On Thursday our family got some really sad news, but that is not where this story begins or where it will end.
I grew up in a family that never really had "traditional" pets. Sure, we had fish but I don't think I could tell you about any of them. We had a couple of bunnies, one was amazing and the other was, well, not so much. My brother had a small lizard. We may have had a hamster or something too but quite frankly I don't remember. We tried to have a dog on two occasions. One lasted for just a day because our dad did not want a dog and then we had this beagle for a month or so. This dog had come from my older sister, who did her best to raise and train it but even the professional trainers suggested giving him up. Needless to say, it did not work in our family either. I loved our first bunny, a bunny I got when I was probably 9 or ten. I did cry when she died so it was not like I hated animals, I just figured I was someone who has fine with not having a pet. As I grew into adulthood I couldn't understand the attachment adults had to their pets.
Fast forward to meeting my girlfriend, now wife. Once we got engaged and bought a house she mentioned getting a dog. I think this occurred within the first two hours of moving in. Okay, maybe not that fast but it was quick. She had dogs growing up and clearly had a better experience than I. I thought it over and mentioned getting a husky. I could be in if we could get husky, and that was without knowing anything about huskies. I just always thought they looked sweet and videos of dog sledding were cool. They seemed like a fun dog, a working dog, a real dog, I told myself. Plus, because I like to be different for no other reason than being different, I wanted a dog that was different. I did not want a lab or a retriever. I did not want a small toy breed. Of course, a Pomsky was looked into, until we found out they aren't the healthiest dog. So, I went about researching huskies.
We took some time to look into what it meant to have a husky, even buying a book about the breed (my purchase). I had never really owned a dog so I was curious about what I was getting into. I think my wife figured she had this down since she grew up with dogs. Somehow the book did not scare us away from the breed, despite trying. As did every blog post or website I could find. I liked a challenge, heck just yesterday I spent way, way too long trying to beat a level on Mario Maker 2, cause hell if that level was going to beat me! I don't want to admit how many attempts I made. Huskies are not easy dogs and the book did a great job illustrating the several ways this breed could challenge us.
Huskies have their perks though, as all dogs do. They are great family dogs. They are not aggressive towards humans. They are very trusting. They are goofy. They don't bark, but they do talk. They love kids. They are loyal to their pack. The benefits outweighed the risks mentioned during the research.
After all our research, I found a fluff ball in Iowa. I went to get her on Christmas Eve in 2016 and within about a week I fell in love. Noelle was her name before we realized saying "No Noelle" was going to be rough, so we shortened it to Elle. She was a ball of energy and she did test us early but she quickly settled in. She slept great at night, never really ate anything she wasn't supposed to and was wicked smart. I fell for her so hard I often got sad whenever I heard of a dog passing because it meant she would pass one day too. My own family was shocked at how much I cared for Elle and I don't blame them.
Huskies are known to escape and very good at it. When she was about five months old she escaped our backyard. I panicked when I could not find her out. I called her name but nothing. I went back inside and ran to our side door to start looking around the neighborhood. However my search did not take long, there was Elle, just chilling outside by the side door. She looked at me like what? You know that look all dogs make when they want to play innocent. I have always wondered what all she did during the time between when she escaped and when she was found. My guess is not much, she could have only been out for about ten minutes so I am not sure she went that far. Plys at the end of every walk we made, as soon as she turned the corner and saw our house she wanted to sprint back. Anyway, Elle was just the perfect dog, as long as you are okay with 1,000 kisses.
Around the time of getting Elle, I was working in a job I was starting to hate. The profession was wearing on me. I felt I was never around my family and friends when they needed me. I basically had to work every weekend from September to May. I missed a lot of events and was not actually present for the events I went to. I was stuck in a rut of going to work, coming home and watching TV. I never went out. I was not able to make friends in town because I had to work every weekend night. Elle was a welcome change. She got me hiking/running/walking more, we spent time exploring Winona, we spent time training each other. Another funny thing happened. I came to realize that I could not devote as much time to her as I wanted. It made me realize if I wanted kids, a healthy marriage, and better relationships I needed to make a change. Of course, I will stop here and give mad props to my wife, without her blessing I could not have changed my career and start to feel better. Together Elle and Katlynn allowed me to find peace. I was so thankful Elle was in my life and had joined our family.
About a year after getting Elle we heard about a rescue group (Adopt a Husky Minnesota) that specialized in huskies. I had fallen so hard for Elle and loved the breed that I wanted to give back. I figured that Elle had helped me so I could pay it forward. Strange, I know. This organization is amazing and we are so lucky to play a small role in all they do. I convinced Katlynn to allow us to foster. Elle is such a great dog that she welcomed each foster in without any problems. She never got mad if they took her toys or her spot on the couch. She may have given them and us some looks of disgust or annoyance but that was it. She adored our first foster so much she cuddled with him, something that left us speechless. Elle loves attention and pets but she hates to cuddle. Her go-to move is to sit by you, get you to start petting her and then slowly lay down so you can only pet her paw. It is both hilarious and super annoying because if you stop touching her paw, she will yell at you. Huskies, man. The first foster (Surly) went so well that we got another one (Odin) and then one more (Niko). After each foster left it got harder and harder on Katlynn to watch these amazing dogs leave our home. All three fosters came from rough situations but thanks to Elle taking them in, they got to flourish in our family before going to a forever home. I believe she was crucial in saving those dogs. So around October of 2018, a litter of red huskies was born, we got a chance to adopt one of the puppies from the organization we volunteered for. We got to bring Comet home just after Christmas of 2018.
Comet's mom escaped her breeder in Texas and there was no way of returning her. No one claimed her and she had no tags. Comet's mom was too young to be pregnant and definitely too young to give birth. She and her six puppies came up to Minnesota and all found their forever homes. We are lucky to still be in contact with all his siblings and his mom. We had a reunion for their one year birthdays.
Right away Comet was different than Elle. He was more rebellious, tried to eat everything outside, hated sleeping in, could not stay still for more than like 30 seconds. Regardless, we fell in love with him too, his quirks and all.
Comet settled in and Elle welcomed him just like she had the others. I think Elle expected him to leave at some point but he never did. She allowed him to take all her toys and pick on her non-stop. We tried to get him to leave her alone but because Elle is so kind, she never stood up for herself. Expect when it came to her stuffed hedgehog. Comet adored Elle from the first day, he still does but now it is a brother/sister love instead of mom/son love.
Luckily, our friend Zach had adopted a dog from this same organization around the same time. Loki is about the same age as Comet. These two instantly became friends. Comet has accepted Loki into his pack, something that Comet does not take lightly.
I am going to pause for a second and make it clear that Comet is a really good dog. Yes, he was harder than
Elle in almost every aspect but Elle was so easy it is unfair to Comet. Comet is a better walker than Elle and does not lick non-stop, two things I wish Elle would learn from Comet.
Comet also is very loving. He is so gentle with our baby. He gives us snuggles and what we call Comet hugs. He loves to come over and laying his head on our shoulder.
Almost immediately after getting Comet, Katlynn found out she was pregnant. This threw us a curveball when it came to our training with Comet. We taught him basics and for the most part, he picked everything up. However, I feel like I could have done better with him.
As time progressed Comet still was not sleeping through the night very often. He was also tiny. Male huskies are usually bigger than females but Elle looked like a giant compared to Comet. As baby Lola was getting set to make her arrival we felt Comet was coming into his own. He was sleeping through the night, though he did get up a 6 am, something no one in the house appreciated. We just assumed he was an early riser and had more energy than Elle. Once Lola was born we were up at night with her and Comet would whine to go outside to pee. Because we had a new baby and wanted her to sleep, we let Comet out so he would not howl/cry and wake up the baby. This kind of became a routine and I think it set Comet back. He would often get up in the middle of night howling to get out so we let him. When we tried to ignore it and get him back on schedule once we were settled with Lola but it only worked for about 2 nights a week.
Comet loves baby Lola. He was so gentle with her from the start, he still is. I get excited thinking about these two growing up together. Lola gets to have a fur brother and fur sister to protect her. We joke that Comet and Lola will get in lots of trouble together. Comet brings Lola toys every now and then to try and get her to play. I choked up the first time he did it.
At his one year check-up, I asked our vet about his sleep habits. I explained how he doesn't seem to be able to hold it at night. At that point, he was not having any accidents so we didn't think much of it when the vet said to ignore him. I also asked about his size but she assumed he was just a runt, nothing to be concerned about. Comet weighed under 40 pounds at his one year visit. Male huskies usually bottom out around 45. We did what the vet told us but it didn't help.
He then started peeing in his kennel. We took this as teenage angst, he was mad we weren't letting him out and he was peeing to get back at us. We made his kennel smaller and this seemed to fix the issue. He started sleeping until 630 almost every morning, still early but not bad since I get up at 645 anyway.
In February of this year, we took in our fourth foster, a puppy from an abandoned litter. Comet took to Emma pretty well but we learned that Elle preferred male fosters to female fosters. This was our first female foster. Elle has always been more vocal around females than males. Because Elle is Elle, she put up with all the puppy shenanigans. For the first time, we noticed she stuck up for her self a little more than usual. We also realized that Elle has no female dog friends, all our family and friends dogs are male. Anywho, Comet loved having Emma around and Elle joined in on the fun when she wanted to. Comet and Emma played and played. Lola loved watching them wrestle. Emma was a really easy puppy.
During her time with us, we would have to separate Emma and Comet every now and then because they could not stop playing. The same thing happened when Loki and Comet first met. One night after playing Comet started to have tremors, I thought it was due to sheer exhaustion but we caught it on video and shared it with our new vet and someone from the rescue. The vet took his blood and noticed his liver levels were off the charts. She assumed he had a liver shunt, this was a gut punch. All of a sudden, this boy who seemed to finally be settled and maturing was ill. We did our research and asked a ton of questions to learn about this setback.
Quickly we found out that shunts are a birth defect and that if he was to live past age three or four he would need surgery. This surgery is not cheap and was going to set us back at least 5,000. A large price to pay but we decided to explore it, we were determined to fix our little tornado dog. Plus, the surgery was 95% successful and it would mean he could live a long, normal, healthy life. We got him set up with the U of M and made a trip to get him looked at. They also figured it was a shunt and wanted him to come in for a CT scan so they could confirm it and set up surgery.
On Wednesday, March 11 we drove up to the cites. We got to the vet and Comet was excited to see everyone. He joyfully went back with the worker and I left to go back to Katlynn's parents. Comet would have his CT scan in the morning, we would come to pick him up and get set for a surgery date. We were looking forward to the visit. We couldn't wait to get his surgery done and see what he would be like after. We thought we would finally have a properly functioning Comet.
I got back in the van and started driving back to Katlynn's parents. News had just broken that NBA was suspending their season. That night I started to think the NCAA Tournament would get canceled, my favorite sporting event of the year. Obviously the pandemic of the world was and is bigger news than Comet's upcoming surgery but for us, this was first on our minds.
As the sun came up on Thursday the news got stranger and stranger. Everything was getting canceled or suspended. I decided to take a mid-afternoon nap on the couch and awoke to Katlynn talking to the vet. Finally! We get to set this surgery date. Some good news on a weird day.
I heard Katlynn say; I would like to have my husband there too, so we can chat about the results when we come to get Comet. Katlynn got this sense that there was something wrong. The results were surprising but we didn't know what that meant. I was more optimistic, something that would shock most people that know me. However, I thought maybe it was just that shunt was on the inside of the liver instead of the outside. They had mentioned that inside the liver was far less common in big dogs. Plus how bad could this be, he needed surgery anyway so it was already scary.
They found several shunts in Comet's liver. We weren't told how many but we were told that his liver was bad and there was nothing they could do. He has cirrhosis of the liver. This little guy had a liver too small from the start and it was past the point of recovery.
Haymaker.
No surgery. No way for us to absorb this blow and win the fight. We don't know how long he has but we know it is not long. He probably won't make it to age 2. He won't get to grow up with Lola and vice versa. These two friends will separate before Lola can have real memories of him. Elle will lose her brother. We will lose a part of our family.
Immediately I thought I failed him. What could we have done to catch this earlier? What if we would have noticed symptoms earlier, could that have saved him? What if he had a special diet from the start?
I am sure it is the same type of questions everyone asks when a being they love is going to die. In the end, we know the answers. There was nothing we could have done. This was something he was born with. We didn't know what a liver shunt was. So many of the symptoms never really showed themselves. Sure he was small, he drank more water than Elle, he didn't have a giant bladder like his sister (she once held it for like 18 hours because she would not go out in the rain), sure he couldn't catch toys or balls but either could Elle until she was 2, his whole litter ate weird things, he always had a sensitive stomach but that was getting better.
In the end, his straw was always going to be short, we just didn't get the heads up.
I will write more about Comet's life but not yet. Not when he still has life to live. Right now, we have to prepare for the end. We thought we would be preparing for the start of a new chapter.
We can't save Comet. Elle can't save Comet, but I know Elle will be there to help us heal like she has done time and again. For me, for Surly, for Odin, for Niko, for Emma, and for Comet when he first came home. We will help Elle heal too because I know she'll miss her brother.
I am once again thankful for Elle.
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