Three-Letter Acronyms & Four-Letter Words

Peanut //RIP: 2003 to 2007

Peanut passed away tonight at about 9:05. Before I get into any of details of what happened, let me just tell everyone that reads this that Peanut had the most character of any dog that I have had the pleasure granting a permanent visa to.



She has gone by several names, most of which I will take credit for. I gave her the name Peanut, I completely had the little funky chihuaha like dog from Pauly Shore's movie Jury Duty in mind when I gave her that name. Then there was the moniker of being the 'Pea-Chee' course that is how Gina would usually write it, I always meant it as 'Pee-Chee' because well as most tiny, tiny dogs she liked to pee just about anywhere she felt like. While I would like to take credit for Princess P, I think Gina made up that one. Princes P came from the fact that Peanut was always very particular about her sleeping arrangements and more often than not notice if you even remotely touched her bed, ie 'The Princess and the Pea' story.

She will be sorely, sorely missed. It just isn't a five dog quartet without the Princess P. I won't be able to say that we have '4 and half dogs' anymore either, it was always a great intro into the story behind Pee-Chee.

Earlier today, Gina told me she had run Peanut into Dr. Farmer's office because something wasn't right with her. She said that Peanut had been making funny noises, which meant that it had to be a very odd and bad noise, as Peanut made funny noises all the time.

I honestly thought that maybe Gina was just being a little over protective of Peanut, since Gina had mentioned that it might have been another hypoglycemic episode. Because of Peanut's tiny size and almost complete lack of body fat it is really easy for her to not eat as much as she should and then have an episode. Mind you since we changed up her food she has been eating like a drunken cow, I mean almost all the time the food dish is empty (and not because Emma has been stealing all of the food).

Dr. Farmer ran some blood work and as he was examining her he made mention of something I think Gina also said might have been a problem, that Pee-Chee was not acting properly, like not moving around responsively, ie neurological issue. As the day continued, Gina kept in communication with Dr. Farmer, it was not looking like Peanut was going to get better.

I mean, Emma got better, she had a stroke of the spine (FCE) and she got better. Peanut could too, right? That is what my thought was when I heard stroke. But, the stroke that Peanut had (we are pretty sure she had a stroke early this morning or late last night) was different from the one Emma had. While, it had left Peanut pretty much without the use of her right front and rear legs, it must have caused some brain damage as well.

Peanut just was not her usual self. She wasn't barking at all, at least not while I was holding her. She would normally at bark a little bit while you were holding her (even if she was in her little bag) or at least growl at you when you put your finger into her bag to scratch her head. Nope, nothing.

I will admit that when I got home, I was selfish. I started cooking dinner, I offered to make Gina some of what I was making, but as usual my crazy idea for dinner didn't appeal to Gina. I say that I was selfish, because I didn't want to spend time with Peanut when I first got home, I didn't want to sit and watch another dog that I cared about go through something that I couldn't do anything to help. I did poke in on Gina and Peanut once or twice as the night went on. The Princess P was as pathetic as I had thought she would be, just laying there in her little sleeping bag not really moving. Mind you, she would normally just lay in her little bag and not move normally, but this was different. Usually her eyes would follow you when you looked at her, this time around one of them seemed to look at you the other just seemed to be staring off into space.

Gina took her out of the bag at one point to see if she could stand up. She fell down, needless to say this shook me up a little bit, since that was what really upset me about Emma, while Emma was at the vet. I mean, Pee-Chee loved her little bags, laying in them, sleeping in them, occasionally peeing in them (but just a little bit, I mean I didn't start calling her Pee-Chee for nothing). That is when I knew that Peanut wasn't going to get better, that tonight one way or another was the last night that she was going to be with us. With the fact that her personality seemed like it was completely gone and that she couldn't stand up, in all honestly there was just no way to expect her to snap out of it.

I asked her if it was ok for me to hold Peanut. As I didn't want Peanut to get cold, the last thing Pee-Chee needed right then and there was to feel cold and in my mind unloved. So I grabbed a blanker and we sat down in the big red chair in the living room. I rested her on my chest and laid one of the blankets we keep in the living room on top of her to help keep her warm. She felt like she was warming up after a few minutes. She was making odd noises, which I can only imagine were the same noises that prompted Gina to take her into Dr. Farmer's office earlier that day.

Gina had to step out of the house. She had to step out and get a pack of smokes. Between the two of us she was making the big decision of whether to take Peanut into the Emergency Vet and put her to sleep or give her Valium to try and make it a very peaceful transition. Gina told me that Dr. Farmer said that the Valium was going to take several hours to kick in. She didn't want to take her into the Emergency Vet, as they just about every vet Peanut has ever visited has had a very hard time hitting a vein. And whether you believe it or not, a pet knows when they are in a strange place or whether they are at home. No pet should have to be at a Vet's office when their time comes, it is best if they are at home with the people (and fellow pets) that love.

We sat on the couch and watched TV, I looked down at her and told her that I loved her and that I was going to miss her. I told her that it wasn't going to be the same without her. At one point she sort of stuck the tip of her tongue out of her mouth, I sort of thought that maybe she was yawning, she used to do these really big yawns where her tongue would come rolling out of her mouth. However, then I realized that it was an involuntary action, it was just sort of sticking out at me.

It looked dry to me and I thought about getting one of the syringes that Gina has in the animal stuff (no needle, just the plastic part) and filling it with water. That way I could wet her little tongue, anything to try and make her a little bit more comfortable. Worried that I might make things worse, I called Gina first. She told me not to worry that Pee-Chee had plenty of fluids. The reason I was concerned about it, was that I didn't want to accidentally drown Peanut, given that she didn't seem to be in control of her faculties, last thing I wanted to do was make things worse.

So instead I shifted her position on my chest slightly, she looked like she seemed a bit more comfortable. A minute or so later, Emma came galloping up to the chair and leaped onto my lap, in doing so she came within inches of crushing Peanut. If your gasping, this is pretty normal behavior for Emma so I was prepared and had already shifted Pee-Chee up a little to avoid a crushing body check from Emma.

Odd thing was that Emma was shivering a little bit, Emma pushed herself under the covers and calmed down a little bit. Given what came a few minutes later, I would like to think that maybe Emma knew what was about to happen and wanted to be near her little older sister in her last moments, but I won't every really know what made Emma jump up into the chair. I do know that Emma was scared about something.

A few moments after Emma had hopped into the chair, Peanut made some more of those noises. Her little tongue was sticking out more than before, not at all like the little royal Princess I was used to seeing. Then she started shaking in the bag. If not for the fact that I knew something was wrong, I would have thought she was just stretching. Because when she stretches a really good stretch, she sort of does this shaky thing, I mean if she was say like a 75 lb dog this shaky thing would likely knock over tables and chairs, if you know tables and chairs were close enough to be knocked around by the shaking of a 75 lb dog. Normally Peanut's shaky thing only causes herself to lose her balance and fall over.

It wasn't a stretch.

It was a seizure. It was her last seizure.

Maybe it was a seizure brought on by another stroke. I really, really have no idea, as I am not a vet.

All I know is that it broke my heart.

I saw her shake it out and then she just sort of peacefully lowered her head down into the little bag.

She had stopped looking up at me and to be quite honest I couldn't bring myself to poke into the bag and see if she was alive or not.

I mean, I looked into the bag to try and see if her chest was moving because of her breathing, but I was a bit nervous. And I didn't want to set her on a table or anything, that just seemed like a cold hearted thing to do. So I held her to my chest and frantically called Gina.

About 30 minutes or so had passed since Gina had left and I wasn't sure when she was going to get back. But I hoped it was going to be really, really soon. I decided to get out the front and see if Gina was possibly in the driveway, she had just pulled up and was on the phone, which explained why my calls had been going straight to voicemail. I told her what happened and she took Pee-Chee's sleeping bag from me, at my request. I couldn't bring myself to verify that she had passed away.

I don't deal with death well. Luckily for me, any of the pets that I have had before that died, did so in the middle of the night while I was asleep or while I was away at school (we are talking about fish, mice and gerbils, not cats and dogs).

So that is how Peanut passed away. She did it at home, with her big little sister Emma near her, while resting in her little sleeping bag on my chest under the covers.

And to be quite honest about all of it, I have cried tonight, shit I have shed several tears while typing this entry up. What can I say it is hard not to get broken up about a dog that weighs less than 1.5 lbs, yet will bite a grown man because they were foolish enough to poke a finger into her little sleeping bag (to the best of my knowledge she never broke the skin, not that she wasn't trying).

I will miss spending time on the couch with Pee-Chee, watching Saturday afternoon TV (well not so much watching but sleeping while the TV was on).

I will miss her bark that would fill the entire house when she would hear us feeding the rabbits, the sound of their food hitting the food bowls sounded apparently a little too much like her food I guess.

I will miss her little funky walk, it was sort of like she was marching, she always seemed to high-step around on the tile.

I will miss the fact that she would usually run right up to me (normally I was on the couch) whenever Gina would let her out of her bed.

I will definitely miss the fact that she would usually stop along the way from her bed to the couch and pee on the tile.

She will forever be my Pee-Chee.

We are going to have her cremated and Gina told me that John has offered to make a little box to hold her ashes. Given that she weighed less than 1.5 lbs, I am not envisioning that it will be a very large box. It will not doubt be a box fit for royalty, after all she was the Princess P.

Good Night and Thank You.

Ben D. Benner