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In
Loving Memory of Charlotte
Jan 1, 1999 to Nov 23, 2008
On November 15, I brought home the saddest little
Frenchie bitch imaginable. She was just a month and a half short of
her nine birthday, she was a New Year's baby. Her back end was nearly
non-functional and she tipped over easily. She was deaf, she was
blind in one eye and nearly blind in the other. She drooled out of the
right side of her mouth and had difficulty eating, Her owners of
an entire lifetime had given her up to be euthanized because as she got
sicker, she also had become
 aggressive,
but a compassionate veterinary technician rescued her and delivered her to
the FBVillage and to me. She was scared and tired and just fed up.
Her name was Charlotte, just like mine.
She spent most of the next nine days in a portable crib
pulled up beside my desk in my home office, where I could keep an eye on her
and put a hand out to calm her when she became agitated. For her part,
she sat in her crib, amid her small cache of toys and blankets, and stared
at me out of her one good eye, willing me to pet her, which I did, as often
as I looked up and noticed her. I dozed through most of the nights
beside her, still in my office chair, while she sat and watched me, or
finally lay down and slept.
For as long as she could walk even a few steps, she liked
to go outside with me and my Pug
 Clovis
and my French Bulldog Cletus. She liked to snuffle and dig in the
leaves of the yard. She walked very slowly, her head twisted at an
unnatural angle, her legs wobbling from one side to the other, my own dogs
trailing along behind or beside her, keeping watch. As the end came
closer, even these short excursions were taken from her.
Like any Frenchie bitch, even a dying one, she wanted to
be the boss. If Clovis or Cletus came too close, she ran at them, and
then crashed into them, because she couldn't stop. She would fall over
and wave her legs in the air like an upturned beetle while they watched
curiously. She obviously thought she was a contender, but they seemed to
think of her as a highly entertaining crabby little old lady. They were
very deferential, turning their heads away politely, and waiting for her to
get back up and wobble off unconcerned, as though she intended to fall
over. She had her dignity.
She tried hard to pick up the bones on the rug, selecting
only the largest ones, but it was impossible with her pa ralyzed
face, no matter how hard she tried. Finally, I took pity on her, and
slid a Nylabone wishbone into the corner of her mouth, and she grimly
clamped her jaws tight onto it, growling softly at Cletus when he came near.
He could have taken it from her in an instant, but he didn't. She fell
asleep with the bone still in her mouth, and only then was I able to pry it
gently from her relaxed jaws. That was the last time she was able to
guard a bone.
As hard as she fought, Charlotte
did not rally. She grew visibly weaker through Friday night and into
Saturday. By Saturday morning, she could not walk across the grass more
that two or three steps before falling, and for the rest of the day, I
lifted her onto her feet with each fall, or else brought her inside and
set her in her play pen
beside my computer, where I could touch her when I felt her stir. She was
no longer restless, just endlessly tired. Eating was a chore that
exhausted her after only a tablespoon or two of food, although she still
managed to drink out of her squeeze bottle. Saturday evening, her
breathing had become raspy and bubbly and harsh, and by midnight, she was
consumed entirely by the awful effort of drawing one breath after another,
lying on her side on the bed next to me, sandwiched between Cletus and
Clovis, who for once were careful to lie very still. We all lay there for
two hours, waiting for a miracle I suppose, waiting for Charlotte to fall
asleep and to gain back some of her strength. She didn't.
I took her to the emergency hospital at 2 AM. She spent the rest of the
night and the next morning in an oxygen tent. X-rays confirmed the onset
of aspiration pneumonia. Even worse, the residents and the consulting
neurologist all expressed the belief that she was in the terminal stages
of a brain tumor. At noon on Sunday, the attending resident called me to
say that her condition was very grave, that she was not likely to make it
through another day, possibly not even another hour. She could no lon ger
stand, her gag reflex was completely gone, making it impossible for her to
swallow.
I drove back to the hospital to hold her through the euthanasia. Her
breathing slowed briefly and she looked up at me with her one good eye
when I unwrapped her from her blankets and held her in my arms, so I would
like to think that she knew I had come back for her. She was dead in my
arms before the syringe had even emptied into her leg...
Charlotte was that kind of Frenchie that I love best. She was every ounce
a tiny warrior, not willing to give up a day, an hour, a minute of life
without hanging on fiercely with every last bit of strength she had left
in her. She fought to stay alive. She was a dog I would have loved to
have owned for longer than the week I was blessed to have her.
Be at peace now, little one. My boys are waiting to take you across the
bridge...
Charlotte Creeley
Brockton, Massachusetts
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