A Man and His Dog

As I sit here now, he's staring at me with his big brown eyes, chest heaving. He's whining, looking at me, pleading for help, yelping quietly, but screaming with his puppy eyes; eyes that are showing the first signs of cataracts, as if it weren't enough, the cancer eating away at his muscle and bone.

His dog. My man's overly loved, well spoiled 12-year old Jack Russell. Normally, I must admit, I do not enough patience with this spoiled dog. I love him sure, but he's been sort of ruined by my man's inability to play alpha dog unless provoked by extremely bad behaviour. It isn't the dog's fault really, he's been coddled his whole life, but I often find his neediness tiresome. However we have formed a certain respect for each other, in that he knows he cannot get away with things with me and I respect that :> I love all animals and cannot expect too much I suppose, having entered his life after 7 years alone with his human.

What strikes me now is how hard this is for me, this news we received today. The pain he's in. It's playing with my heart in ways I was not prepared for. What started as a simple removal of benign growths ended with a phone call from the vet to say that they were not so benign after all. They're cancer. He has doggy cancer. He's all cut up, sutured and bandaged. It's unpleasant! This shouldn't surprise me too much since his sister died of brain cancer last year, but it does nonetheless. Now we await word on the type and prognosis.

What strikes me even more is how much this has affected my man, his human. He cried and cried when he heard the news. This 6'2" 230lb. former body builder and professional fighter, broke down and bawled right there on the spot. It's not so surprising that he cried, he's a sensitive metrosexual man, but the grief. I have not yet had to help him with grief, and it's an interesting character study. I'm learning about much about him. For instance, for all the loving, cuddling and understanding that he doles out, it turns out he doesn't accept it very well. During his initial break down, he wouldn't hug me back. He let me hug him. He said 'thank you' when I told him I love him. Thank you. Mechanically. Thank you. Not even with feeling. I found this interesting. Now that he's had time to process this sad news, he's moved into himself. It's interesting. I'm going to keep watching.