Lady-Lawyer and her Baby-Bean: Week 6 – Part 1: A painful loss.

Kennedy’s sixth week of life was filled with mixed emotions. It was Kennedy’s first Christmas! I’ll talk about that in a separate entry because it seems to weird to write about such a happy thing with such a sad thing in the same entry.

I’ve been putting off writing this entry, because I do so with a heavy heart. It’s been just over a month since we lost our sweet little Malcolm. So here it goes…I’m going to try not to bawl while typing this…so I’m going to focus on the happy thoughts that I have about my first “baby” (furbaby) instead of the awful few days that we had leading up to his death.

I know this blog is supposed to be about Kennedy, but Malcolm was a huge part of our lives, so I feel that the least I can do is share a few memories of him.

(Shit, I’m never going to get through this entry…I’m already sobbing and trying to do so quietly so that I don’t wake the baby.)

We got Malcolm almost 6 years ago. He was actually a wedding gift from Prof-Man’s parents. I remember Prof-Man calling me and telling me to come over because he had a surprise for me. When I got there, he was cradling the tiniest, most adorable little puppy in his arms! I was instantly in love. We weren’t even married yet, but Prof-Man, Malcolm and I had already become a little family.

As a puppy, Malcolm was a huge part of every part of our lives. He drank beers with the boys (he literally used to come running when he heard the sound of a beer being cracked open!), cuddled with his mom (I remember having great naps with him curled up in whatever nook and/or cranny he could find on my body). Malcolm lived with us in each of our three apartments in Kitsilano. He made friends everywhere he went. The one person he never be-friended was his trainer. We enrolled Malcolm in obedience training, and while he did great in the end (finished 3rd in his class!), I can still remember a particularly bad day when he was not willing to heel. The trainer tried to take over, and when he did so, Malcolm literally tried to climb up the leash to get to the trainer. I swear he would have taken his head off if he could have! It was totally embarrassing – but hilarious in hindsight!

(There, I’ve stopped crying – hard to cry when you’re imagining a dog writhing around howling at his trainer!)

Malcolm was a huge Canuck fan (yes, he even had a jersey – I somehow became one of “those people”)…we spent many evenings on the couch together watching games.

Malcolm was also a big fan of hiding things. Unfortunately, he always seemed to do so in plain sight. He literally would take his bone, wander around trying to find a great hiding spot, and then would drop it in the corner of the room as if no one would find it there. When Prof-Man or I burst his bubble by walking over and picking it up, he would get all huffy, take his bone and try to find a better spot (the bone would often end up on the bath mat as if things would magically disappear when placed on the mat). Silly boy. That was seriously one of my favorite games (and despite his frustration with it, I think it was one of Malcolm’s as well).

When Malcolm was about 3, we got him a little sister. Jackie. When we brought Jackie home, Malcolm couldn’t stop drooling. He was so excited and instantly in love with her. It was so cool to see how much fun he had with his sister. They were definitely best friends (I was even a little jealous at times when they preferred to play with each other than with us!).

Over the last year or so of Malcolm’s life, he slowed down a little and got a little more grumpy every day. We’re not sure if it was age or whether he was actually showing signs of whatever it was that took his life in the end. He was always a dog with attitude, so it’s hard to say if the grumpy factor was just his attitude developing with age. In the last month of his life, his body started giving out on him. Like I wrote before, we had to pick him up for stairs or to get on or off of the couch or bed. He was still pretty content (he got lots of snuggles that way!), so we figured we’d just do that as long as he was happy with it.

On the morning of December 23, something changed. Again, the vets weren’t sure (every one that he saw thought it was something else), but the concensus was that there wasn’t really anything that could be done for him. We tried a cortozone shot and some pain meds, but on December 24, we had to make the hardest decision we’ve ever had to make. He was only 6 years old. Hardly seems fair...but I guess that's life.

(Crap…now I’m a wreck again.)

I’m going to stop writing now, because you know the rest of the story. I’m completely heartbroken and miss my boy every day. Our family will always have a little hole in it, but we’ve got so many things to be thankful for that I have to try not to dwell.

Anyways, sorry for the total downer post…I’ll leave you with some great pictures of my sweet Malcolm.

Here's Prof-Man with Malcolm and Jackie...