Goodbye, Sweet Dog

Milo. December 1, 2011 - July 15, 2026

My little dog, Milo, has cancer. A couple of weeks ago I noticed that his breathing was faster and more urgent. One day he was his usual self and then .… he just wasn’t. I texted a vet friend and went to urgent care on her recommendation. X-rays confirmed the worst, cancer throughout his lungs and a horrible name-I-can’t-pronounce-sarcoma in his spleen. A grave prognosis. We were sent home with steroids and a palliative care plan. 

Milo’s been declining rapidly since his diagnosis and we have made the heart-wrenching decision to put him to rest. The vet will come to our house today and he will die in my arms, surrounded by his family and his sweet younger sister, Maggie. 

Life still finds a way in his sturdy, compact body. He’s lost interest in his kibble, so I’m feeding him steak. He can’t manage the stairs, so I carry him up and down. He wags his tail when his family appears and will lend a bark to Maggie’s chorus when the mail carrier’s footfall hits our front porch. Sometimes he lifts his head when I come back in the room, but most of the time he’s laid flat out, gasping. His quick breaths have become the soundtrack to my days and nights. 

I see his suffering, I know we’ve made the right decision, but I continue to bargain regardless. Maybe increase his steroids? Would a trip to the beach help? Have we really, really tried everything? Hope springs eternal, but it is time.

As he’s become sicker his laser focus on me is sharper than ever. He’s always been my little white shadow, so underfoot that his ardor might be mistaken for vendetta. When I’m working in the kitchen he puts himself squarely in my blind spot, just inches from my ankles and directly behind me, silent and solid. Since he’s lost his hearing and his sight this last year I’ve nearly killed us both transferring a hot pot or sharp knife from one place to another. I’m sorry to say that I’ve lost my temper with him, now I know he was sick.

I’m sure Maggie has known about his cancer for a while. He’s known too, glomming on to me with increased vigor in these last months. I’ve had my mind on other business, much having to do with my own damn self. There is a strong pull in my life toward solitude right now, my caretaking days becoming more in the rear view mirror since both of my children are making the messy/elegant transition toward adult responsibility. What remains to be tended upon is my dog and my marriage. 

And now my dog is dying. Today, in fact.

This little dog bookends a significant time of my life. From young children to empty nest, from menses to menopause, from monogamy to non-monogamy and back again. My husband’s elders have all died during Milo’s life, a number of my friends and contemporaries have also passed. My daughters have transformed from girls to full-fledged women under Milo’s watchful, soulful eyes. My parents have made the turn from robust 60-somethings to fragile 80-somethings. 

We adopted Milo in May 2012 when he was five months old. He was rescued from a high-kill shelter in LA where backyard breeders and desperate people lined up, sometimes around the block, to surrender unwanted dogs. At the time Oregon rescue organizations could adopt up to six dogs at a time to re-home up north. Small dogs had an especially high adoption rate in Portland and Seattle, the Oregon Human Society even imported small dogs from Hawaii because they were so desired. 

Milo came to us from one of those small Portland rescue organizations run by a passionate woman in her suburban home. My girls were 5 and 10 years old, their demands were less intense than the baby years and they were both in school full time, it was an auspicious time for a dog. 

Lorenzo’s and my first shared dogs were large breeds, an off-the track Greyhound named Don and a rescued Aussie named Lola. Lola was re-homed shortly after my first daughter was born, she was skittish and nippy around small children. We put Don to rest at the ripe age of 13 when his back legs couldn’t hold him any longer. I admit it was a relief to be dog-free with a new baby. The responsibility of human parenthood was overwhelming and caring for one more shedding, shitting, and needing entity felt impossible.

Then, like magic, time passed, and my children had proven their mettle with various entry-level pets: some fish, our elders cats, and two delightful pet rats to whom I became desperately allergic.

I started looking for a dog in earnest. I wanted something smallish so as not to overwhelm the children, and non-shedding so as not to overwhelm me. I scoured the rescues until I found one that specialized in poodle-esque breeds and then waited for the right dog to come along. 

When I learned about Milo I knew he was the one. I picked up the girls from school and we headed over to the rescuer’s suburban house to seal the deal. The girls didn’t know that we were looking for a dog and I surprised them with the news on our way to meet him. My eldest was ecstatic, she’d been begging for a dog for years. The youngest burst in to tears upon hearing the news, scared that we were getting a big dog like the ones that had knocked her down in the past - 70-pounders with tails as big her leg and exuberance beyond common sense. With tears still in her eyes, and great trepidation, we were led to Milo’s enclosure. His big brown eyes framed by scruffy white fur, expressive eyebrows, and floppy ears were irresistible. He wagged his tail in big loopy circles while he weaved between my daughters, nobody got knocked over, everybody loved him immediately. 

In the rescuers backyard I went through the formalities of vetting him for family fitness - testing for food aggression and other temperament worries - I signed the forms, and we loaded Milo up in the minivan. He rode on the girls’ laps all the way to the pet store for a welcome home shopping spree. 

My husband met him after he got home from work that night. Lorenzo didn’t grow up with dogs since his mom was allergic to everything with four legs, and as much as he desired a dog he’d also romanticized them. Our dogs before children were one thing, but the added cleanup, expense, and responsibility of a dog with children were hassles he didn’t take to right away. Especially since Milo came to us with a mighty case of giardia and favored Lorenzo’s slippers as his shitting place. There was some debate whether Milo would be allowed on the furniture - I said, "Of course”, Lorenzo was less enthusiastic. He took the diarrhea in his slippers personally. 

Milo quickly discerned that I was the most available and responsive human in the house. Lorenzo worked weekdays, the girls were at school, and I was Milo’s mostly-companion for every walk, feeding, vet appointment, and car ride. He was a family dog, but he deferred to me. If he wasn’t sleeping with Lorenzo and me, he was sleeping with our girls. He’d sussed out the family hierarchy for himself, and once we got the giardia sorted out he adapted quickly to family life.

Even as a puppy Milo was a serious little man, an old soul. He preferred the company of humans, but older dogs his size or smaller were okay. My mom’s dog, Cricket, was especially favored. He didn’t abide the attention of larger dogs, and was only casually interested in humans beyond his own family circle. Small children, especially male children, were an absolute no-go. My mom, my boyfriend, and a few female friends attained favored-person status, but Milo saved his ardor and his devotion for me. 

He had hobbies aside from loving me, of course. He loved watching people have sex. He’d park on the bed and become unmovable from his preferred perch. When we’d finally kick him off he’d situate himself just so and stare at us unblinkingly. He was such a boner killer.

Milo loved being in charge. My boyfriend gave him the nickname Sheriff and it stuck. If there were dogs or children that deigned to enjoy themselves, or, worse, frolic around him he’d break up the action lickety-split. Growling, dipping, and diving like a herding dog he wouldn’t stop till all parties had dispersed then trot back to me, tail wagging away, with a satisfied grin on his mug. 

Milo’s most cherished hobby was eating stuff he shouldn’t. We don’t know how long he had giardia before we adopted him, but it likely did quite a number on his digestive system. Any foodstuff off of his kibble regime put him in serious distress, like $600 ER visit distress. Multiple times. It’s not like he was eating socks, something as benign as a hamburger would set his little tummy off. He’d stop drinking, pant relentlessly, and have constant diarrhea til we could get him to the doctor for intravenous fluids and meds. Much of our time over the years has been ensuring that Milo doesn’t ingest anything off-menu, but a person can only do so much. 

When my husband and I started swinging and would entertain people at our house for raucous group sex, Milo would stand in the corner watching for the moment a condom would come off and land on the floor so he could gobble it up. At first we were mystified by the disappearing condoms, searching high and low in disbelief. The culprit was soon discovered during poop patrol in the back yard. If only the condom collected the poop on its way through Milo’s lower intestine, he’d have self-bagging shit! 

One time, just before my daughter and I were heading out to a holiday party, we discovered that Milo had gotten in to a package of psilocybin chocolate. We couldn’t figure out how much he’d eaten, but his beard was brown and I feared the worst. My daughter, ever practical, suggested that we just take him to the party with us and hope for the best, if he starts having adverse reactions we’d take him to the ER. Apparently he’d eaten the perfect amount because little man was happy as a lark. Typically anxious with crowds, he worked the room and took turns on everyone’s lap during dinner.

Milo’s most famous scavenge was during a ladies’ trip to the beach. He rummaged through a bag and ate a peanut butter THC truffle leftover from our friend’s last, awful days with cancer. It was a hefty dose, a 30mg Rick Simpson oil powerhouse. I woke the next morning, got up to pee, and walked back to the bed wondering why Milo hadn’t followed me to the toilet. That’s when I remembered the truffle. He was breathing but not reactive, stoned as fuck. Trapped in his little body, with the nearest emergency vet two hours away and the dose already enmeshed in his system, my collective of women and I decided to make him comfortable and take him everywhere we went. I created a sling from a sarong and he rode with me to the beach, I spooned water in to his slack mouth as he lay in a bed next to my chair, we tended to him and hoped for the best. Midday while I was standing in the river, he roused himself, stumbled to the water, drank and drank and drank, then collapsed in a heap. We had proof of life, but he returned to his comatose state. 

Much later that day I lay our porch sofa with our cat, George, perched on top of Milo's prostrate body. Suddenly, almost 18 hours after he ingested the truffle, Milo started moving. I took him to the yard and gently placed him on the ground. He gained his footing, took an eventful pee, a very large shit, and gave himself a good, solid shake. He ran to me as though he’d just been released from prison, then he tore in to the house and greeting each of my friends individually, as if to say, “It’s me! I’m BACK! Thank you so much for taking care of me, I’m here!” 

Milo reluctantly welcomed a sister a few years ago. Maggie came to us as a much anticipated puppy from our friend’s home litter. Maggie’s mom is a gem of a dog and we felt lucky to have a pup from her. Milo, not so much. But as the months wore on he became more tolerant. Maggie worships Milo, and I like to believe that Milo’s reticent nature and age helped shape Maggie in to a quieter version of what she might have become. Maggie is three-years-old now and Milo has grown to love her. They sleep together and he lets her pile on top of him in the car. Maggie worships Milo and waits every morning at the bedroom door where he and I sleep, he’s the first thing she seeks out when she returns home, and she defers to him in every way. 

My heart is breaking for Maggie. I just hope that having her in the room for his euthanasia today will help her understand that he’s not coming back. 

Milo’s life spanned a golden time in our family. Young children, travel, joyous holidays, family meals, tremendous community, a beautiful home, trusted neighbors and friends - he brought unity and purpose to our daily lives. Even Covid felt golden with all of us home together, thankful for each other and Milo’s companionship. 

Much has changed. As my children are finding their paths and their voices, so am I. My marriage is different. After years of open partnerships, owning a sex-positive business, and a big, all encompassing love affair we are living more as siblings than spouses. I have engaged in therapy in multiple modalities, discovering and wresting with demons that I’d thought were done and gone, but have actually been guiding my hand through most of my personal decisions in this life, especially the past 15 years. Little Milo has loved me through it all.

My oldest daughter gave me a beautiful bracelet for my birthday a couple of years ago The card says, “Family: like branches on a tree, we will grow in different directions, but we will always be one.” She has always been preternaturally wise, that child. 

Milo’s life is a chapter in my family’s book. We have been his whole book. I am so grateful to my beautiful little dog for being a part of such a rich, golden chapter. What will rise from his ashes is anyone’s guess, but he has left me in a better, more fruitful personal space then when he entered. 

Thank you, dear Milo. I will miss you.