STELLA
Stella no longer exists, physically. She’s a memory, a feeling, a being who once was part of our daily lives and no longer is. She is gone, but definitely not forgotten.
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We picked up Stella on March 26, 2013. To do so, we drove from North Carolina to Ridgewood, NJ in order to rendezvous with her breeder who’d traveled from Vermont with a carload of cocker spaniel puppies. Half were black and white, the other half brown and orange, including Stella. Reflecting my own weakness for sugar, I chose to describe her as mocha and caramel.
Stella was an adorable puppy (what puppy isn’t?). In our excitement, we lost her water bowl at the first rest-stop on the trip home, the sound of I-95 roaring past. The next morning, back in Chapel Hill, we introduced Stella to our daughter, Sarah.
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Stella was obtained as a gift to Sarah, in fulfillment of a promise, namely: if Sarah were to move back from Wilmington, NC, where she’d graduated from college six months earlier, to the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area, where we lived, we’d get her a puppy. We felt her job opportunities would be better. Sarah’s initial reaction to our offer was unenthused, but a week later, she agreed. Thus did Stella first play a crucial role in Sarah’s life. Later, Stella was indispensable in Sarah’s first date with Matthew, who eventually became her husband. It’s our understanding the two co-workers were intrigued at first sight, but needed a spur. Stella inspired them to go on a “doggie date” with Matt’s dog, Boris.
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Stella’s head in my lap; leaning in to being combed by my wife, Katie; waiting anxiously for medicine disguised as treats and sometimes catching them, Stella playing fetch, but never more than two throws – not a stellar athlete, alas; Stella laying in the middle of the staircase because I am downstairs and Katie is up.
Stella listening at the sewer grates for frogs; her tail wagging at almost each new encounter with a person or a dog; greeting house guests as long-awaited friends, then settling down to enjoy the company in whatever room we humans settled; padding her front paws on the floor anticipating being petted; patiently being walked by five-year-old Henry and even by two-year-old Layla; clambering up to the couch to cover Katie’s legs with her head and paws.
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Sarah and Stella continued to live with us in Chapel Hill until late June, 2013, when Sarah moved to a condo in Raleigh. During those months, when Sarah went to work, I walked Stella numerous times a day. We sat for hours on the front porch and watched the world go by. She was 95% “house-trained” when she arrived, 100% when they moved. The earliest walks with Stella revolved around playing with pine cones. Though she couldn’t often get her little puppy mouth around them, Stella never gave up. She exuded equanimity and calm. I felt Stella imprinted on me, like a baby goose to its mother, during those quiet walks and long, languid sits. In retrospect, maybe it was I who imprinted on her.
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Stella raced to greet us each morning, sometimes missing a step in her excitement; she leaned greedily into a vigorous noogie; she staked out her spot under the kitchen table during our meals, always calculating the most likely spot for a falling morsel; she rushed to rest and cool down on the granite hearth after warm weather walks; she eagerly consumed her meals, but looked up thoughtfully while she chewed, seeming to savor every mouthful.
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After Sarah moved to her own home, so that Stella would not be alone all day, Sarah enrolled her in half-day doggie daycare. Missing her, Katie and I volunteered to visit each Wednesday afternoon and keep her company. We took long walks around the neighborhood or at the local park. Stella revealed some tiny vestige of her ancient wolf ancestors when Halloween approached; she growled, barked and shrieked at plastic skeletons or similar decorations, especially the blow-up figures that moved with the wind. On another route, she attacked two stone figurines shaped to resemble lions. We were well protected.
After Sarah married and moved into a house, we continued to visit one afternoon each week. We added Matt’s dog, Boris, to our walks. An amiable hundred-pound black lab mix, Boris made a comical combination with twenty-five-pound Stella, but they enjoyed each other’s company and daycare was no longer necessary.
In 2018, our grandson, Henry, was born. Any concern that Stella might not appreciate competition for Sarah’s attention proved unnecessary. Stella seemed fascinated with the baby, following Sarah to check on him if he cried, or sitting patiently on the floor or couch beside Sarah as she cared for him. We speculated that Stella would have been an amazing mother, loving and calm, if she’d ever had the chance.
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Around this time, as a middle-aged dog, Stella began to itch and lick more than usual. She’d developed allergies, particularly to grass. As if she understood her own condition, Stella avoided walking on grass as much as possible. Still, she required various medicines to keep physically and mentally comfortable. Increasingly often, Sarah needed to take her to the dermatology department at NC State University. These appointments took hours and gobs of money and resulted in testing that revealed Stella was resistant to almost all the usual treatments. Skin issues are common with cocker spaniels, but Stella’s difficulties were extraordinary.
Shortly after our granddaughter, Layla, was born, in late 2020, Sarah found managing her job, her household, and the dog-walking and the medicines required by Stella to be overwhelming. After all, unlike Boris, Stella could not just go out to the yard – the grass allergy wouldn’t allow it – she had to be walked by her human. With deep sadness that we now understand more than ever, Sarah asked if Stella could live with us. Though we’d always resisted having a dog of our own, considering the individual, we readily agreed.
The adjustment to fulltime dog parenting took several months, however. The worst was disrupted sleep since Stella was a bed-hog. Once she settled in her spot, typically at a most inconvenient space between our legs, she still scratched and licked enough to keep us up. Also, the routines of early-morning walks and late evening walks, though pleasant most of the time, were less-than-enjoyable as a 365-day commitment. After all, sometimes it’s hot and sometimes it’s rainy and sometimes… a human just wants to sleep in.
We resolved the sleep problem after several months by consigning Stella to a luxurious sort of dog crate, the downstairs bedroom in our house. She howled like a baby during sleep-training for three nights but then settled into the new routine, seemingly satisfied. We ALL slept better.
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Stella’s “meds” sometimes overwhelmed us, too, especially when some acted as a diuretic and required her walks to become even more frequent. Fortunately, Katie and I had the time to attend to her. We developed some wonderful routines, such as: the weekly walk at the Tobacco Trail in Durham, where she pranced like a puppy, sniffing happily; Stella leading the way on the “State Farm” walk, a destination to an office building near our home that she particularly enjoyed; cheerfully raising each of her paws to be wiped clean after each walk in an attempt to battle allergies; leaning in to being combed as though she knew the dry skin needed to be removed; excitedly taking her place in a “doggie car seat” when we’d drive to her other favorite walk, around the lake at a nearby community.
At the suggestion of our son, Sam, we bought a raised 3’ x 4’ platform for Stella to sit on in front of our house. That way, she could sit outside unleashed, sniffing the air to her heart’s content, but not touching the grass. Stella immediately loved the contraption and jumped to attention every time she saw us move towards the door with it. Our neighbors rarely failed to smile when they saw the little “princess” gazing at them from her “throne.” Several who professed to dislike or fear dogs told us that Stella was the one exception.
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After Stella’s tenth birthday, in January, she seemed to slow down. As predicted by the veterinarians, years of prednisone and several steroids were sapping her energy. Stella began to eat less; she slept behind furniture more often, where we could not see her; she became less inclined to climb up on our laps, though she still did occasionally. A patch of alopecia grew on her back like an unwelcome stain. She didn’t always wake up from a nap to greet us when we arrived home. And her licking and scratching increased.
When a large rash covered Stella’s tummy, we took her to NC State once again. The prescribed medicine was slow to work. We took her to a local vet after several weeks to ask if the formerly red spots, now brown, were still of concern. The vet initially encouraged us, opining that the rash in question was now inactive. However, looking at her records and general health, she felt Stella was suffering, notwithstanding her continued sweetness (except when she dug all four paws into the pavement, to not be dragged away from a good smell). The end was recommended. “Better to be a month or two early than late,” she said.
This recommendation shocked us. Obviously, pets’ lifetimes are relatively short. And Stella was no youngster. But… In a daze of sadness, we took Stella to see Sarah’s family one more time during the ensuing weekend. She reached up to Sarah and Matt in greeting, as always; she sniffed Boris like an old friend; she sat on the floor while Layla and Henry built a pillow fort around her, a goddess of good-natured patience.
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Two days later, Stella’s last nighttime walk lasted an hour longer than the usual fifteen minutes. She sat down at the corner of Barbee Road and Route 54 and watched the traffic. She’d never done that before. After fifteen minutes, I gently directed her towards our house. However, she pulled towards the State Farm building, a destination we’d never visited at night. I went along. She sat there for a while, listening to traffic and sniffing. When we resumed walking and had nearly returned home, she sat down again, unmoving, adjacent to the pond across the street from our house, and listened to a symphony of singing frogs, her frenemies. I recalled the first time she’d approached one on the sidewalk. She stared at it for a moment, then moved in to sniff it, at which point the frog jumped. Stella leapt two feet in the opposite direction. After that, her philosophy regarding amphibians became “live and let live.”
We remained still for fifteen minutes. What was she thinking? What was she sensing? Finally, after Katie phoned to make sure we were okay, I pulled Stella towards home.