How Jancy Died

by Joan Dobbie
Copyright (c) 2000

Jancy was, according to a veterinarian's guess, part terrier and part setter. I believe he was probably right. She looked kind of like a setter, only much too small. And she acted kind of like a terrier: very bright, somewhat crazy... if you knew her, you remember.

Maybe because we got her while we were traveling and she spent her formative days riding, she never got over her love of the car. The one thing that upset her more than anything else (except maybe some family member swimming -- but that's a whole other story) was if the car left home without her in it. And there were times when she'd refuse to leave the car after we got back from a ride. It was her traveling doghouse, her own magic carpet. I was her genie, I suppose. I made it move. But that didn't mean she had absolute faith. Jancy was an incorrigible back seat driver. Standing behind, she drove along with me, front paws on my shoulder, intently watching the road. If she thought I was driving too fast, or too recklessly, she'd press her paws hard on my shoulder, like feet on the brake.

She did all sorts of circus type tricks, you might remember. "Jump over... Crawl under... Show me your fleas." Her favorite toy was the e-r-r-r sock(any old sock with a knot in it) and her favorite game was e-r-r-r-r. ( You hold one end in your hand; she grasps the other in her teeth. You pull and shake your hand while she pulls and shakes her head (growling e-r-r-r the whole time) until finally she gets it away from you. Then she quick gives it back so you can both do it again.)

Her favorite dish was Kentucky Fried Chicken (which our friend, Chuck, ritually bought for her birthday). And her favorite season was summer.

Jancy loved sunshine. Every spring, the first sunny day after that interminable dark dreary Oregon winter, Jancy took off. I mean, she ran away. Like the sunshine made her remember she was supposed to be free. Every year I trusted her not to do it. Every year she did anyway. Of course, it wasn't only the first day of spring, that was just when it started. It was anytime all spring/summer long. Sometimes I'd be a responsible dog-owner and tie her, but then she'd promise me never again, so I'd trust her again. And then she'd be gone again, invariably, me pacing the sidewalks of Eugene, howling, "Jancy! Jancy!" or slow-driving block after block eyes peeled for an illusive white shadow slinking in and out of alleyways.

Her two favorite sports were squirrel-chasing and blocking traffic. Squirrel-chasing was relatively risk-free. In her whole life, she only caught up with one once, and though it apparently bit her nose pretty hard, her pride was more hurt than her body. (Skunk chasing the year we lived back east, of course, had its own dangers.) And, there was that time when she was first learning to pull me on my bike, that she crashed us both up because of a squirrel.

But it only happened once. After that, even though just hearing the word "squirrel" made her ears prick up and her whole body tremble, when we were out biking together she could ignore whole families of squirrels as if they'd never been born. As for blocking traffic, in her 15+ years of chasing things across busy streets, jumping out of car windows, wandering along yellow center lines, and, as she got older, simply standing blankly in the middle of the road, she was never hit once, which I consider a miracle in itself. True, she didn't chase cars, she just got in their way.

When Jancy was 13, I took her in for a check-up because of a chronic cough. Our vet, Dr. Voss, couldn't find what was making the cough, but she did find a huge cancerous tumor which turned out to be cancer of the spleen. After the operation, Dr. Voss said to me, "I can't promise you how much time she'll have (maybe 6 weeks, maybe two years) but I can promise it'll be good time."

And it was good time-- nearly three years of it, when, a couple of months after her 15th birthday, she started having strokes. The first one twisted her up like a pretzel, and froze her into a statue of herself, but somehow she recovered. The second one had her racing blindly around the house, literally crashing into walls and finally collapsing into a night of steady seizures, but again she recovered. Or sort of recovered.

She was weak, very weak. Off and on, she couldn't quite open her mouth to eat, so I would have to force-feed her baby-food with a syringe. But somehow, through her will-power and mine, she lived for another seven months. Twice I brought her in to the hospital for a day of I-V nourishment which gave her a boost for a while, but mostly we just did it on our own. Still, Jancy had lung-cancer, as it turned out, and she wasn't going to live forever. "Clip a St. Martin's medal onto her collar," our friend, Evan, suggested. So I went to the Catholic store and bought two, one for her and one for me.

Jancy started tipping over, just getting dizzy, tipping over, and lying stiff on her side like a dead dog and then getting up again like nothing happened. Then she started having trouble getting up again. She kept getting weaker and weaker. Then she started soiling herself and wetting herself. But that was no big deal, really. I'd just wash her off in a basin and settle her back onto the couch, or into the back seat of the car, and she'd be happy again. We got used to these changes in every day life. When we went for a walk, for example, after the first few steps I'd carry her. Then, a few steps from the car I'd put her down again and she'd make it in by herself, with just a little boost to get her up onto the seat.

I remember the last couple of days of her life clearly, the way you remember the last days before childbirth, or any mo-mentous occasion. On Monday, as I remember, March 20th, Chuck, Jancy and I were in the car together. I was telling him how Jancy wasn't eating any more, and he started reminiscing about the times he'd bought her Kentucky Fried Chicken for her birthday. I told him I didn't think she'd make it to her birthday, and she wasn't eating anymore anyway. Chuck said, "Let's go see the Colonel. It can't hurt to try." So we got her a leg and a breast. But they were too hot, so we didn't give them to her right away.

I dropped Chuck off at his house. When Jancy and I got home, she refused to leave the car, so I left her in it with the chicken leg for company. When I went out to check on her about a 1/2 hour later, the leg was pretty much gone. I never saw her eat it, and I have no idea how she did, since I had been having to pry her mouth open to force baby food in for the last couple of weeks, maybe more. But anyway, the chicken leg was gone. I carried her into the house. I saved the breast for morning.

And that next morning, March 21st, 2000, was the equinox, yes, and for us Eugenians, it truly was the first day of spring-- a magnificent beautiful sunny bright day, our first in months and months. Everybody was smiling. I was smiling. Jancy was smiling. Squirrels were nesting. Birds were chirping. I put her into her back seat, gave her the chicken breast for company, and drove to neighboring Springfield to teach a yoga class.

When I came out of class, the chicken breast was gone, and Jancy, who hadn't been able to sit up by herself for days, was sitting up cheerily, wagging her tail at the sunshine. I decided to go visit my friend, Ann, in the nursing home. We drove into the nursing home parking lot: sunshine and blossoms and birds and squirrels. Jancy, who hadn't done anything except lie on her side for days and days was scratching at the car door to get out. I helped her into the grass. I actually think she could have got out by herself, but I was used to helping her by this time.

And there she was, smiling in sunshine, tail wagging, eyes shining, peeing and sniffing and squatting and shitting out freshly digested Kentucky Fried Chicken. She was so proud of herself, I think maybe because she could do these things again, these normal dog things she hadn't been able to do for some time now.

But then she got dizzy and started to tip over. I was used to this by now, and I actually caught her before she hit the ground. I carried her back to the car. Still smiling, eyes gleaming happily, she started breathing slower and slower. Then she kind of stretched herself out, like she was making herself more comfortable. I think that was when I realized she was dying. I just kept on petting her. And that was all there was to it. She breathed slower and slower until she wasn't breathing any more. My hand was on her side the whole time. Her body never even trembled. There was no clear transition between life and death. She was still smiling as she lay there without breathing. Her eyes were still gleaming. I truly believe that she died of joy. Or maybe St. Martin helped. Who knows?

Anyway, I miss her now, but then I wasn't even sad. I was kind of awe-struck, as if I'd witnessed a miracle. I left her body there in her back seat while I taught another class and then I took it to be cremated.

I keep the ashes in a little blue box in the car and I plan to keep them in every car that I have as long as I have a car. I'm still wearing my St. Martin's medal. I have hers on my alter next to her photograph. And though I miss my Jancy, I feel more grateful than sad when I think of her-- grateful to have known this odd and beautiful creature almost all her long life, and grateful that she was granted a death, not merely peaceful, but bliss-filled, like the death of a saint.