Critters: Trudie the Dachshund

Trudie, the little Prussian as I called her, was 9 years old when I got her from a small-dog rescue group in January, 2004. She was 10 1/2 when I had her put down in May of 2005. The final episode was a diagnosis of pancreatitis, an extremely painful condition in which digestive enzymes get backed up and start to digest the pancreas. In dogs this shows up as a puke-and-poop-fest with extreme dehydration, outside every 20 minutes all night, and she had it 3 times in 6 weeks. (It may have started with the way her original family overfed her -- she was quite obese when I got her -- but later the vet was thinking tumor and blockage.) Each time she had it, restoring her cost me $500. The second time, they sent me home with an IV setup and showed me how to give her subcutaneous fluids. The third time, I'm afraid, was the charm.

When I first got her, she was diagnosed with a bladder tumor, which turned out to be a thickening of the bladder wall due to chronic urinary tract infection. She announced that by peeing blood on my carpet.

Even when she wasn't mortally ill, she seemed extremely depressed. The only times she appeared happy was certain moments running with Frank's dog, Sturmz, and Betty Lou's dog, Ruby. She didn't particularly like either of them, but she loved running with a pack. Looking back, I think she must've been in pain most of the time -- if one of them accidentally stepped on her or bumped her, she'd go into "land shark" mode, snapping and snarling but never making contact.

The way she appears in the picture was pretty typical. She loved the oval, sheepskin-lined cat bed, and as she was always cold, she also loved Mark O'Brien's old plaid blanket. The bed was like home base for her, and she'd race over to it and jump in, even when I wanted to take the bed in the car.



Quirks she had: She'd never come to me. I had to turn away from her and start walking, and then she'd follow me. She growled at men with loud voices (my landlord) but didn't mind women or men with soft voices (my landlord's Mexican helper and Frank). When I first got her she lay in the recliner chair all day every day for about 3 months. I had to put the leash on her and pull her out of the chair to get her to go outside. She was so completely inert that when I mentioned to a house-call vet that the adoption people had said she was "no trouble at all," he said, "Well, neither's the carpet." (She came out of her shell a bit after those 3 months, but she was never truly happy.) She was seldom affectionate with me, but she kept a close eye on me at all times, getting anxious when left her sight and often following me back and forth from room to room. Toward the end she got very close to Frank too, keeping track of him as carefully as she did me.

I felt terribly guilty about the thought of putting her to sleep, but after I made the decision she seemed to come out of her fog of illness and on her final beach walk the night before, she raced up and down the dunes like a puppy for about a half-hour. She seemed genuinely joyful that I was going to set her free.