You know how I said we were going to cry together? Let’s go ahead and get started with a good cry. You’re about to get to know me on a spiritual level so buckle up. My journey of dog parenting truly started with Subee (pronounced Soo-bee). My husband Steve, Zeke, and I decided we really had space in our home and hearts for a puppy. We’ll get more into Zeke’s intelligence when I tell his story but just know that Zeke is a very smart boy. So smart that Steve had been searching for another brindle pittie female (We not only wanted a smart puppy but a beautiful one too, duh.) to breed him with long before I ever came into the picture. Steve had relocated to my city of residence, found a job in the city, and behind his work lived a man with a perfect and sweet brindle female named Bellie. One thing led to another and we were expecting puppies in November of 2010.
Bellie had a litter of nine puppies. When my husband took me to meet them and I saw Subee I knew we were meant for each other. To my disappointment, the man that owned Bellie had the pick of the litter and he had already promised Subee to a friend of his. I was heartbroken and picked out another little girl but just didn’t feel the same connection. A few weeks later the stars aligned and the person that wanted Subee backed out and just like that Subee became mine and I became hers.
I took a mini-vacation from work when we brought Subee home. I wanted to know her and for her to know me. I spent every second with her. She slept in a box next to my bed and when she cried at night I would quietly place her in bed with me where we would fall asleep together.
Um, raising my first puppy was pretty damn hard, to say the least. If you personally found raising your first puppy to be easy then I am really envious of you. I lost countless shoes to chewing (during a time when I had just started to appreciate a good pair of heels), picking the right food, puppy shots, de-wormer, house training, the list doesn’t end.
It was always worth it and it was hard because I needed something hard in my life. I needed something to show me that there are things in this world that are BIGGER than me. The love it takes to care for something in a way that allows it to grow into its own happiness (and really make sure it survives every day) was so much bigger than I could have ever known. Subee was a dog that loved to swim, hike, play with Zeke, she snorted like a pig, she forgave, she loved, she listened, she really enjoyed our annual Dogsgiving celebration, and she was overall the best girl I could have ever asked for.
I knew Subee for eight years. She brightened my life for eight years. Making the choice to tell her goodbye is the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. She became violently ill for about 24 hours. Subee had been a puker her whole life but the sudden onset of vomiting, lethargy, and inability to drink water led Steve and I to the emergency vet. We had learned Subee had eaten something that couldn’t be passed and was incredibly difficult to completely remove. We spent an entire day trying to determine how to care for her and the ER Vet was very honest about the invasive surgery, the painful recovery, the probability that more surgeries would be needed because it is difficult to completely remove the foreign object she had eaten and that there was still a chance that what she had eaten would kill her.
Subee had never been sick or hurt in her life and after a few hours of weighing our options, we decided to take her home so Zeke could tell her goodbye. Friends came over to see her one last time, we laid on the couch with her, we let Zeke sit with her, and then we made the drive back to what has been undoubtedly the hardest thing I have ever experienced. I have been lucky to have not really experienced death in my life. My grandparents passed when I was a young child so I never really understood the weight of losing someone you love. So I really didn’t see it coming when what felt like an incurable bout of depression hit from losing her.
After that day I became depressed, PTSD developed due to her sudden death, I went to bed crying, I woke up crying, I missed work. I managed this for nearly two years before I felt the depression cloud lift. This blog post is dedicated to anyone that has lost a pet. There’s not a timeline on when you’re supposed to feel normal again. When we lose a pet we lose a love that is there every day, we lose something that completes our lives every-single-day, we lose the clicking of paws down the hallway, the tail wagging when we come home, we lose the things that make us smile 100% of the time.
I remember listening to a Joe Rogan podcast with Kevin Smith and most of the podcasts these two grown men are crying over their dogs they have lost. Some of the dogs recently and some of the dogs from many years ago. Lemme tell ya, that podcast healed me in a way I could have never expected. Something about listening to two grown men sob over their dogs really normalized the depression I was feeling and that was my first step into healing my life after Subee.
My husband and I had a really beautiful frame made with her dog tag, family members had a remembrance tree planted for her, her ashes remain in our home, and I have a really special necklace by Lisa Welch Designs to remember her by. I feel it’s important to remember your beloved pets in any way that you feel will help them live on in your heart.
So loving Subee really launched me into dog-motherhood in ways I couldn’t have expected. I still think about how much she would have loved playing with the absolutely craziest and silliest four dogs in our household now. I remember her every day because she changed me in ways I couldn’t be more thankful for.
