Our Lady, our Grace

I'm not going to dwell on the sad circumstances that brought her to us.  She had a neurological disease, Degenerative Myelopathy (DM).  She was lame.  Her owners were ignorant country people and they called Orange County Animal Control to come take her away to be put down.  They took her away but providence intervened and brought her here for the last six months of her life.  That story says a lot about her people, but it really says nothing about our Lady. 

Clearly she had been a well loved dog.  When she was younger and fitter, a life in the country was probably a better life for her than the people she lived with.  She loved people and she transferred her love to us and gave us all she had to offer, and it was plenty. 

I was never sure how she managed to walk at all, much less attempt to run and play, but she did.  Her front legs worked just fine, but the signal didn't make it from her brain all the way down her spine to her rear legs.  They were atrophied and barely able to support her.  They failed her often and she would stumble quite a bit.  By sheer force of will she got up, got around, and somehow even attempted to run and play at times, seemingly aware of her own limitations or unwilling to admit to them. 


It would sometimes drive me crazy that she didn't seem to have enough sense to stay out of the way of the other dogs who would inadvertently knock her down with even the slightest contact.  But she didn't want to be out of the way, she wanted to be in the way, she wanted to be in the middle of everything, in the middle of life around here.  Her lameness didn't define her.
  

When I went to the shelter to meet her and I knew right away that Lady wasn't adoptable but I also knew right away that she was coming home with me.  She looked like our late Emmylou.  She moved right in, was accepted by everyone in the household.  She fell into the household routine immediately, as if she had always been here.  We had to make some accommodations for her, but nothing you wouldn't do for someone you loved.  Mostly we had to hold the door open a little longer; although she would always come when called, it just took her a little longer to get there. 


I never took her to an adoption event because she couldn't walk or stand well enough to spend three hours on a sidewalk meeting the public.  But we took her to my sister's place in Kentucky for Thanksgiving last year and she fell into the routine there just like she did here. 

She was on borrowed time from the day she arrived.  We knew we couldn't fix her, our only aim was to love her, give her a home, and keep her as comfortable as possible for as long as possible.  Fortunately, she didn't seem to be in a lot of pain, but just watching her walk was painful.  She was becoming more unstable as the disease progressed and she gradually lost more feeling and control of her rear end.  We had her for six, almost seven months, and I like to think that she had some good times in those months.  She was well fed and well loved at least.  She held the title of Female Shepherd Dog in our household, a venerable position around here, following in the footsteps of Gypsy and Emmylou.

Her gait was unsteady but she walked with grace.