Six Million Dollar Dog

Our Miss Snooks is a fairly resilient dog. When she was four months old, she ate rat poison. After a little vitamin K and some sort of diuretic, she bounced back—same puppy, only louder.

When she was about 8 months old, she broke into my toiletries bag and ate a bunch of vitamins. This time all she required was a little monitoring and a room with fewer chew temptations.

Our Miss Snooks is having another faceoff with death

A few years later, Kevin and I were relaxing after work when suddenly we heard a horrible dog cry and all the lights went out. Snooks shorted out the apartment while chewing on a lamp cord. Again, with diuretics and something for the scorch marks on her mouth, she was good as new—theoretically, more cheerful for the shock therapy, and definitely less likely to chew on electric cords. She never dances with death in the same way twice.

Right around Carter’s first birthday, Snooks got hit by a car. The driver hit Snooks only after swerving to avoid the beagle leading her out an open gate and into temptation. Despite being in shock by the time we got her to the vet’s, she survived without major surgery. Kevin slept in a playpen with her for two weeks while she recovered.

Less than a year ago, Snooks rapidly lost weight and wasn’t acting like herself. Our vet felt her stomach, looked at me and said, “Mmmm. Shit.” The result was a splenectomy that had immediate positive results—before she had recovered from the surgery incision she was acting three years younger. We’ve had a pleasant year enjoying the results of what seemed a veterinary gamble. She’s a survivor.

Out of the Bayou
We added Snooks to our family from the Orleans Parrish Humane Society before moving back to Illinois in 1995. We were hoping for a more snuggly animal, since both our cats were rather standoffish. We didn’t get snuggly. In fact, when our feet would accidentally touch her (back in the days she could still jump that high), she’d huff off to the other side of the bed. She wouldn’t leave the room, though—she always stayed within eyesight. Instead of snuggly, we got watchful.

Through four moves, two beagles, and two births, Snooks has watched over us. She communicates by making strange singsong throat noises if we fail to feed her promptly, and by less subtle growly noises if the kids are trying to sit on her head. She refuses to relax, pacing, singing and nose nudging until all visitors stop speaking to us and address her directly, preferably with a scratch and a treat.

She watches everything. With the birth of Carter she became even more watchful. Our beagle, Cleo, pouted for about a week, but Snooks immediately took charge of watch duty: making sure she slept within eyesight of Carter. She did the same thing when Archie joined our lives.

Yesterday she stopped drinking water. This morning she continued her water strike, had trouble standing, and had the dry heaves. I made an emergency appointment at the vet’s office (our actual vet is in China right now) and then urged them to see her early, as she was going downhill quickly over the course of a few hours. Labored breathing, pale gums and that calm, stoic manner she adopts when her life is in danger all contributed to my panic.

Right now she’s hooked up to an IV, getting fluids, maybe getting a little food over the next few hours. Something is in her stomach, looking suspiciously similar to the mass that prompted the splenectomy. I’m just not sure how many pieces of her we can remove. We want her to be comfortable, happy and alive. We could use help doing that, because the grad school insurance barely covers the humans in our family.

There’d be a hole in the Makice heart without Snooks’ watchful eyes.

Addendum: We just got home from the emergency vet in Indianapolis. Snooks is spending the night there. When we arrived in Indy I walked the boys down the street to get some food. Carter found a dandelion and picked it up, explaining to Archie how he could make a wish and it would come true if he blew off all the seeds.

Carter: Oh my gosh! I blew off all the seeds! I never imagined I’d be able to do it! My wish will come true!

Archie: What’d you wish for, Carter?

Carter: I can’t say or it won’t come true.

When we were getting ready to leave Snooks in the care of the doctors for the night, Carter insisted he needed to see Snooks first, because he had something to give her. Then he set the empty dandelion head by her bandaged paw.