Goodbye to my wonderful friend CJ

I am overwhelmed with so many feelings, and such strong feelings, that I wanted to take some time to write about CJ.

CJ was given to me a couple of days before Christmas in 1992. I was 21 years old and we lived in an apartment in Leesburg. My first husband had gone on a hunting trip to Morgantown, West Virginia, and brought CJ home to me. The people who had him had been calling him “Cool Joe” (I guess it was a Snoopy reference, but I don’t know for sure). I couldn't come up with a name for him, and Jennifer suggested that we just shorten it to CJ. Easy. I never knew his exact birth date, but guess he was about 6 weeks old when he came to me.

He was such an adorable, if initially flea-ridden, little puppy. When we rode in the truck when he was really small, he would like to sit on the back of my neck – guess it was a good vantage point. I remember that he was short enough to walk underneath the coffee table, but then he grew and one day...BONK....he hit his head on the table as he tried to go under it. I remember we kept him in the galley-style kitchen of our apartment at night before he was house-trained, and oh would he cry! And they always say a dog won’t pee where he sleeps....well, not so much with baby CJ. Oh well!

Right from when he was small, CJ loved to play with his toys. He got stuffed animal after stuffed animal....enjoying some for a long time, tearing others up immediately. One of my favorite things I remember him playing with at some point was a penny....somehow he found one, carried it onto the bed, and then he’d jump so that his feet would be just behind the penny, and it would jump up in the air, then he’d catch it. Crazy! I didn’t let him do that a lot, though, because I was afraid he would choke on it.

In September 1993, it was down to just CJ and me living in the apartment. CJ was such a tremendous comfort to me as I went through the breakup of my first marriage; I can’t imagine how I would have made it without him. Coming home to him each day after driving to work in Fairfax, and all the way back to Leesburg – well not only was it a relief to not come home to an empty house, but also to come home to someone who was so happy to see you. Back then CJ was welcome to get on the furniture, including sleeping on my bed. It would have been so lonely without him.

I remember when our area had a huge blizzard....I looked it up and find it began on January 8, 1996. It was wild, with about 3 feet of snow and a few different storms that came through over a two-week period. We were basically snowed in, CJ and me. It was wonderful, I watched TV and relaxed and enjoyed having CJ for my only company. I think I walked over to the nearby Wal*Mart once to get a couple of things, but basically I was home for about two weeks straight. Ah, that really was a good time!
Jennifer came to live with us briefly, probably from late summer 1996 through either the fall of that year, or early in 1997, I can’t remember for sure. By that time, my marriage was completely over and I wasn’t able to afford the apartment on my own. Then I was fortunate enough that my folks allowed me to move back in with them, CJ in tow.

I’m sure that CJ was probably glad to move in with Mom and Jim (and their dog Corky too). I was gone for a pretty long time during the day, so it was good that they were able to be home with him more. Being there also freed me up to begin to develop a social life since I knew CJ was in good hands and I could be away from home a bit more. Somewhere around this time is when I started playing softball on a co-ed team.

Through all this time, CJ continued to love playing with his toys...and it was probably a good thing that Corky was never much into toys, because she would have had a fight on her hands. His favorite things were a stuffed carrot and a stuffed duck – I have no idea why, but he always liked those, and once he’d tear one apart, I’d go and get him a replacement. CJ also always loved to go for walks, which we always did frequently. He especially liked to go places like Great Falls where he could run free and explore

In the fall of 1998, life certainly took a turn for the better for me and CJ too, since that’s when I started dating Tod. Tod was always welcoming to CJ, and when I eventually started staying over at his house, CJ would come with me.

In February 2000, CJ and I moved in with Tod. I think CJ really enjoyed his new home once he got settled in, and was glad to have Tod there. My office was literally across the street from the apartment, so sometimes I was even able to come home for lunch and be there with CJ. We would take long walks around the area – things were just really starting to be developed in that area, and the land that now holds the Fairfax Corner shopping center was our walking spot.

We took a big step and bought our townhouse in South Riding in early 2001. The three-level townhouse meant a lot of steps for CJ but he didn’t seem to mind. Just like in Fairfax, there was lots of development going on near our townhouse, and we did lots and lots of walking. Tod sometimes called our outings “death marches,” since once in a while we’d go 2 or 3 miles. Not long before our wedding in December 2001, CJ had a seizure. Thankfully, we were there when it happened. We immediately took him to the vet, but if they ever came up with a cause for the seizure, I don’t remember it. It was really frightening when it happened, though.

In November 2002 – November 12, to be exact – CJ’s whole world changed. For the first 10 years of his life, he was my baby, and now here comes little Reed into our family. When we first brought Reed home, CJ was thrown into a tizzy. Each night when Reed would get up multiple times, CJ would trudge downstairs right alongside us, and then stumble back upstairs when it was time to put Reed back to bed again. I’d say CJ was probably just as tired as we were in those first blurry months of Reed’s life! At the time, Tod was deployed to the National Guard, working in Fort Belvoir. We were fortunate that he was able to be home with us for basically the first 6 or 7 weeks of Reed’s life, between the various holidays and the many snow days we happened to have. I know CJ liked having us home for so long. Eventually we all got adjusted to our new way of life. While Reed was small, we were able to continue taking our nightly walks after dinner, which certainly was nice. I can’t imagine how many miles that old green stroller logged as we went all over the neighborhood.

Somewhere around when Reed was six months old, we decided we needed to get some help with CJ’s behavior, since he barked too much and would jump on guests and pull on the leash when we walked him. We used a company called BarkBusters, and CJ took to it immediately. He was like a new dog – he stopped jumping up, he walked properly (with some reminders), and though he still barked a bit too much, it was a great improvement. The training was all about relieving CJ of the job of leader of our “pack” – the trainer did a great job of explaining it to us, and while we stuck with the training for a while, we probably didn't do as well as we might have. Life was a bit easier, though, with our newly behaving dog. So much for that old saying that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

While we were on Ashbury Drive, we continued our frequent walks and CJ got plenty of exercise, and probably slightly less attention than he’d been used to.

At the end of December 2004, we moved to our house on Talamore Drive. In hindsight, I think about this time is when CJ’s mental decline really began, though it was so gradual and we were so close to the situation, we really couldn’t see it. Thinking back, I can’t even recall him playing with his toys in the four years he lived in this house, save for a few random times when he would completely surprise us by getting a toy out and throwing it around.

Our house has a fenced-in back yard, so we were able to just let CJ roam around back there anytime he wanted, rather than having to put him on a leash to take him for short walks when he had to potty. I’m sad to say that we really didn’t walk him like we should have, and for that I’m truly sorry.

Amy wanted so much to be CJ’s pal, and to be able to love on him, but he didn’t want any part of it. I guess since he was never around children during his younger years, he just wasn’t able to develop a tolerance for them and their wild ways. It really makes me sad that the kids couldn't have the fun kind of relationship they wanted to have with him – it would have been so lovely. As it was, we had to watch Amy really closely around CJ, and he nipped her lots of times, unfortunately. But at the very end, she could even hug him a bit, and I don’t think it was because he’d finally decided he liked her, I think he just wasn’t well enough to remember he didn’t like the hugs and kisses. Fortunately, she didn’t know the reason, she just knew she could give him hugs on his final day. She lovingly sat next to him and stroked his fur, saying “it’s okay, little one”.

Back when CJ was younger, he’d been allowed to be up on the bed to sleep with us. In his last years, he spent most nights sleeping in Reed’s room. I don’t really know why he chose that spot, but it made me so happy that he did. During his last months, I’m not sure he had any regular night-time sleeping spot. I think at times he wandered around at night, not really sure of himself.

I can’t say for sure when it was CJ’s physical health started declining. He slept a lot, and slept a lot more soundly – maybe it was an age thing, or maybe it was because his hearing was gone so he was disturbed less frequently, I don’t know. It became really difficult, knowing that his time with us was closer to its end than to its beginning – each time we returned home, it was such a relief when he would come to greet us. And there were times during the night when the kids would get up, and I’d always check on him while I was up – more than once I was sure he’d passed, but then he’d poke his head up and probably wonder why I was pestering him.

Toward the very end, I really don’t know how aware CJ was of anything anymore. He would be glad when we got home, but not in the same way that he used to, not the kind of true happiness as before. It was as if the heart of him had gone away. This is the kind of thing you don’t want to see in your pet, and I think it was something we chose not to see until it was pointed out to us that CJ had neurological problems – these made him unsteady on his feet, and gave him particular problems with the stairs. With that knowledge, the pieces of the puzzle become clear, but in our love we were blind to them.

CJ had several accidents in the house over a couple of week period that started on December 5. We put him on a special diet (chicken and rice) thinking it was a stomach bug. That cleared up, but then it returned again quickly and we put him back on the special diet. When he poo’d in the kitchen right as we were all sitting eating dinner on December 21, we had to face the possibility that it wasn’t a tummy trouble, but instead was an incontinence issue.

I took him to the vet on Tuesday, December 23. We were fortunate that Dr. Werder, the same doctor who’d seen him back in July, was the vet that we saw. The tech took CJ to be weighed and have his temperature checked, and he was gone a while. He popped back in to say Dr. Werder wanted to take CJ outside to see how he walked. They were gone a bit after that again. I knew enough to realize they wouldn’t be returning with good news. Dr. Werder said CJ was much worse off than when she saw him in July. She explained the signs of neurological problems that she saw – she said his gait was very tentative, he seemed not to know where his left front paw was going to land, he would stand and hold his head just slightly to one side, and he was very wobbly if he stood still. Of course we already knew he was having periodic problems with not being able to hold his BMs; he had cataracts and couldn’t see much at all; he’d definitely lost all his hearing; he had arthritis; he had a heart murmur which had gotten worse in the last year. Even as she and I talked, CJ was facing away from us, with his head in a corner. It was another sign that his mind was no longer sharp at all. Dr. Werder explained that it was time to let CJ go. I was so grateful for her compassionate care, and it didn’t escape me that she had tears in her eyes a couple of times as we talked. Her recommendation was to take him home, love him, and bring him back when we were ready to say goodbye.

So that’s what we did. That was two days before Christmas, and we didn’t want to tell the kids until after Christmas was done. Tod and I did our best to give CJ extra love in those days, but really, he didn’t want it. Where before he soaked up every moment of attention you gave him, now he would walk away even as you were still petting him. That was difficult to bear, but it helped us to know we were doing the right thing (if there is such a thing). We tried to take him for a short walk the day before Christmas, but he really didn’t know what was going on – the vet had told us to resume giving him painkillers, which had a sedative effect, but beyond what I can blame on those, he didn’t enjoy the walk like he used to.

The day after Christmas, we sat the kids down and with tears in our eyes we broke the news to them. It didn’t register for them right away, but when it did they were so sad. It was so hard to give them that news. Later in the day, Kiki and Poppy came over to watch the kids. Amy gave CJ goodbye hugs, Reed gave him a quick pat. After so many years of happy and excited car rides, it was dreadfully sad to put CJ in the car for this final ride. I hate so much that we had to do this to him. I’m not going to go into great detail about the procedure itself, other than to say that he was given a powerful tranquilizer to calm him, and then he laid down and drifted off to sleep. He was even snoring just before the technician put the IV in and Dr. Werder administered the medication. It happened so quickly, he was gone before she’d even finished the dose. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, bringing him to that place and making that choice. I hope that he knew we were there, and that we loved him.

It’s still not totally sunken in that CJ is really gone. There are so many little things we did each day without thinking about them, to make his life a little easier as he’d aged. For instance, he was having so much trouble with the main stairs in our house, because the landing is a hardwood floor, so I moved one of our kitchen floor mats to the bottom of the stairs, about a foot away from the stairs, to serve as his “landing pad”. I can’t bring myself to move it back to the kitchen. Not yet. I also had gotten into the habit of always closing the basement door when I went down there to do laundry or whatever, because I wanted to minimize the number of times that old man climbed up and down the stairs. I’m still finding myself closing the door behind me, even though there’s no need to now. Letting him out just before going to bed was such an ingrained habit, it feels really strange to just decide to go to bed, and be able to immediately go upstairs. I miss him so much.

Now his bowls, his collar and leash, his favorite carrot and duck....they’re in a storage bin, ready to go to the basement. It was terribly sad to clean them up and box them away.

It’s all so surreal. One day CJ was here and the next day gone. It’s been so sad. If I put it in perspective, though, I can think about the countless hours of joy and comfort he gave us over his life. This time of mourning his loss pales in comparison to the times that he made our lives so much more rich, full, and happy.

CJ, we loved you so much, and miss you terribly.