December 2, 2002 - Maxx

I was missing my Westie puppy Max. The psycho had popped back up after being gone for three months and said he wanted his dogs back. I put up a fight. After all, Max was supposed to have been my dog. And he sure wasn't concerned about his Scottish Terrier for those three months. But then the psycho called the police, told them I stole his dogs, and that was that.

A few months later, I was sitting outside of work with my friend Connie when a man went walking by with his Cairn Terrier. I told Connie that I missed my dog. She asked me what kind of dog I had and I told the story to her of my Westie Max. Connie said that she had a friend who was looking for a home for a dog, she thought it was a terrier of some sort and she would get me the contact information the next day.

The next day at work, Connie dropped by my cube and just dropped a piece of paper on my desk with a woman's name and phone number on it. Under it was written the words Westie and Max. I made the call and set up a time to see him that evening.

Max had been rescued by a groomer,Sara, who when she went to go look at him told the owners that they didn’t deserve to have a dog and took him home with her. Sara originally planned just to see what kind of dog he was and place a notice in the shop where she worked. She took one look at him chained to a barn, covered in dirt and grease and that was it. Sara said he was so dirty that she didn’t even realize that he was a Westie until she started cleaning him up.

He was malnourished and had lost most of his hair across his back. What little hair he had left was so matted down that Sara had to shave him almost completely down to his skin. His right ear was broken and flopped over from apparently a very bad case of ear mites. The ear mites had caused him to shake his head so violently that he developed a hematoma which, when it finally healed, caused the ear to flop.

I met with Sara and Max that evening, took him for a walk to see how he would do with me (just fine) and took him home that night. I know it's kind of cheesy, but I added the second x to his name since I already had a Max before and didn't want to rename this one.

It wasn't the easiest of relationships in the beginning. Maxx and I had our times with deciding who was going to be the alpha in the house. I don't know if it was him thinking I would be a pushover, but every chance he got, he would try to steal pizza from me when he thought I wasn't paying attention. I'd be sitting at the coffee table watching tv, eating pizza, and Maxx would try to help himself. After a few times of me pushing him away, him snapping at my hand, me thwacking a finger across his nose, Maxx finally got the idea that I was in charge... or so I thought.

Robbie and Maxx didn't get along very well in the beginning. I had only just started dating Robbie the previous month and it was like both of them were competing for my attention whenever Robbie was over at my house. When you're fresh in a new relationship a needy dog can be irritating to the new boyfriend who also wants all of your attention. Maxx would literally get between us on the couch and growl slightly if he thought Robbie was getting a little too close to me. Any other time, Maxx would have been more aloof. He needed to be in the same room with me, sometimes just laying at my feet, but he was never the affectionate lap dog type.

Over the next few months, we three settled into an understanding. Maxx reluctantly let Robbie into his life, Robbie would bring him treats, and I watched in amusement as we slowly became a family. Our first Christmas together, Robbie even bought Maxx a dog toy which he promptly ignored... until he thought we weren't watching.

Spring came, Robbie moved into his new house and Maxx became more intertwined in our lives. Maxx's first visit to the new house was not his best moment. He sniffed out each room very carefully on the first floor, and then promptly peed on the back of the sofa in the family room. To be fair to him, the sofa was passed on to us from friends who had dogs. Maxx must have smelled the ghosts of the others before him and decided he needed to make it his own. And Robbie? Let's just say that the man who didn't want to hang pictures because it would have put holes in the new plaster, wasn't too happy to have his boyfriend's dog use the sofa and new carpet as his personal indoor toilet.

But we finally settled into a nice little family unit. Fall came and with it cooler temperatures, but Maxx and I never moved out of Robbie's house. We started taking Maxx with us when we went to visit Robbie's parents. I think his dad enjoyed those visits more when we had Maxx with us so we never left him with someone again. It was on one of those trips back to Michigan when Maxx got sick. It was Thanksgiving and we were on a five day visit instead of the usual two day mad dash that began after work on Fridays.

The evening of Thanksgiving we returned to Robbie's parents place where we had left Maxx for the day and discovered that he had developed, well there's no polite way of saying it, uncontrollable diarrhea. Luckily we had left him closed up in the kitchen dining room and was able to clean up the mess fairly easily. What worried us though was that there seemed to be some blood in it. We cleaned Maxx up and tried to get him to eat. He wouldn't touch his food.

The next day we called our veterinarian back in Indianapolis to see what we should do. The vet recommended trying to get him to eat some boiled chicken breast and white rice. He said we could also give him a small dosage of Imodium to try and stop the diarrhea. He did eat a little of the chicken and the Imodium seemed to do the trick. That night though, at around 3 am, Robbie woke me up and said we needed to get Maxx home. During the night he had gotten worse. While driving home I was able to call the veterinarian's office and they said to bring him in as soon as we hit town.

The vet's office ran tests to see what was going on with him and called us later that day to come in and discuss what they had found. It wasn't good. The doctor said they had a difficult time finding a blood cell count of either red or white blood cells. He also said that Maxx's system was simply just shutting down. He told us that we could give him daily shots and that would probably prolong his life for a little longer. We told him we'd take Maxx home and think about it.

Once we got home though, there wasn't much thinking to be done. He was an old dog. He had a good life with us. But it was time to let him go. Any other decision would have been selfish and the wrong one. We called the doctor back and told him that we had decided that the best thing to do was just to let him go. He said that he thought that was the best decision but was afraid to suggest it to us knowing how attached we had become to Maxx.

We made arrangements for the doctor to come to our home that Monday to euthanize Maxx. We couldn't stand the thought of his last moments not being at home. When the veterinarian came to our home to put him to sleep, he told us that the assistants were fighting over who would come to be with us that day. While I was holding him, the doctor gave Maxx the shot that would literally put him to sleep and stop his heart. He died in my arms looking at Robbie. It was one of the most difficult things We've ever had to do. It was the right thing to do. Days later, we dropped a thank you note and picture of Maxx off at the vet's office and one of the women working there just burst into tears when she saw us.

Today marks six years since we had to have Maxx put to sleep. And I had to give Maxx his due. He was a very old dog when he came to us and we had him in our lives for a little over two years. I think we made his last few years the best.