RIP Remy: 29 September 2012 – 09 July 2021

 

Remy

Not long ago I wrote a tribute to our sweet little Kirby who passed in January 2021. It took me months to muster up the ability to write about him without completely breaking down into tears. I finally came to terms with my grief by realizing that it is a gift: to grieve the loss of someone – human or animal – means you have loved deeply. And to love deeply is the ultimate blessing of life.

Now, as I sit here with a blank page in front of me, a million thoughts, images, pictures and memories swimming in my head in a sea of emotions that ceaselessly rise and fall, I am faced with grief yet again and writing yet another tribute – this time for our younger dog, Remy. He was a middle-aged dog. About the same age as me, in dog years. Too young to die. 

I didn’t think I’d be writing another one of these for at least five years. And here I am, barely able to type the words, even though I earn my living as a writer. This isn’t work. This is about love. About devotion. About respect. About how dogs are family in our household and how their loss leaves a space in our hearts that constantly reminds us of what pure love is. 

Remy was my birthday puppy. Well, almost. In late summer, a few months after the devastating loss of our wonderful Wirehaired Pointing Griffon Baxter, who passed away in April 2012, we cautiously decided we were ready for another dog. Kirby, our little rescue terrier mix, was getting all of our love and attention, but he seemed as lost as we did without his big, scruffy lifelong companion. Baxter had been such an amazing dog, on so many levels, we decided to get another Griff (it’s what Griffologists call the Wirehaired Pointing Griffon in common parlance). No, we didn’t expect the dog to be another Baxter (he was one of a kind), but there were a number of aspects about the breed we found extremely unique, quirky and special and we wanted that energy around again.

We did some research and ended up connecting with Lisa, a veterinarian/breeder in California who had a litter of Wirehaired Pointing Griffon puppies due to whelp at the end of September, and we got on her list. Because Griffs are so unique – they are wicked smart, extremely emotionally connected to their people (think Velcro dog), very goofy AND they’re also completely gonzo as puppies and require a lot of training and exercise – breeders are very selective about who gets to adopt one. Having already had a Griff for 13 years, we were quickly approved. I distinctly remember her saying we could get a pup because, “Well, you know how they are, and you can obviously handle it.” 

I followed the progression of the pregnancy and birth and documented it in this blog, starting in September 2012. I was hoping for a puppy on my birthday, when the mama whelped all but two of her large litter, and our guy missed it by just a few hours. I still considered him my birthday boy. I think it was still September 28 somewhere in the world when he was born. Maybe Hawaii.

We drove down to the Sacramento area to meet the litter of pups when they were about seven weeks old – we smothered ourselves in puppy kisses and sweetness and marveled that while some puppies were all over us and some were all over each other, one of them seemed to just be looking for trouble somewhere. As it happens, that was our boy. We went down again two weeks later to pick him up and thus began our wonderful life together.

He was a spirited pup from the beginning. Clearly not the bottom-of-the-pack, roll-over immediately type of Griff our Baxter was as a puppy. While Remy was a much more assertive and strong-willed pup than Baxter ever was, he was also extremely well socialized and loved absolutely everyone he met, particularly children, and particularly little girls. (That’s a testament to the breeder, who ensured he was socialized around dogs of different sizes, got along well with cats and had regular encounters with her daughter’s brownie troop.)

Initially Kirby enjoyed being the grownup. He lorded his seniority over Remy and it almost worked at times, until Remy got to be about the same size (which was a matter of about two weeks, Remy being a big dog). When Kirby was a puppy, he was relentless in his pestering of poor Baxter, who, at age seven, really didn’t want a little brother. Now the tables were turned. This blog and picture capture it well. 



Despite the wrestling, Remy and Kirby were fast friends. They continued to enjoy “wrestling” all their lives together, thanks to Remy getting down on his belly to make it a fairer fight. In a remarkable feat of selflessness, Remy always let Kirby think he was “winning.” They cuddled up together at naps, used each other for pillows and frequently spooned on the dog bed at night. They were best buddies in a way that Baxter and Kirby never managed to be.

In case you wonder what people mean when they say that Griffs are clowns, this pretty much tells it all...

We had a little scare -- ok a BIG scare -- when Remy was nine months old. He had been a very good boy around the house, very trustworthy, not getting into things, until he wasn’t. One day he rather suddenly became ill -- wouldn’t eat or drink, trouble with the bowels. An evening trip to the veterinary ER led to an X-ray and an emergency surgery in which the vet removed an 18” long unbraided rope toy that was lodged in his intestines. We had thrown that toy away a few days before because it was getting too chewed up…and he managed to gingerly fish it out of the waste basket without disturbing anything else in there. After all, it was his toy (a toy we never let him play with while unattended, by the way). Being young, he healed quickly and was none the worse for the wear, but we thought we might lose him and it was awful. Remy never raided the garbage or swallowed anything troublesome again.

He would NOT wear a cone. As in he completely freaked out. So we got him an inflatable donut collar. He LOVED it. In fact, he walked around with what appeared to be a sense of pride and specialness. We couldn't help thinking he looked like a Renaissance portrait... This is a later picture from after his neuter surgery, but you get the idea...

We lived in a townhome at the time, but it was our dream to purchase a little piece of property somewhere in the country where the dogs could run with abandon. Until then, it was leash training. Again, Remy decided he needed to be in front at all times, and our training skills were not up to the task of taming Remy’s sheer will. He never did manage to walk perfectly at heel or comfortably on a leash. I take that back. In obedience class he was perfect. He was a perfect teacher’s pet, and when it was in front of the class and the instructor, he was a model pupil. 

But at home, outside, on walks, with distractions everywhere, his pointer instincts took over and he felt compelled to be out in front, sniffing out every bird (or cat or squirrel) hiding in the bushes. The Gentle Leader, while annoying to him, helped. But the pulling was largely our fault. Because we lived in a townhome the only place he got to really run was at the dog park, and for that we felt a bit guilty and wanted to let him have his walks with enthusiasm. With more work and copious amounts of treats, he got a bit better. Not a lot.

The dog park was a whole other thing. Initially it was fun and he played very well with others. Then, one day, out of the blue, a couple of huskies ganged up on him and attacked him and he screamed until we pulled the dogs off him. He wasn’t physically bleeding anywhere, but the injuries were psychological, and he was never the same after that. 

Thinking (wrongly) that it would be good for him to “get back on the horse,” we tried the dog park again. After all, it was usually a nice dog park with friendly dogs. It happened again. Different dogs (also husky mixes) ganged up on him. Some of this was probably due to hormones, as I described here in my blog “My Dog’s Nuts.” 

We didn’t want him to be fear-aggressive, so we engaged in some training and socialization to get him back to the point where he trusted other dogs again. After all, we wanted to take him to the beach, and having him cower and fear-growl every time he saw another dog just wasn’t going to work.

He was finally feeling pretty comfortable around other dogs, so we enrolled him in the aforementioned obedience class, which he loved. He was a star pupil. One night, in the waiting area, he saw his friend, the trainer who had helped him get over his fear of other dogs. He greeted her with his usual waggly enthusiasm when, out of nowhere, a big, white husky (what is it with huskies?) blindsided him and clamped onto his muzzle. Blood. Stitches. The woman who lost control of her husky apologized profusely, was asked to withdraw from the class and, to her credit, she paid the vet bills. A few more positive encounters with friendly dogs helped a lot, but, for the rest of his life, Remy always approached other dogs with extreme caution. 

When we moved to the country in 2014, Remy and Kirby finally had a big yard to run around in, and Remy was as happy as a dog can be. He didn’t have to interact with other dogs – just Kirby. And trips to the beach were almost like neutral territory where he could just avoid confrontation and run and wrestle with Kirby and swim and body surf (yes, once he discovered he could swim out and ride the waves in, he did it over and over and over).

The beach was our happy vacation place. We were never sure if Remy couldn’t hear us yelling in the wind and mist (the Oregon Coast is a windy and misty place much of the time) or if he simply chose not to hear us, but early on, he had a penchant for just running off. This surprised us. Griffs are usually close working dogs, and Baxter was never out of our sight.

Remy, however, had a mind to do what pleased him, and on one of our first couple of trips, he took off heading southward, toward some seagulls, and he just kept going. We thought we might have to drive to California to retrieve him. He did eventually turn around and notice that we were tiny specks in the distance, screaming and frantically waving our arms. He decided he’d better come back. 

For a Velcro dog who followed us everywhere in the house – even so far as wanting to come into the bathroom with us – a he had a whole new gear when he was outside, particularly if birds were involved. 

After a couple of years in our new little farmstead, we were fortunate to adopt three adult hens and a lovely coop from a friend who was getting out of the Portland backyard chicken thing and wanted to rehome her little flock. The birds didn’t think much of the dog, but Remy was absolutely obsessed with them. 

Chicken watching ended up being one of his favorite pastimes. He was, after all, a bird dog, even if we had never trained him to hunt. Every time he went outside he had to do a few passes by the chicken pen, and he’d usually stop and point and quiver, as if to tell us “Hey, there are big, fat birds over there, why isn’t someone doing something with them?” 

The chickens have a pretty big pen, but we like to let them out to forage for grubs and worms in our yard. Trying to avert disaster, we kept strict rules on who got to occupy the yard at a given time, making sure the bird dog and the birds kept their distance. Remy did manage to get outside at the same time the chickens were roaming the yard on a few occasions (human error). He absolutely reveled in chasing them and flushing them. The hens were not amused. A couple of times he even managed to corner a chicken, but he never laid a tooth or claw on any of them. He just quivered and held them there, excited and proud. What a good pointer!

While he was a gonzo boy outside, in the house Remy was a totally chill couch potato with one exception: If we were outside and he was in the house and could see us through the window, he would bark and whine and lick the glass and jump up and down (I have dog nose smears on the sliding glass door of my office that reach at least five feet high) incessantly until we either let him out or put him in a room without a view. Then he’d just lie down and nap. It was a sort of separation anxiety. He never exhibited separation anxiety when we left the house, but the thing with Remy was, if we were around, he had to be with us. 

This closeness was part of what made Remy so special to us. Griffs are known for being extremely connected and communicative with their people. That’s why they make excellent medical alert dogs (a friend of mine has one and trains others).

Remy relished gazing into our eyes. When he was in the same room with one of us (which was pretty much all the time) he was usually touching us – sitting on a foot, leaning against the chair, lying down with a leg stretched out to touch whatever part of us was closest. Remy knew that my elderly mother, who lived with us, was frail and moved slowly. So while he would sometimes get the playful zoomies or run smack dab into Jamie or me while racing for the ringing doorbell, he would always come to a screeching halt and gently saunter around Mom, giving her hand a gentle nuzzle as he went by.

This is how I watched the World Cup.

While little, lap-sized Kirby preferred to lie on the floor next to us, Remy was a 75-pound lapdog. He liked to join me on the sofa in the evening, as we watched movies. He’d stretch out over my lap and lie there with his butt hanging off one side and his head draped over my knees or on my chest. Whenever I didn’t feel well, he would put his paws on my stomach or my chest and look me straight in the eyes, as if to say “I’m here for you.” 

One of his quirkier habits was to pull his favorite towel (yes, a bath towel was one of his most beloved toys) between his front paws, and suck on the corner. We called this “nucking.” He could do it for remarkably long periods of time, always seeming to be in his own little world of comfort. Sometimes he would sit on my lap and nuck at the same time. If he ever felt anxious, for any reason, a few minutes of nucking would calm him right down.

Like most every dog, Remy loved routine. Every morning, after breakfast, he would follow me into my office in the back bedroom, stationing himself in front of the sliding glass doors to watch the goings on in the yard and orchard while I worked at my desk. Once he had taken in the landscape, he’d pad over to my chair – a ball – and lean against it, snoring away while I typed on the computer.

When Kirby passed away, Remy was out of sorts. He would go and lie down on Kirby’s favorite spots. It seemed like he was waiting for Kirby to come home. We were sad, and Remy was a constant comfort, coming to us often for reassurance (which wasn’t exactly unusual). There was a Kirby-sized hole in our lives and in his – he had never been an only-dog. He got extra hugs and extra car rides. (Kirby never liked to go in the car, so we’d leave them home together to keep each other company when we ran errands.) Remy LOVED riding in the car, so, in the cooler months of winter and spring, we’d take him with us pretty much everywhere. 

Then it began. One beautiful late spring day in mid-March we were sitting outside under the maple trees and Remy was running his rounds of the yard, looking for ground squirrels and pointing at the chickens. When he came to me to check in, I noticed that his lower eyelid on one eye looked inflamed. I figured he’d gotten into something, but on examination I couldn’t find anything. Maybe allergies. We decided to watch it for a day or two and if it didn’t get better, we’d take him to the vet.

It didn’t get better. And we soon found out that getting into a vet during the pandemic was a surprisingly long and complicated process due to special precautions and all those newly adopted “pandemic puppies” needing care. When we finally did get an appointment, the vet wasn’t exactly sure what was causing the problem, but she also noted his lymph glands were a bit swollen and wanted to do a biopsy. The biopsy was inconclusive, but showed some abnormal cells. She wanted to run another test. 

In the meantime, she said, try to get an appointment with an oncologist, just in case, as specialists were running weeks out on getting appointments. Oncologist? Our hearts sank. The “inconclusive” gave us hope that it was something else, anything other than cancer. After all, he was his normal, energetic self.

It took us a couple of weeks to get Remy into an oncologist. At the first visit (remote for us, due to Covid-19) we waited in the car and the oncologist called us on my cell phone to deliver the news -- the additional test confirmed that Remy had lymphoma. Not just lymphoma, but Stage 5, B-cell lymphoma. How could this be? He was so normal in every other way?! With Lymphoma, days and weeks make the difference between going into remission with treatment and not. 

We broke down – it just...wasn’t...possible. Our beautiful, energetic, vibrant, athletic dog couldn’t be that sick. But he was. Within one week his blood work had shown significant decline in his red and white blood cells – it was in his bone marrow. They recommended we start chemo immediately, but they gave us choices – levels of treatment (or not) and walked through all of the scenarios with us, prognosis for survival 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, a hope of remission. Some dogs went into remission for a year, even two years. It would be expensive. It would give us hope. It would allow him to be with us longer and to make sure his last months of life were filled with joy and play and love. Chemo was our best hope. 

In dogs, the objective of chemo is to prolong quality of life not just life. So, unlike humans who can make such choices for themselves, with dogs they give lower doses of chemo, enough to try to get the cancer into remission without making the dog severely ill and miserable. We opted for the gold standard: the CHOP protocol.

I won’t go into the entire thing here. It’s just too hard. But it was a roller coaster. Some drugs worked really well for him. Others did not. He went into temporary remission. Then it came back. After chemo he would be fine – then suddenly sick for a day or two, not eating or drinking, then he’d bounce back and be his normal self again. But throughout, he aged. He weakened. He lost his beard and moustache and looked like a different, but still handsome, dog. We commented that it was as if he had aged years in a matter of weeks.

One morning something just wasn’t right. He didn’t want to eat or drink (nausea, we figured) and only wanted to lie outside and look into the orchard and smell the wind. We called the vet and took him in just to check his vital signs – they were OK, so we took him home and gave him lots of love and time out sitting in the yard, smelling the wind. Instead of getting better as the day wore on, as he usually did, his condition worsened, so we decided to take him to the ER. Remy passed before we got there. It felt like a nightmare.

We knew cancer was a terminal illness, but lymphoma is one that carries some hope of remission. And we’d held on to that hope. We’d become used to him bouncing back and we’d stopped assuming the worst. Then the worst happened so incredibly fast. We were devastated. In shock. To this day I still can’t quite believe how quickly a vibrant, healthy, energetic dog can be completely ravaged by cancer. And while I know we can’t change the past or second-guess any choices based on hindsight – because it does absolutely NO GOOD – I still think if I’d known it was his last day, we would have just continued to sit with him in the orchard, smelling the wind. 

At the beach, early in his treatment.

We don’t regret trying to prolong his life – had we not done chemo, given his diagnosis, we would have been lucky to have another month with him. We got three and a half. And while we hoped we’d get years more, we made sure we made the most of that time, knowing those last few months might be our last months together. It gave us time to do some of his favorite things, go to some of his favorite places and spend more time cherishing each moment. We did a lot of snuggling. A lot of napping together. A lot of extra love and treats and car rides and gazing into each other’s eyes. He adored the affection and we adored him. Those months were intense, and having that extra time with him was special. But losing him, even though anticipated, was not something I was at all ready for.

The roller coaster of emotions was now a flat, full-tilt grief. The house was empty. We did the math, and we hadn’t been without a dog in 23 years. There was now a Remy-shaped hole in our lives, along with a Kirby-shaped hole that still had us keeping his dog bowls under the sink. Every pattern, every habit of every day involved Remy. We found ourselves hesitating at all the moments when we would have been doing something with him or for him – preparing his meals, giving him carrots as we made salads, saying “let’s go to work” as we headed down the hall to our offices or “we’ll be back, you be good” whenever we went out. I was missing the vibrant, breathing, loving being who nuzzled me and kept me going all day, reminding me that there is more to life than work. Suddenly, with him gone, I found it hard to focus on my work at all.

Having a dog for a shadow all day is a comforting thing, and it’s one of the things I miss the most. I miss the sound of his big, fuzzy feet padding around the house. I miss his huge sighs and the spinning around a half-dozen times before he laid down. Remy was ever-present, always available to give and receive unconditional love and affection. Every day his abundant, positive energy – even when he was sick – was a reminder to live life with joy. 

For weeks we went through the motions of each day, constantly feeling like something huge was missing. Two dogs, with whom we shared our lives for many years, closer than most of our human family, gone – in a time when the loss of human life was also great (that’s another story I won’t go into here, because this is a dog blog). 

We realized we were suffering two kinds of grieving – both the loss of our beloved dogs, Remy and Kirby, as unique and wonderful individuals, and the loss of our decades-long experience of living with canines. We had an overflowing abundance of dog love flying around us with nowhere to land. So it landed on every dog we met at the beach, passed on the street, saw under a patio table at a restaurant (we live in Oregon where people eat outside at restaurants with their dogs). It took me nearly a month and a half just to get to the point where I could write this. And, eventually, that loving energy led us to a serendipitous introduction to a dog rescue organization…more to come on that story.

Remy was a unique soul. Sweet, loving, the most needy and affectionate dog I have ever known (Baxter, also a Griff, was as affectionate, just a tad less needy). Like Baxter, Remy was a dog who seemed to have the unique ability to read our minds and see into our souls. He knew our intentions before we made them known overtly. Remy was a complete clown who kept us laughing with his antics for eight-and-a-half years and reminded us to live every day with joy.

Remy was special. And I consider myself fortunate to have known him, to have loved him, and to have been the recipient of his constant, unwavering affection.

Remy, we will miss you for all of our days.