Bisou at Fifteen

My little red Cavalier, Bisou, just turned fifteen. Her coat is still shiny, her appetite excellent, her joints supple. Her heart is almost murmur-free, which for her breed is practically a miracle. The vet calls her “an outlier.” True, her vision and hearing are no t what they once were, but neither are mine. Yet despite all this good news there is the inescapable reality that she is changing. It’s as if she’s fading behind a pane of glass that grows cloudier all the time. She is less present, less there in every way.

Years ago, I could not have imagined describing Bisou as being “less there,” because for most of her life she seemed to be everywhere. Weighing under 20 lbs, she nevertheless somehow filled the house. I tried my best to come up with ways to channel her intensity, but I mostly failed. Obedience and agility classes only seemed to rev her up. Ball throwing worked some, except that my arm always gave out before she did. I recruited my spouse to throw balls, thinking that his arm muscles would outlast her leg muscles, but I was wrong.

When we got her at eight weeks we had two German shepherds in the house, an elderly female and a gentlemanly two-year-old male. They taught her proper bathroom habits, and she taught them that a small dog with a tight turning radius could outmaneuver a bigger dog, no matter how fast. Plus, if they ever caught her, she had perfected what I called the omelet flip, instantly flopping onto her back and looking vulnerable, which brought the mannerly shepherds to a screeching halt. She would tease the male mercilessly, taking bones away from him and forcing him into a strange game which consisted of her making him open his (very large) mouth wide enough for her to stick her head inside it.

When we moved to our retirement community she became a therapy dog for several years, visiting residents in the memory care and skilled nursing areas. But eventually the job grew to be too much for her, and she retired. Next, she retired from retrieving. When I threw a ball, she would look at me, saying, what am I supposed to do with this? Then she gave up another favorite, distance recalls, because she could no longer understand either voice or hand commands.

Our lives have become much calmer now that she is old. Gone are her endless requests for exercise and excitement. She sleeps for hours on end, sometimes with her eyes half open. She hardly ever initiates interactions, with the exception of mealtimes. It takes forever to get her to wake up, go outside, come back in. Our walks are much shorter now, and only when weather conditions are ideal. She does still enjoy her sense of smell, and I practice patience as she sniffs for traces of creatures known only to her. She has retained some odd habits, such as reminding me to brush her teeth in the morning, and demanding that we retire to the bedroom by 10 p.m. at the latest.

I often see her standing in the middle of the room, nodding her head, her mouth half open and a lost, Biden-esque look in her eyes. Oh Bisou, where are you?

Every morning as I extract her from under my bed, where she now inexplicably prefers to sleep, I scrutinize her for signs of decline. But some mornings she is quite alert, and both her parents lived to be fifteen, and her two littermates are still in fine fettle. In the months (I dare not hope for a year) that are left to her, as she continues to fade behind that cloudy glass wall, I hope that my care and affection will shine through for her and give her comfort. And on the day when her bright flame is extinguished, I pray that it will happen swiftly, while she is napping after a good dinner or a satisfying sniff walk—a just reward for a wild and crazy but good, good dog.