A Penny gone, but not easily forgotten

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“My best friend right through it all
If I die before I wake
Feed Jake”
“Feed Jake” — Pirates of the Mississippi

We call our pets by many names — fur babies, four-legged children, and when they misbehave, perhaps, some more colorful names.

The fierce loyalty of our pets is something we wish we could devote to even one other human on this planet, yet our pets seem to find a way to give that level of devotion to the entire household, whether that’s one, two, or ten.

It makes sense that the loss of a pet would be devastating and difficult. However, even for someone who makes his living out of putting words to events, I was left sitting in front of the computer for multiple days attempting to find the words to express exactly this loss.

When I first met my wife, she had a picture of a toy poodle as the home screen on her phone. It took some time to find out that this was a poodle that she had loved dearly and lost.

So, when we made the decision to add a dog to our family in the first year after buying our home, I sought out and eventually found toy poodle puppies for sale here in Huron. The first visit we had, we picked up one particular puppy.

She peed on my wife. She licked my face. We were in love.

My wife felt that if we were going to ever have more than one dog, we should start them both in the home at the same time to quell any issues of dominance in the household. She asked my favorite dog breeds and quickly determined that a 200-pound dog alongside the toy poodle could be a dangerous combination.

That’s how we became a family with a pug and a poodle.

Naming her was a discussion. My wife enjoyed ironic names. Her previous poodle was named “Kitty.” I was having none of that.

I joked that a poodle was a spoiled dog and a spoiled dog should have a spoiled name, so I suggested “Penelope” (apologies to any Penelope’s who are reading this column!), but that was not okay with my wife.

We negotiated to reach Penny, which I will forever claim was a shortened version of my original suggestion. She says it had more to do with the character on a television show we enjoyed.

Penny became a vital part of our household over the last six years. Unlike our pug, who saw the idea of foster children of “more people to play with me,” Penny was initially hesitant to trust the miniature humans that were invading her home.

Once she did, though, she was quickly a favorite of foster children and, eventually, daycare children alike, as she enjoyed attention and would respond with loving attention right back.

She always thought she could take on any animal of any size, barking with intent at the television whenever a cow or horse or another dog was on the screen.

We joked that someday we were going to take her out to my parents’ farm and let her experience a cow face-to-face for a little shock value.

We never got that chance.

Around Christmas last year, Penny became very ill and lost a tremendous amount of weight. We eventually took her into the vet when she was too lethargic to even stand.

What we found was that she had insulinoma, indicating the presence of at least one tumor in her pancreas that caused her to overproduce insulin.

As advanced as things were, there really was no treatment. We could give her medicine for the pain and encourage her to eat as much as possible to counter the abundance of insulin in her system taking away her appetite.

The first couple months of this year were spent balancing out meds for her to simply be comfortable, with her having incredibly frequent urinary accidents in the house because of the additional insulin in her system.

That settled her system until late April, when she began struggling to eat again, very obviously uncomfortable, and withdrawing more from the daycare children and even our own children. She began to have accidents when just sitting on the couch, something that had never happened before.

We were given the option to go through mixing and matching medicines again that would simply prolong her life a matter of weeks or months, but my wife and I painfully made the decision to end her pain.

An appointment was made for the day after school was out, and we simply hoped that she would not pass before that date. Thankfully, she did not.

Thursday night, we explained to our kids what would happen Friday morning. They were distraught, as would be expected, though they knew she was hurting.

Friday morning came, and once we were in the vet’s office, Penny was in my arms, cuddling in as she received a sedative shot and the kids began their goodbyes.

The family gathered around as she was peacefully put to sleep, petting her and guiding her over the Rainbow Bridge.

Many tears have been shed in the ensuing days and likely will still be shed in days, weeks, and months to come.

Anytime I whistle, I immediately realize that Penny isn’t howling along with me. Her partner in crime, our pug, howls and looks around for her, wondering where his duet partner is.

Though Benjamin Franklin never actually said it, one phrase often attributed to him is, “A penny saved is a penny earned.”

I’d say in our family’s case, a Penny loved and lost is a Penny that will never be forgotten.