Oh, for the love of...

Oh, for the love of... Dog. 

The trip down from the mountains was a little speedier than normal. In retirement I've admittedly become one of those dreaded drivers who actually approximates the speed limit. Not that I sit in the left lane pegging the 55 or 65 mph  while watching a line of traffic build up behind me, but I enjoy driving, which is, at least in Colorado not the same thing as enjoying driving FAST. The advantage of retirement is not being under a continual time crunch to be somewhere, ANYWHERE, other than where I actually AM so I have the luxury of being able to enjoy the drive without constantly checking my watch.

Not so last Thursday. Don't think I've ever driven the route from Leadville to Denver as fast as I did that afternoon. With apologies to all the cars and trucks I passed at an exorbitant speed I had SOMEWHERE to be and the normal two hour timeframe for getting there wasn't going to cut it. Amazingly, at least to me, is that as fast as I was going (80 mph at times) other drivers were still routinely passing me. I-70 - Mountain NASCAR - lived up to its reputation.

That SOMEWHERE I was in such a hurry to reach is generally referred to with two simple letters: E and R though on this trip the patient had paws instead of feet. My wife and I had come back from a bike ride to find Yukon, one of our two Siberian Huskies, standing in his kennel, head drooping, looking like he had had a stroke. He was wheezing and having difficulty breathing and we knew immediately something was seriously wrong. There are Vets and a Pet ER in Leadville but we made the decision to rush him down to the vets he normally sees at VRCC in Denver. 

Halfway to Denver Yukon lost control of all his bodily functions. By the time we reached the ER in Englewood they had to lift him onto the gurney. The prognosis was grim. What had been a healthy and exuberant bundle of fur that morning was at death's door suffering from aspiration pneumonia. He had a temperature of 106 degrees, organ failure, and his blood test results did not bode well for recovery. In consultation with the vet and praying that we were doing the right thing, we made the heart-wrenching decision to put our beloved Yukon to sleep. 

I clearly understand that in a world where people are dying needlessly in the hundreds, thousands, and millions from everything from war, famine, mass shootings and gun violence to pandemic, addiction and drunk driving some might question the appropriateness of mourning the passing of an animal when so many of my own kind are leaving life behind. For me it does not need to be an either-or; I can, and do, mourn for both. But candidly, though I've had the delight of canine companionship through all of my life, losing my Yukon has hit especially hard. As I told the vet, this - the decision to pit your pet down - doesn't get any easier though I've now felt the life leave from more pets as I've held them than I care to think about.

For dog lovers, every wet nose and wagging tail is special and unique. Every happy yip and bark brings joy. Joy... a feeling of great pleasure and happiness. Yukon brought so much of it into our lives that I fear the emptiness left behind will never quite be filled. 

Yukon's introduction to Life was not gentle. He was born to a backyard breeder who for whatever reason couldn't place (sell) or simply didn't want this weeks-old ball of fur born with one brown and one blue eye and a brown tinge to his coat and decided to throw him out on the streets of, of all places, Wichita, Kansas to fend for himself. By the time he was rescued he was severely malnourished and underweight and you couldn't blame him for being afraid and skittish around people. But that wasn't Yukon. Despite the cruelty meted out to him as he entered this world, he loved people. Just this 4th of July we were at the holiday parade in Leadville and Yukon reveled in the attention from kids and adults alike as they stopped to pet him and they in turn experienced, if but for a moment, some of the boundless love this dog had to give.

Love is a word that perhaps gets overused. Love between humans is often complicated. Who truly knows what is in another's heart? Love also can be fleeting, you need only look at the divorce statistics to see that people fall in and out of love all the time. There is a purity of Love given by a pet that I have yet to experience with those of my own kind and if I grieve for my Yukon that grief is because that type of Love is so rarely found and I will desperately miss it. If the Love in Yukon's now-still heart could only be forever shared this World would be a better place. 

I often looked into Yukon's eyes and hoped he knew he was loved as much in return by my wife and I. Every breed is special in its own way but if you've ever gazed into the eyes of a Siberian Husky and tried to fathom what you see then your heart and soul has swelled in wonder of what those depths have to share. Dogs are long since removed from their wild forbears but in the one blue and one brown eye of Yukon I could get a glimpse of a world sadly long lost to mankind. They say that not all who wander are lost; in Yukon's gaze I felt at peace, at home, and free to roam.

When we rescued Yukon his name was Blade, a moniker we never felt remotely fit him. Why we settled on the name Yukon is pure serendipity but it was foretelling. Yukon would get to visit his namesake and it was as if he was going home. I'm not overly religious but if there is a Heaven I hope, Yukon, it looks and smells and sounds like the great, wild Northcountry you got to experience in your youth.

Apologies to those who are not pet people for waxing on about the loss of my Yukon. Perhaps if you had ever met and seen him light up with happiness to greet you or been slapped by a tail wagging in pure bliss as you petted his head, you could indulge me in sharing, just for a moment, the love shared between a very, very special dog and one oh so ordinary human being. Yukon - from my still beating but now inconsolable heart, Thank You. May the ground beneath your paws be forever padded in pine needles.