He Was the Bestest Boy 10/10/10 – 06/13/24

Tundra passed on Thursday.

He had a sudden stomach pain in the night when I put him out. By morning he was doing very poorly. Now, he was an OLD boy, and had been struggling for a while, but this was different.

I brought him in.

They found bleeding in his abdomen and thought it might be a side effect from Librella (arthritis/pain injection). It looked bad, so I called UW Vet – he was part of their Cancer Vaccine study, and I wasn’t sure what arrangements I needed to make to fulfill our obligations.

The vet there said it wasn’t likely to be Librella and to please ask our vet to ultrasound for a mass as this was common in malamutes.

They found a large mass on his spleen. Super common in malamutes.

I asked our vet if they thought they could get the bleeding stopped if they did surgery, and they said, flat out, no. I made the call that we weren’t going to put him through that, not at his age, frailness and health. It would only hurt him and be selfish of me.

So I picked up my husband, broken leg and all, and we went in. Tundra was clearly in pain and struggling to breathe, and it was clear it was time. All I had hoped and prayed for was that it would be clear that it was time when it was time, and it was.

I had never done this with a pet before, so I was TERRIFIED, but it was both the most painful thing I’d ever done and perfect.

Afterwards, my brother drove me and Tundra to UW Madison Vet to drop him off. Part of the study includes a necropsy and cremation after. So I don’t know when we’ll get his ashes, but we’ll get the results in about two months. Then we’ll know exactly what was going on.

He was the goodest of good boys, and we told him that to the end and cuddled him close.

Now there’s this hole in my life. So many daily habits were involved in caring for him. So many habits in life were made to accommodate him.

I put a loaf of bread on the counter and left it. When I came back 15 minutes later, it was still there, uneaten. It was surreal.

My puppy floor cleaning system seems to be malfunctioning. I dropped a cracker, and it stayed there. I had to pick it up and throw it out.

Most of all what will catch me off guard is returning home, calling “Puppy, Puppy” out of habit, and he’s not there to greet me.

There’s a Tundra shaped hole in my life. It hurts, but it’s a clean hurt. There’s no doubt in my mind we did right by him at the end. There’s no feeling of ‘it’s not fair’, you know?

But it hurts.