Saying goodbye to my beloved dog Zeus seems impossible – how do I do it?

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I lost my beloved, almost-14-year-old dog three weeks ago and I am overcome with grief. 

I can still barely speak about the loss without tears. It’s as if saying it makes it real – makes my beautiful, 60-pound, black-and-white boy with his animated gait and human-like soul disappear again. 

The ache is awful. A twitchy emptiness. A tightness in my throat, a flickering behind my eyes. And the water. Big, fat drops wet my shirt like rain. 

The depth of my grief unnerves me. I’m used to being more composed. 

People tell me tears are good, part of the process, the stages of grief etc. But my tears embarrass me. Particularly when they come unbidden, like today, when my neighbor saw me walking and innocently asked where my “big guy” was. 

I felt suddenly naked, like I’d lost the veneer shielding my soft, damaged insides. And again, the tears. I couldn’t answer. 

Where, indeed, is my big guy?   

I feel ashamed crying so much for my pet, who led a wondrous, happy, long dog life, when there are so many bigger, more important misfortunes – losing a child, a spouse, a job, a battle with addiction. 

And yet, I can’t stop. 

I try to do my grieving privately.

Some people have suggested I get a new dog. That it would “cheer me up” fill the space, help me forget. But, I’m too raw. I can’t just replace my companion like he was an appliance that broke. 

I also don’t know if I can handle this kind of loss again. Dogs’ lives are cruelly short. He’ll never get another family. How can I get another dog? 

We joke that we got our dog instead of having a third child. The kids were 4 and 7 and my husband was against adding a pet, but, given the choice, he relented. 

Our dog was the biggest in his litter of eight Portuguese water dogs, and my son, who was allergic to most other breeds, named him Zeus, king of gods. With his tuxedo coloring and tail curving up behind him, Zeus was, indeed, regal. Even a bad haircut (aka my sad pandemic attempts) couldn’t diminish him.

He was one of those dogs you believe is secretly human. He excelled at obedience school, which made me look brilliant. He trotted leisurely next to me without a leash, and when I did need to snap one on him, he gave me a knowing look, like he was willing to put up with the indignity of a tether to maintain the illusion he was a dog. 

The day after he passed, I sprawled out on his empty bed, which for almost 14 years has faced ours, making him the first thing I see in the morning. 

The emptiness of that space is staggering. I now hang clothes over the bed frame to block it out, to remind me not to look for him. 

Pet loss is surprisingly physical. I miss the warm weight of him. The feel of his belly. His patter, snores and smells (OK, not all of them). His presence brought me comfort, lifted my mood (thank you, serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin). I still turn abruptly when I think I hear him scratching at the door or prancing behind me. I sometimes accidentally call his name. 

And for all those years, he was my secret keeper, a source of steadying, everyday strength. Losing him has knocked me off balance, like I’ve lost the railing on a winding, dark staircase. 

He made me better. He got me to the beach and into the redwoods, yes, but he also made me a more patient parent, spouse and friend. If one of us raised a voice or slammed a door (hello, teenage years), Zeus retreated to his kennel or hid in the bathroom, reminding us all to be more gentle with each other. 

He made me less of an introvert, with his boundless openness to strangers. He gave me permission to be goofy. Oh, how he frolicked and zoomed in his prime. And oh how I loved chasing after him. 

Daily, he reminded me how limited we are as humans. What places his nose led us! I once looked it up: Dogs take five to 10 sniffs a second. Imagine.  

We moved into our Santa Cruz house almost two years ago and Zeus helped me meet my neighbors, gave me an excuse to talk to them. 

He’s still doing that. 

It’s the neighborhood dog people who have been the kindest, who have brought me cards and flowers and who smile genuinely at my still uncontrollable tears. They get it. I’m growing closer to them because of him – his final gift. 

I bet he knew I’d need it. 

I flip through the photo album my daughter made for me and I feel the extraordinary nature of our connection, the history we shared, the intimacy of our partnership (Zeus followed me into the bathroom and put his head on my foot as I toweled off from a shower.)

He helped me raise my kids – literally, since my husband, an archaeologist, traveled often. He sat under every tree they climbed and ran alongside them on their wobbly first bike rides. He “patrolled” the sledding and snowball fights outside our Buffalo home (we moved here in 2021) and he barked if any of the neighborhood kids went into the street. He was the “nanny” everyone wished they had. More than 10 families we know got dogs because of him. What a legacy of happiness. 

He accompanied my daughter to her first day of preschool and, in a few weeks, she’ll go to college. My baby. Perhaps he knew his job was done. 

I wish he had told me. 

He got sick quietly. He just stopped eating. I took him to the vet and they did blood and urine tests and X-rayed and ultrasounded him – none of which showed anything.

They gave me anti-nausea meds and appetite stimulants and steroids. He improved a little, but not much. Not enough. My other dog, Lola, a 16-pound, 4-year-old pandemic rescue, started hovering. She would perch behind Zeus and watch as he slept or settle on a pillow close to him. The vet told me she likely knew he was dying well before we did, that she smelled it.

I always believed he would get better. 

I kept saying yes to the tests, despite the cost and discomfort. We shoved pills he hated down his throat and squirted liquid into his mouth. I stayed up wiping and soothing and whispering to him.  

The vet bills were stunning (goodbye vacation). But we kept saying yes. We are lucky, I know. We could afford to pay for them – and for the illusion of hope they gave us. So many people can’t afford vet care, even when their dogs are less sick and less old than mine. (I did find two local organizations that help pay for veterinary care for those who can’t afford it. What a blessing.) 

Wait times, too, I found out, are awful. It takes six to eight hours in Santa Cruz County just to get your sick pet seen. Think about that. Sitting in your hot car with your suffering, scared pet waiting for service. I ended up driving to a vet hospital in Campbell, where the wait times are one to two hours and the waiting area is spacious and air conditioned. 

Zeus spent two and a half days in the Campbell hospital before we decided to bring him home without a diagnosis. We could have done more testing. But to what end? Whatever he had was bad. Likely untreatable. I wanted to give him – and us  –  a little peace. 

There is nothing so final as death, nothing so permanent as seeing your beloved dog sprawled in the grass, shaking from hunger and pain and knowing you are out of options. Choosing to end Zeus’ life made me physically sick. Waiting for a vet I’d never met arrive to end his life was torturous.

To his great credit, my darling, sick dog got shakily up from the grass to greet the vet when she walked in with her medicine bag of drugs that would stop his heart. He even raised his tail. What a marvelous final lesson from my wise companion. Such gentility and hope and curiosity at the end. 

I miss him so much, I simply can’t stop weeping. 

He died with all of us surrounding him. Touching him. Whispering our love. A gentle, enviable death. 

The morning after he passed, I let Lola in the yard. She ran right to the grassy place where Zeus took his last breath. She sniffed about then sat, staying about a minute. She’d never done that before or since. I guess it was her way of saying goodbye. 

I’m still figuring out mine. 

Jody K. Biehl is the Community Voices opinion editor and a UCSC professor, where she teaches journalism.