and we cried. With heavy hearts we covered Andy's body with dirt, giving him up to the earth. We had driven four hours from home to end his life and rest his spirit in the best way we could think of - and afterward, we drove home again, virtually silent in our sorrow.

This is the first morning I've woken up to an empty spot on the floor beside my bed, but he seems to be everywhere. The hairs he's shed. The dent in the couch pillow where he always laid. His food and water bowls downstairs. Every movement, every shadow, looks like him to me. But it isn't. Andy is gone. And, like his footprints that still dot the remaining snow in our backyard, he will slowly fade from our lives.

It isn't what I wanted. It's what I feared most. And it is, and has been, agonizingly painful. I know we made the right choice for everyone, but the right choice is sometimes the hardest.

Cameron escaped serious harm. His stitches have been out for more than a week now, and his healing has been remarkable. He'll have no lasting effects, and the plastic surgeon says that there'll come a time when we won't even be able to see the scars any more. Can I say the same for my own scars, the ones developing over the still-fresh fault line that has opened up in my heart? At this point, it feels like the pain will never go away. Andy's absence is as big as his presence was.

Andy, Mommy loves you. I miss you. Thank you for being my baby. Thank you for ten wonderful years of companionship. Thank you for being more than just a dog.