A little over a week ago, my dog, Ziva, slipped on the wooden stairs that run along the side of my house. She didn’t just lose her footing, she fell down. When she got back up, she could hardly put any weight on her back left leg. She’s thirteen and a half years old, so injuries are disconcerting.

At the time Ziva fell, we were headed out for a walk with my four grandkids. I thought I’d have to carry Ziva back in the house, but after she took a few steps, her leg worked better, but walking wasn’t easy for her. I figured we’d just walk across the road and let her tinkle, then go back home. But the more she walked, the better her leg worked. She resisted my efforts to turn around and go home, making it clear she wanted to keep walking, just like an athlete shaking off a momentary ache before getting back in the game. We completed our short walk, and Ziva did well for the rest of the day.

Then on Sunday, she must have done something that tweaked her injury. She likes to prance and dance around when she’s excited, especially if she’s outside and we’re getting ready to go for a ride or if she sees a dog walking down the street. She was a little gimpy Sunday evening, but not too bad, and she still insisted we go for her after-dinner walk. When she woke up on Monday, she was back to her old self.

But on Monday afternoon, she tweaked her injury again, probably getting out of the van. Because not long after her ride to the post office with us, she once again struggled to walk around. She was obviously in pain. She ate supper, but she wanted nothing to do with her after-dinner walk. At first I thought she wanted to walk because she stood by the back door. So, I put her leash on, and we walked onto the back deck. But she refused to move more than a few feet beyond the back door. We went back in the house, and she stood in front of the microwave and looked up at her treat dish. Her message to me: I walked a few feet, now I want my treats. Happy that she had an appetite, and that she still enjoyed bossing me around, I gave her a half dozen small crunchy treats. After she realized she wasn’t going to get anymore, she went to sleep on her bed in the family room, where she stayed for the rest of the night.

Tuesday morning when Ziva woke up, she was her cheery, tail-wagging self. Her walking was back to normal, and she was interested in breakfast and her morning walk.

But Tuesday afternoon after prancing and dancing in the yard, Ziva reinjured herself. And this time was worse than the other times. She was in pain. She struggled to walk. Anytime she got up from the floor, she stood still for a couple of minutes, as if waiting to see if she could trust her leg to move forward and keep her upright. She wouldn’t wag her tail.

I called the vet’s office, and because there was a cancellation, I was able to get Ziva an appointment for Thursday morning. I couldn’t believe our good luck. It’s so hard to get a short-notice appointment at my vet’s because they have so many patients and not enough staff. A pet has to be in dire condition, and Ziva’s injury doesn’t meet that standard. Even the emergency veterinary hospital, which is open nights and weekends, wouldn’t want me to bring her in because they wouldn’t consider her critically ill. They would tell me she could be seen by her regular vet. And her regular vet would tell me that I could take her to the ER vet hospital when it opened. It’s a classic Catch-22 moment when this happens. So much so that it gives me pause about getting another dog.

On Tuesday night after her supper, Ziva never asked for a walk or her post-walk treats. After I took her outside to go to the bathroom, she climbed into her large, cushy bed on the family room floor and went to sleep. Throughout the afternoon and evening, she never once wagged her tail. I was glad she had eaten supper and that she drank water, but I wanted to see her poofy tail twirl in the adorable circles it makes when she wags it.

I tried to walk without Ziva. I walked down to the road and started to go left, but that’s usually the way Ziva and I go, which made me sad. Then I discovered I had my T-shirt on inside out, which distressed me. I wondered if anyone would notice because I knew if I went inside the house to turn it right-side out, I wouldn’t come back outside. I decided to walk the other direction, but I couldn’t do that either. I was too sad without Ziva. There are times I have walked without her, but that’s because it was too hot for her or because she was taking a big nap and I didn’t want to wake her. This time was different because she wasn’t able to come with me. I went back inside and turned my T-shirt right-side out. I picked up a book and sat down on the couch. While reading, I kept looking up to watch Ziva as she slept, hoping she was healing.

This morning Ziva was only slightly better. In pain and not trusting her leg, she walked slowly. But before she went outside to the bathroom, she wagged her tail and asked for a treat. My husband and I both gave a small cheer while Ziva ate her treats.

Today there will be no walks or car rides. Ziva won’t go outside unless someone is with her to make sure there is no prancing and dancing. After we see the vet tomorrow, we’ll know more, but continued rest will probably be part of the treatment. We are keeping an eye on her. She can hop up on the couch or the stuffed chair, but when she wants to get down, she looks to one of us for help. As I finish writing this, she is sleeping on her bed in my office. She often joins me when I write. She is a mama’s girl. And she is my Ziva Baby.

When the busy day is done, all the walks and treats and belly rubs, find your furry buddy and close your eyes. And dream your doggie dreams.

Dreams of fast runs, forest paths, green fields, chattering squirrels, hopping rabbits, and chittering birds.

Ziva was born in Barrett, Minnesota, on a rolling farm, but has lived her life in Wisconsin at the tip of Lake Superior. Her father’s name was Rufus and her mother’s name was Ziva. So, yes, Ziva is named after her mother, but she is also named after Ziva David from the TV show NCIS. I think the Ziva David character is very kick-ass with a great sense of humor. Our Ziva, however, is a forty-six-pound baby, who has more in common with the Cowardly Lion. But our Ziva does make us laugh. Her full name is Ziva Baby, and it suits her

If I show you a picture of Ziva, you will probably think she is a black poodle. But, we’re not so sure. When Ziva was three-and-a-half months old, two different poodle breeders told me she was actually a blue poodle. “What’s that?” people sometimes ask. In Travels with Charley, John Steinbeck describes his blue standard poodle, Charley, by saying that he looks like a dirty black poodle who needs a bath.

When she was three months old, I enrolled Ziva in a puppy socialization class. She had mixed feelings about the course. She was okay with the part where she got to sit on my lap while the dog trainer answered questions. And she didn’t mind being passed around from human to human. But when it was time to mingle with the other puppies, she crawled under the bench and hid behind my legs. Finally, the dog trainer placed us with a group of designer micro dogs, figuring the teeny-tiny pups wouldn’t be as scary. Ziva still crawled behind my legs. When she finished puppy socialization class, she was given a certificate of completion. Purely a feel-good thing because she was too shy to socialize with the other puppies.

Riding high on Ziva’s lack of success in the puppy class, I enrolled her in an obedience class. She loved it. No one expected her to play with the other dogs. She excelled, and after two sessions, she was clearly the teacher’s pet. Me, not so much. Turns out it was not your traditional sit-stay-come-heel class. I had unknowingly enrolled Ziva in a class that was for people who wanted to compete in dog shows or obedience trials with their canines. Ziva learned so quickly that the dog trainers used her to demonstrate different walking moves and turns. The problem? When I had to perform with Ziva, I was all left feet, with no sense of rhythm. Ziva got praise, I got scolded. We only went back to the class a third time because I had to return a collar I had borrowed. After we dropped off the collar, I told the instructor I had to take Ziva out to go potty. But we got back in the car, and feeling like that adolescent girl who couldn’t make the pom squad, I cried. Ziva licked my chin, and crawled onto my lap. We became dog school dropouts.

For years Ziva was a reader — books, magazines, and newspapers. She loved to chew on the written word. I still have the copy of All Quiet on the Western Front that we both savored, except I wasn’t the one who left teeth marks on it. I learned to walk around the house and make sure every book and magazine was put where she couldn’t reach it. But her desire to read triumphed, and she became resourceful. She put her paws on tables and scooped up books. She threaded her face between two couches set at a right angle and slipped my quilting magazines off the bottom shelf of the end table. She poked her snout between the chairs at my desk (placed to keep her out) and selected books off the ledge under the desk. When I successfully blocked these accesses to my books and magazines, she started reading boxes of tissues. So, I left old newspapers on the coffee table in case she wanted to read. About once or twice a month, I’d return home to find shredded newsprint all over the floor. These days she seems to be over her urge to “read.” Perhaps she has become farsighted.

If her sister, Cabela, had a toy she wanted, Ziva would run to the back door and pretend she wanted to go outside. Cabela loved to play outside, so she would drop her toy and run to the door too. My husband or I would open the door. But as soon as Cabela was outside, Ziva turned around and grabbed the toy Cabela had dropped. Cabela is gone now, but Ziva uses this technique on my husband and me. She stands by the back door and pretends she wants to go outside, when we open the door, she does a half turn and stands in front of the microwave, looking up at her bowl of treats. We laugh at her and turn away. But she will do it again and again because she occasionally gets the treat.

Ziva loves to go for rides. She knows when it’s Sunday morning because that is grocery shopping day. She loves to hear “Want to go to the bank?” because she can withdraw treats. When we get the suitcases out, she knows we are going to Michigan. Sometimes Ziva gets carsick, so we keep old towels and blankets on the van floor, and on long trips we give her Dramamine. She is a true road warrior.

And a kind, loving dog.

“We’ve had this conversation before,” Ziva says. She is smaller than Bogey, four years older than Bogey, and a guest in his house. And he could easily knock her to the floor. But none of that stops her from putting her four paws down when he tries to play with a toy at night.

“Don’t touch that ball. Definitely, don’t squeak that ball,” Ziva says. “I tell you this every time I come to visit.” And she does. For the last eight years or so, Ziva has accompanied my husband and me to Petoskey, Michigan, whenever we visit my mother.

A moment before this photo was snapped, Bogey asked my mother to open the closet door. (If you look to the right in the photo, you can see his box of toys in the closet.) His yellow duck rested on the top, but Bogey selected the white ball because it has a delicious squeak, and because my mother will toss it in the living room for him. This is his nightly routine when we aren’t visiting Mom, and he sees no reason to give it up just because there’s company.

This bothers Ziva. And it bothers me too. Everyone has settled in on a couch or a chair. The humans are talking and watching TV. It’s hard to hear anything over the noise of Bogey’s squealing ball and stomping feet.

Tonight, Ziva rebukes Bogey as soon as she hears the first shriek from the ball. She springs from the couch where a second ago she seemed to be in a deep sleep and barks as she approaches him. Bogey drops the ball before she reaches him.

“Go ahead. I double dare you!” Ziva says, watching Bogey while she looks askance at the ball. They stand close together, frozen, for at least a minute. She doesn’t make a move for the ball because she doesn’t want it. She never wants his toys. At eight o’clock at night, she wants peace and quiet. Bogey has turned his head away, and refuses to make eye contact. He waits for her to go away, but she doesn’t. Not another word passes between them. Like a pair of disgruntled lovers, they’ve had this conversation so many times over the years that it has now become a wordless exchange, each side knowing what the other side would say if they did speak.

Ziva refuses to retreat. Finally, Bogey gives up and leaves the ball. He crawls under the long skinny table behind his favorite couch and sulks and waits. Ziva returns to her favorite couch.

Ten minutes later Bogey emerges from under the table and silently shuffles to the closet. He roots through his box of toys and pulls out a multi-colored stuffed caterpillar. He slinks into the den with his toy. He knows if he enters the living room with it, he won’t be allowed to have it. The ball Bogey had wanted to play with still lays on the living room floor. If Ziva heard him, she ignored him, allowing him a small victory.

Even tucked out of sight in the den, Bogey knows not to make the caterpillar squeal. He’s a very smart dog, and he has never won this argument.

Cabela died at 11:30 on the night of August 4. She was fifteen years old, and we loved her very much. She was a brown standard poodle born on June 24, 2008, in a red barn on a farm in Barret, Minnesota. Her first human parents were Emmet and Ruth, a pair of kind farmers who raised Labradors and standard poodles for pin money. Cabela spent her early puppy days playing outside on their farm with her siblings in the summer sunshine. She developed a life-long love of being outdoors.

When we brought Cabela home, she wanted to be outside all the time. She liked to sit or lay under my husband’s maple tree in the front yard. She believed her job was to patrol the yard, watching cars and pedestrians move up and down the streets at the front and the side of our house. She and the priest who lived across the street became friends. When he left or returned home in his silver Buick, he would slow to a crawl to see if Cabela was outside. If she was, she would line up with his car, he on the road and she in our yard. The priest would slowly accelerate and Cabela would accelerate. They raced until she reached our lot line. The priest always ended the race in a tie, and the two of them enjoyed their game for years. In her prime when Cabela was excited, she ran hot laps, up to six or seven of them in a row, around our yard at warp speed, or she launched herself six feet into the air along the trunk of a tall pine tree. Drivers would stop and watch her performance. Dr. Jenny, her regular vet, once remarked, “Cabela has the heartrate of an athlete.” I said, “She is an athlete.”

Cabela died because her stomach twisted. The medical term for this is Gastric dilatation-volvulus (GDV). It’s more common in deep-chested dogs like standard poodles, and it’s more problematic in older dogs because the muscles and ligaments holding their stomachs in place become weak and more elastic. The emergency hospital vet, Dr. H, asked me if Cabela was spayed and when I said yes, he asked if her stomach had been tacked at the time. I’d never heard of this, but it’s supposed to help prevent GDV. I have no idea if Cabela’s stomach was tacked when she was fixed.

On August 4, Cabela’s evening started out normal. She ate her supper, and an hour later she went for a walk with her sister, Ziva, and me. Cabela still loved her walks, but they were now a slow, grass-sniffing shuffle around the block, then she was done. After the walk she rambled around the house. This too was part of her evening routine. She had a touch of dementia, which often became more noticeable in the evening. In humans with dementia, this is called sundowning. Cabala would look like a person who had entered a room but couldn’t remember why, no matter how hard she tried. Usually after thirty to sixty minutes of intermittent ramblings, she settled into a deep peaceful sleep until the wee hours of the morning when she would wake me up so she could go outside and potty.

But on that night, Cabela wouldn’t even lay down for a short rest. She moved from the family room to the living room and back again. My husband and I encouraged her to lay down. We stroked her head and ears when she came near us. We patted the couch cushion, inviting her to hop up and rest. But she backed away and kept moving. We wondered if her hips or legs were in pain. She was arthritic and her hind leg muscles had begun to atrophy. We wondered if she’d torn a ligament. She didn’t cry or whine or wince. Cabela was so very stoic all her life, and at the end of her life she would be no different. Later that night while treating her, Dr. H would remark, “Cabela is one of the most stoic dogs I’ve ever treated.”

At nine o’clock, I gently helped Cabela lay down on her sheepskin bed. She resisted for a moment, then relaxed. She closed her eyes, and I stroked her face and neck. She fell asleep. Later I would realize that for a few minutes either fatigue got the best of her pain or the position in which she lay gave her a brief respite from it. But at that moment, it appeared she would sleep until the wee hours of the morning. I sat with her for five minutes, watching the peaceful rise and fall of her chest, her only movement. Then I let her be and returned to the family room.

But a few minutes later Cabela was up and walking around, lost and confused, looking at me with sad eyes. I tried to lay her down again and soothe her, but she was having none of it. She snapped at me, placing her teeth gently on my arm. She kept pacing. At ten o’clock I took Cabela to the animal hospital.

I had to carry her into the van. Again she whipped her head around and nipped at me. This time her head banged into my glasses, bending my wire-rim frames. She rested her teeth on my shoulder, but did not bite down. Only later would I understand she was saying, “It hurts so bad.”

We arrived at the hospital, and I had to lift Cabela out of the van. She snapped at me one last time, still all warning and no bite. After I described her symptoms to the receptionist, Cabela was seen immediately. Dr. H and the techs were wonderful to Cabela and me. The vet suspected her stomach had twisted. I felt awful. I told the doctor that I thought she had been sundowning. He understood because he’d had a beagle who had episodes of sundowning as an old dog. He remarked that Cabela had a very good heart rate for a dog her age. “She was an athlete,” I said.

Cabela was taken back into the hospital where she was sedated to relieve her pain, then she had her abdomen x-rayed. I knew if her stomach was twisted, she would need to be put to sleep. Dogs do have surgery to correct twisted stomachs and often survive if the condition is caught early. But Cabela was fifteen years old with some dementia, nearly deaf, arthritic with weak muscles, and during her initial exam, Dr. H had discovered she was nearly blind in her right eye.

Cabela’s x-ray confirmed that her stomach had twisted. The vet said because I’d brought her in so quickly, she would’ve been a good candidate for surgery if she had been younger and in good health. “But to do this surgery on her at this stage of her life,” he said, “would be cruel.” And I agreed. The vet left to get the medicine needed to put Cabela to sleep.

The tech brought Cabela back to me and I sat on the floor and held her. She was heavily sedated, breathing quietly, soft and warm in my lap. I asked the tech if he had a pair of scissors so I could have a snippet of Cabela’s hair as a keepsake. He kindly made this happen. Then the vet returned. After Cabela died, I was given time alone with her. I held her. I thanked her for being such a good dog. I told her she would see her old pal Bailey, our first standard poodle, and they could play and nothing would hurt. They loved to chase one another and play tuggy with an elastic-filled, furry toy we called Lizzy. Bailey died when Cabela was two and a half, and she looked for Bailey for weeks. When my husband and I brought Cabela home and introduced the two of them, they began to play immediately. Every minute or so, Bailey would run back to my husband or me, wagging her tail and smiling as if to say, “Thank you! Thank you so much for bringing me a puppy!” Then she would dash back to play with Cabela.

We met Cabela on a pleasant September day in 2008 in Owatonna, Minnesota, near the Cabela’s sporting goods store, for which she would be named. My husband and I and my youngest son and his future wife were eating lunch in a restaurant and watching out the window as people walked up and down a row of dog breeders who had set up along a wide grassy boulevard. The breeders came from Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Minnesota to sell leftover puppies they hadn’t been able to sell back home. We decided after lunch to look at them. I thought about free puppy cuddles. We already had our two-year-old standard poodle, Bailey, so I had no interest in getting another dog.

The four of us visited the standard poodle puppies first, and my son scooped up a chocolate one and snuggled her to his chest. Content, the puppy nuzzled in and closed her eyes. I talked to the woman about her poodles and my poodle. And while I talked, my son whispered, “Take her home, please, just take her home.” He repeated the words over and over. I looked at my eighteen-year-old son, holding this puppy, and my heart melted. I asked the lady how much she wanted for the puppy. Her answer was reasonable. I asked my husband if it was okay with him, and without hesitation he said it was. I wrote the woman a check, and my son carried her to the car. We never visited the other breeds of puppies.

We named our new puppy in record time. Because she was a chocolate-colored dog, my husband suggested Hershey, which I immediately nixed. “That name will encourage jokes about the Hershey squirts.” My husband laughed, but this was an indignity I felt no dog should have to endure. My son suggested Cabela, and we all agreed it was a great name. Cabela was eleven weeks old when we bought her, and I am eternally grateful that no one else had chosen her. She earned her middle name when during a case of the zoomies, she misjudged the width of the hallway and ran head first into a wall. As she shook her head, I said, “Your middle name is now Grace.” Over the years we gave her lots of nicknames: The Brown Bomber, Range Rover, Ichabod, Snickerdoodle, Kadiddlehopper, and Bel. I once read somewhere that a well-loved pet will have many nicknames.

It was after midnight when I came home without Cabela. I came in through the garage and up the basement stairs. Ziva stood at the top of the steps, waiting. She kept looking to either side of me, watching for Cabela to come up the stairs. Even though it was late, I knew I wouldn’t sleep, so I sat on the loveseat and Ziva climbed up on her favorite couch. I turned on the TV, but I have know idea what I watched. Every now and then, Ziva heard a noise and her head popped up. She looked toward the hallway, waiting to see Cabela come into the family room.

In 2011, after Bailey had died, Cabela was lonely. She had liked having a dog buddy, so we called Emmet and Ruth. Luckily one of their poodles had recently had puppies, so we reserved one for Cabela. But, when we brought Ziva home, she didn’t want to play with Cabela. Every time Cabela came near her, Ziva squealed like she was in mortal danger. And each time Cabela moved away and gave her space. “Won’t that be something if Ziva never wants to play?” my husband and I would say. Thankfully, two weeks later, Ziva approached Cabela and said, “Let’s play.” And they, too, became buddies.

Cabela died on a Friday night, and that weekend I couldn’t stay in the house. I wanted to be outside where Cabela had loved to be. I felt her spirit would be in the yard. I spent the whole weekend outside, making things look pretty for Cabela. I weeded gardens and picked up sticks. My husband helped me wash windows, clean gutters, and dig up some scraggly, out-of-control bushes so we could plant new ones next spring. If I mentioned Cabela’s name and Ziva heard me, she looked at me quickly and intently and cocked her head. “Where?” she would ask. She seemed so sad, too.

I miss Cabela. I loved how her ears flapped in the wind when she sat in our front yard on breezy days. I miss how she poodle-pranced down the street on our walks. I miss how she could raise one eyebrow and then the next, alternating back and forth when she asked for a treat. I miss seeing her on the living room couch, her front paws resting on its back and her head resting on her paws as she looked out the window, working the yard from inside the house. I miss how she would turn to look at us each night before she headed down the hall to her sheepskin bed. “Calling it a night?” my husband would ask, then say, “Have a good sleep.”

[My dog Cabela died two months ago. I’ve tried to blog about her dying (because I blogged about her when she was living) but I would end up crying. Then I would decide my words were fluff, unable to capture her essence and the hole left in my heart by her death. A couple of days ago I read “When a Cold Nose is at the Pearly Gates: Writing a Pet’s Obituary” by Laurel E. Hunt on Brevity Blog. After I finished reading Hunt’s blog, I tried writing about Cabela’s death in the form of an obituary, but that didn’t work for me either. And I cried again. Even thought Hunt’s writing idea didn’t work for me, I’m thankful I read her blog on October 6 because she inspired me to try and write about Cabela again. To learn more about GDV click here.]