I haven’t been on here in a good long while. But I’m thankful I kept this blog in the early days. It makes today hurt a little less.
My last post was over three years ago. I wish I had kept up with this blog better because what is on here warms my heart. It’s fitting that my last post was regarding her sarcoma because that’s ultimately what took her away from me.
This year has been so hard in so many ways on a lot of people. But my 2020 has overall been a year of good fortune and growth for me, up until now. This year has taken from me the most painful thing it could have taken. My sweet Kaya.
Three years ago, we fought cancer. And for three glorious years, we got to forget about it. And this year, I noticed Kaya had started losing weight. It was gradual at first. About two months ago, I took her to the vet to confirm what I already knew. The cancer was back, and had engulfed the majority of her liver.
Although she was a little thirstier and started having issues throwing up water when she drank too much, she was overall happy. The vet couldn’t tell me how much time I had left with her, but however much, it could never be enough.
Over the past week, she made a steady and steep decline. The dog she was on Sunday was not the dog she was on Friday. She had stopped eating almost entirely, and she didn’t have the same vigor I so fondly remember. She could barely get up anymore. I could tell she was tired. Today I got to stay with her, pet her, and give her kisses as we said our final goodbyes.
There’s no way to prepare yourself for how much something like this hurts. Six years was not enough. The whole fifteen of her life would not have been enough. I loved her so intensely from the day I brought her home. And I told her from day one, that she had to live to fifteen. There was no other option. Well, she heard me. Her fifteenth birthday was two weeks ago. I’m going to share a picture from that day, as she was still in good enough health to enjoy a leisurely walk to smell some interesting things and to wade in the river.
I want to mourn her loss less and celebrate her life more. She was always so loud and opinionated. She was very independent. She loved food more than anything else on the planet, probably me included. And in this last week, she couldn’t even enjoy food. I told her today that she would be able to eat all the chicken nuggets she wanted now. I asked Nanook to help her cross over the Rainbow Bridge so she wouldn’t have to do it alone.
I’m so immensely thankful for the time we had together. For the adventures we got to go on. For the love and the bond that we shared. I’m thankful for the circumstances we’ve achieved. Together. Kaya was the first dog I adopted on my own. We went from living in a single bedroom where I worked two jobs to a three bedroom house with a fenced in yard and a doggy door where I got to work from home. I’m thankful that I got to spend more time with her, especially as her health declined. I’m thankful we had as long as we did together. And I’m thankful I got to see her off to the other side, as much as it hurts.
Kaya will always and forever be my sunshine, my heart dog. There aren’t enough words in the world to encapsulate the light that was her life. She was a fighter until the end. A stubborn Husky until her final day.
There are so many things I want to say. So many memories I never want to fade. She will be in my heart, and tattooed on my hip, forever. I’ll miss the loud alarm barks, letting me know it was time to get up because SHE was up. I’ll miss how if I didn’t listen, she would just come sit on my head. I’ll miss the way she played. One of her favorite things to do was just dive face first into the bed and yell and roll around. She was never a fan of sleeping in the bed, but boy did she like to roll all over it. I’ll miss how she followed me absolutely everywhere. She was my bathroom buddy. I couldn’t pee alone, and I couldn’t shower without knowing she was right on the other side of the curtain, patiently waiting to be able to lick all the water off my legs.
I remember the day I brought her home. The Humane Society offered a two week foster-to-adopt program. I met her, not quite sure what to make of her because she had been a loud grumble butt from day one, and I signed up to put a hold on her and come back the next day to pick her up, as that was when I was moving into my new house. I got so lucky in getting her. As I handed in my paperwork for her, another lady started filling out the hold form too. Somewhere, there was a miscommunication, because instead of starting the foster the next day, they had adopted her out to me. I drove away from the Humane Society and looked over at her in awe. I had a dog. She was my dog. And she wasted absolutely no time making herself at home. I hadn’t even kind of unpacked, and I had just put sheets on the bed. One of the first things she went to do was her signature bed roll. I still have a picture of her looking up at me, moving box right beside her. It was good they didn’t do the foster. There was never any going back, anyway.
She was so smart. I’ll miss the training and the puzzle games with her. I’ll miss just talking to her. She understood more than most would believe, I think. And she loved like no other. If she came to you for pets, it’s because she wanted to, not because you asked. She loved to have her ears and her face scratched. And if you’d scratch the fronts of her back legs, she’d kick them straight out in a big stretch.
She was the most gentle baby, but she was loud about it. I trusted her more than any other dog not to bite me, no mater the circumstances. But she would absolutely be vocal if you were doing something she didn’t like. Baths, for instance. For a dog that loved water as much as she did, she HATED bath time. I’d take her out to a lake or a river and before you knew it, she was chest deep, shoving her face directly into the water. But if I so much as touched the shower knob while she was in the tub? She was screaming bloody murder before the water even hit her.
I think she knew she could tug at my heartstrings enough to get me to bend to her will on most things. I could never bear to hear her cry. For as loud as she was, and she was pretty much constantly loud, she had her own language. One I grew to understand. To most people I’ve known who’ve met her, she just constantly sounded angry. She communicated in a lot of barks, growls, and grumbles. We always joked that she was my grumpy old lady. More often than not, though, her angry sounds weren’t her being actually angry. It’s just how she talked.
Although Huskies are notorious escape artists and like to bolt as soon as they get the chance, she was never like that. There are only two times she ever got away from me that I can recall. The first, she pushed her way out of a screen door that hadn’t been latched. All she did was walk out into the yard to take a poo, lol. She came right back at the shake of a treat bag. The other time, we were out hiking. Her leash had slipped out of my hand, and she took off running for the trees. I just knew I had lost her to the wilderness. As soon as she hit the tree line, though, she whipped right back around and came back to me. She just had to get out some zoomies really quick.
She liked to play fetch, but mostly just the chase part. She was never interested in actually picking the ball or whatever we were playing with back up and bringing it back. But she did like toys. Her favorite was one we took to calling Hampton the Hedgehog. ...And then Hampton Jr. and eventually Hampton the third because she liked him a little too much, lol.
Her favorite food was whatever was in my hand at the moment, lol. Nothing tasted as good as whatever I happened to have. After she was labeled a hospice dog a couple of months ago, I decided I was going to give her whatever she wanted to make sure she had the happiest time she could, so she was off dog food entirely and just ate some of whatever I was having. She loved chicken nuggets, roast beef, and ribs. I tried to make her some variety of cake every year for her birthday. Some years it was a meat stew pie, some years carrot cake, and one year it was a meatloaf iced in mashed potatoes. This year, I made her a carrot cake iced with whipped cream cheese. She wasn’t the biggest fan of the cream cheese, but she liked the cake bit.
She was loyal and loving until the end, and I’m so glad she’s no longer suffering. If you have pets, do me a favor and hug them just a little bit tighter for me tonight. Give them an extra biscuit and tell them how good they are and how much you love them. For those of us who can’t anymore. Enjoy every second. Life is fleeting, and you never know when it will be gone.
Rest in peace, my sweet Kaya. You will always be my sunshine.
