Not Dead Yet

Schatzie, our fourteen-year-old sheltie, had been looking and acting like he was on death’s doors for the last several days, or maybe it’s been weeks. Sometimes it’s hard to know how long something has been happening when you are in the midst of it.

But he now has rallied. For at least a year he has needed help most of the time just to stand. His walks have gotten to be just the short half block to the park, not the half mile he use to walk. The four steps into and out of the house have become a major barrier. One that requires assistance from one of both of his human companions.

We were thinking the end was near. What with his recent loss of appetite, struggles to stand after we help him up, and apparent disinterest in most of life.

And he may still be a short-timer. But two days ago we woke to find him curled up next to our bed, with his head comfortably tucked under the dust cover. You ask why that is peculiar. Mainly because our bedroom is up a long flight of stairs that he has not even tried to climb in months. Yet somehow two nights ago he had climbed noiselessly on his withered old back legs all the way to the second floor.  And the following day he made it around the whole half mile track, though at a snail’s pace most of the way. And then he actually bounced twice as he barked upon sighting a squirrel and his “nemesis”, a boxer who chews his iron fence whenever he sees Schatzie.

I had been wishing I could know what Schatzie is trying to say about his condition. My latest guess is he is saying, reminiscent of the scene from a Monty Python movie, “I’m not dead yet.”