Robyn Fritz — Page 33 — Intuitive and Spiritual Consulting, Past Life Regression

My Dog Is Dying: The Real Life Crappy Choice Diary, Entry 6

January 30, 2012 by Robyn Fritz

my dying dog Sometimes we only know the true measure of a person when death stares us in the face. There, at the end of everything, is the simple, plain stark truth of it all.

Sometimes the truth is sad. It hurts.

Sometimes it exhilarates.

This is a story about veterinarians. Four of them. Told in four parts.

Starting with the simple fact that my beloved Murphy is dying. A Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, she’s 13-1/2, and had some serious health challenges early on, most caused not by her breeding but by poor veterinary care and some really bad luck. That doesn’t matter now.

What matters here is that in December 2011, only a month ago, we accidentally discovered that Murphy has a splenic tumor. I needed to figure out as much as I could about it, so Murphy and I could decide what to do. That’s what we’ve always done: find out what’s going on, what can be done about it, and choose our course.

Those of us who live in multi-species families know we have to make decisions for ourselves and for our animal family members. We know that the human-animal bond isn’t just cookies and games: it’s food, and socialization, and medical care. It’s choice. These days, choice is harder because we have so many options: the same complex and often questionable devices and procedures we use on humans can now be used on our animal companions.

It makes choice harder. Really. What is enough? What is too much? What can you live with? Should you?

The human-animal bond is how you define families and living together. It’s the choices you make that honor the commitment to family life.

All the choices.

I read. I think. I ask people’s opinions about things.

As an intuitive I can also ask other beings what their insight is.

I can ask my animal family members what they want. We can figure out what to do together. Food choices, play times, easy. Life and death, not so much.

It isn’t easy deciding what to do about a dog’s splenic tumor. The choices were clear: operate and remove the spleen and tumor or don’t operate. There is no certain way to determine if the tumor is cancer without taking it out, because of how insidious a cancer like hemangiosarcoma is. If that’s what it is.

They examined the tumor with ultrasound, making the diagnosis as clear as possible: Murphy probably has cancer. Meaning that she isn’t going to survive long, as surgery and chemotherapy would only buy her a few months. If it’s not cancer, the tumor is still going to grow and rupture at some point, and she’ll die anyway.

Without surgery, we don’t know what it is, only that it will most likely kill her.

We discovered the tumor because Murphy had a slight cough, and I thought that with a recent diagnosis of minor heart issues, she probably needed heart medication. Blood tests were funky, and they put her on antibiotics for an infection, probably a UTI, possibly a bronchial infection. But I insisted on a chest x-ray: which confirmed a bronchial infection, and spotted an abdominal mass.

So, naturally, I called our long-term vet, a wonderful person who has dearly loved sweet Murphy and cared for her for 11 years. A vet it takes us all day to see, since it involves a long drive and two ferry rides across Puget Sound in Seattle. All worth it to see someone who figured out Murphy’s eye issues 11 years ago and helped give her a wonderful quality of life. Someone of integrity and concern. Who was strongly attached to Murphy. A friend who wanted to do the right thing. We valued her.

I called her just so she’d hear it from me. That Murphy had a splenic tumor. Before I ordered the ultrasound or did anything else. Before I really knew what it meant or how Murphy and I wanted to deal with it. Just to tell her.

She expressed condolences and then insisted that I tell the vets that I wanted Murphy as long as possible and that they absolutely had to operate and take out the tumor.

I said I wasn’t sure yet what we were going to do.

She was quite insistent, and then the phone connection went dead.

I thought she’d hit the proverbial tunnel on her cell phone. But she didn’t call me back. And hasn’t for the last month.

So there’s the clear message. One answer to a perplexing problem: there’s an awful lot we can do these days, for humans and animals. But what is the right thing to do, and who’s the one who decides?

The right thing as a vet is to evaluate the options with you. To give you the best information possible. To answer questions. To honor the human-animal bond, which is a family matter. Paternalism is rampant in veterinary care, even among female vets.

Our long-term vet didn’t evaluate the options. Thinking back on it, I realize that somewhere along the line I somehow gave her the idea that she could decide for us what we should do in our family. She clearly stated it in the end: surgery to give me as much time with Murphy as I could get.

But is that really the right answer? What about Murphy’s quality of life? What about her choice? What do we put animals through because of our feelings, disregarding theirs?

Yep, if it’s cancer, surgery and chemo buy Murphy a few more months. But at what price?

Financial difficulties for a family on pinched means, as most of us are today (the recession is the great equalizer, isn’t it?): could we afford it?

Physical impairment, as caring for an old animal recovering from surgery, dealing with stairs, my own disability and health issues, the pain and exhaustion for my dog: is it worth it?

Emotional devastation, from the shock of hearing that your beloved dog may have cancer and won’t recover anyway, or may just have a benign tumor that will kill her if it ruptures, if she survives the surgery itself: how do you manage that?

That day in December I was in shock, grieving, appalled. I had only just learned of the tumor. I hadn’t investigated it yet, found out what our options were. All I was doing was calling our friend, to courteously tell her what was going on. We hadn’t made any decisions. I wasn’t sure what the best answer was.

My frank admission got me what?

Abruptly cut off.

As the days passed, I realized how much I appreciated that hang up. A long-term relationship built between our mutual love of my beloved dog was suddenly at an end. Perhaps we had outgrown each other, the vet and I. Or perhaps I had finally realized that what I thought was my family’s choice all along was being dictated by someone else. Or perhaps something else. Not sure.

No longer matters.

What I am sure of is that the old medical model, in fact, life model, of how we live in community has to change. The old paternalistic structure has to end. We have to respect individual choice, and family choice.

Now at the end of my beloved Murphy’s life, I absolutely insist on it. I am sad that I had to learn the truth of our relationship with our long-time vet at a time when my family needed love and support. I am exhilarated in that I was strong and brave enough to do the right thing, to give Murphy her choice, to honor her life as an equal being in a heart-bonded family.

I am grateful that my family has found its way to its choice. In the next three postings, the vets we have turned to, and how we found our answers.

My Dog Is Dying: The Real Life Crappy Choice Diary, Entry 5

January 27, 2012 by Robyn Fritz

Murphy is dying. My beloved Cavalier King Charles Spaniel has a tumor on her spleen.

Murphy is 13-1/2. Because of early problems, I’ve been cooking for her for 11 years. Turkey, veggies, fruit. Supplements. A strong healthy diet for a vigorous dog.

Yes, I’ve been cooking for my dog. It works for us, but it’s time-consuming.

I have to think ahead, to make sure she has food, and because I’m handicapped, and working, I have to buy and cook enough to freeze it in portions in case something comes up and I can’t cook.

Dying came up and now I’m stumped.

We discovered the tumor by accident. Pure really dumb luck, if something that horrible can remotely be termed ‘luck.’ But here’s the thing.

In being practical and planning ahead for meals, how far do I plan ahead for a dying dog?

Usually, I stock up on turkey once a month, buying eight pounds or so to feed Murphy and Grace the Cat (poor Alki has to eat something else). But yesterday I was standing in front of the meat counter, wondering just how much I should buy at $5.50/lb for Diestel ground turkey. I caught myself literally thinking: “How much do I gamble here?”

True, Grace the Cat and I can always eat the meat. The problem is in mixing all the ingredients, including bone meal and spirulina, to make the particular meals I feed Murphy. The meals that got Murphy healthy years ago, and kept her healthy until, well, now.

But how many more meals should I make for Murphy? A month’s worth? That would take more than eight pounds. And the freezer is pretty full.

Should I go for realism, meaning I have no clue how long she’ll live? Should I just give in to despair and buy a few pounds? Or, when 10 days go by and I have to cook another batch for her, will I smile, because I won one—I beat death a bit longer?

I don’t know what made me decide.

But I bought three.

My Dog Is Dying: The Real Life Crappy Choice Diary, Entry 4

January 24, 2012 by Robyn Fritz

Murphy is dying. Yes, she’s 13-1/2, old for any dog, but somehow her age snuck up on me. After her early difficulties, I thought getting her to 5 was a miracle, but she’s been vigorous for years.

She’s actually pretty vigorous now. Suddenly deaf, yes. Sleeps a lot. Loves to eat and explore. Slower with arthritis. A bit rheumy-eyed.

Dying.

Yes, that part. The accidental discovery of a splenic tumor. The almost certain prognosis of cancer. Which means surgery and she’ll die anyway, even if she has chemo. And even if it’s not surgery, she’ll die because the tumor will eventually rupture. Either way, she’s going to die.

Of a splenic tumor.

What causes these things? Hard to say, of course. Or is it?

Cancer is, well, I know what cancer is. I’m an intuitive, I have actually talked with cancer. Ultimately it’s symbiotic. Ultimately, cancer wants to pair with organisms, like humans and animals, and something different will come of it, but the DNA is too different right now. So cancer kills its ‘host,’ and then itself when the host dies. More on this later, honest.

But cancer is also epidemic right now.

Of all the things I thought would get Murphy, a splenic tumor never occurred to me. I wonder if her inherited platelet disorder and the tumor are related. If the spleen, which filters platelets, and Murphy’s body collaborated over the years to keep her healthy and vigorous, and the collaboration created this tumor. Which means removing it could kill her. Removing the spleen, with all the blood vessels, on an old dog with developing heart issues, including arrythmia, and a platelet disorder, well, no.

She deserves better. To be vigorous and healthy to the end. Quality over quantity.

How could I make that choice for her? Choose to refuse surgery?

Because I’d make the same choice for myself.

There are truly horrible things that come from this, as I’ll explore in later posts. But one of the most horrible is that I may have killed my dog by doing what I thought was the right thing. The thing we’re all told, that’s pushed by vets, by the shelter community, by breeders.

We don’t question it. We’re told that we should spay and neuter our animal family members early.

I always wondered about this. Sure, it’s convenient, especially for female dogs, since dealing with a dog in heat is complicated and annoying. And there’s the talk about male dogs being less aggressive. But don’t we interrupt their bodies’ natural growth process? Don’t we mess up their hormones, and all those chemical reactions that nature builds into them to keep them healthy?

We don’t spay or neuter our teenage children, so why are we doing it to our pets? Because we’re encouraged to be stupid and lazy.

Here’s why we absolutely need to re-think the spay/neuter issue.

Look at this article: The Long Term Health Risks and Benefits Associated with Spay/Neuter in Dogs, published in 2007 by Laura J Sanborn MS. I ran across it in spring 2011 while interviewing a respected breeder of golden retrievers in California. That’s the first time I heard that it is well documented that early spay/neuter can lead to all kinds of serious, debilitating, life-ending medical problems.

Like the cancer they say Murphy has.

Which would mean that all the years I cared for this beautiful dog didn’t matter, because I killed her when I spayed her as a puppy. Like we’re encouraged to do to be responsible owners.

Responsible family members.

And my other kids? Also mutilated as babies.

So I have three good reasons to go to war: Murphy, Alki, Grace the Cat. And when Murphy is gone, I’m going to war:

war against the shelter and rescue community, which refuses to acknowledge this issue because their agenda is to be the new puppy mill: socially accepted and sanctioned by the state and ignorant but earnest animal lovers
war against the veterinary community, for its silence on this issue
war against the people who adopt animals, know the facts, and go along with it, because it’s easier
war for the people who don’t know and so can’t make the right choice, whatever that is for their family: because somebody has to tell them

Do you live with animals? Did you spay/neuter early? Did you know this?

You know it now.

What will you do next time?

Join me. Let’s go to war. For life.

My Dog Is Dying: The Real Life Crappy Choice Diary, Entry 3

January 23, 2012 by Robyn Fritz

Murphy is dying. Can’t stop it, might be able to slow it down a bit, as long as she’s comfortable. Not sure.

All I’m really sure about is that she’s dying.

And that many people, including well-meaning friends, are idiots.

I’m sure most idiots don’t mean to be, well, idiots. But here’s a painful situation where all you can do is laugh at them, because what you really want to do is scream and cry and yell.

People say, “She doesn’t look like she’s dying.”

Well, what the hell does dying look like? Ask them that, nobody seems to know. They shrug, embarrassed, because truth is, in our ridiculous self-centered, youth-blinded culture, we have no idea what dying looks like. Because we don’t have to look at it. So we don’t.

Instead, we assume that death is old, debilitated, too feeble to walk, too sick to care, crippled and pathetic. Kept alive by a blind faith in technology and a refusal to let go until there’s very little left to let go of.

Death is something we lock away in nursing homes, or ignore until we can’t anymore.

People say, “She looks good. Are you sure she’s dying?”

Idiots. Yes, I’m completely sure. Don’t like it, but I’m sure.

And you know what? I’m glad she looks good. I’m glad she feels good. I’m glad the idiots are saying things like, “She doesn’t look like she’s dying.”

Because I realized that my life with my animals and theirs with me has defined a new way of living together as multi-species families. It’s defined a new way of looking at the human-animal bond.

It looks at animals as equals. At lives as valuable. At choice as real.

At death as part of the process, part of our lives together.

Ironically, it’s only at the end of a beloved animal’s life that I realize we are defining something more for multi-species families: we are defining what death looks like.

Death looks like Murphy. Vigorous. Happy. Tired.

Dying.

We don’t like it. But we’re living with it. Until it’s here upon us. And then we’ll say goodbye.

Not one second sooner.

My Dog Is Dying: The Real Life Crappy Choice Diary, Entry 2

January 17, 2012 by Robyn Fritz

my dying dog So dogs with splenic tumors can abruptly die, or abruptly go into just about dying. Meaning in Murphy’s case, the tumor could rupture and she’ll bleed out.

The words ‘bleed out’ and ‘my beloved dog’ just don’t make sense together. They really should never make sense together. Apparently that doesn’t matter.

Besides that, what the hell does ‘bleed out’ look like?

So I’m out there, walking Murphy and Alki, getting ready to pick up their poop. This is a fact of life, picking up dog poop, all part of that mystical, smelly real life human-animal bond, not the reason why mine is a multi-species family, but part of it. At least I’m not paying for college.

No, I am not a poop voyeur, I’m just someone who really does clean up after her dogs. And, well, poop comes in all forms, depending on how the dogs have digested whatever it is they’ve chosen to eat.

I cook for Murphy and she disdains things on the street, so I know what she’s going to eat, unlike her brother, Alki, who eats whatever he can as quickly as he can because he knows damn well he shouldn’t.

Murphy eats what I give her to eat.

So I was surprised to see big red globs come out in her poop.

My heart stopped. What, is she bleeding out? There were no signs! What the hell does bleeding out mean, anyway, and why should I have to know this? This can’t be happening.

Besides, that’s really round globs of … cranberries.

I’d put whole cranberries in her food, and Murphy had just pooped them out intact. One by one.

Anybody who saw us at that moment would think I was crazy. Laughing. And crying. At once.

My Dog Is Dying: The Real Life Crappy Choice Diary, Entry 1

January 16, 2012 by Robyn Fritz

my dying dog The lure of immortality dances through our lives, weaving delicate patterns that tease us with the possibility.

To live forever.

And then, of course, we don’t.

Honestly, I never expected to live forever. You’re born, crap happens, fun happens, you die. Nope, I never expected to live forever, and I didn’t, either: last February I died of the flu, and, sure, I obviously came back, but I still died. At home in bed with my kids: my dogs, Murphy and Alki, and Grace the Cat.

I never thought Murphy would live forever. My dog. My eldest. She had so many things go wrong early in her life, we were surprised she made it to 3 and celebrated when she hit 5.

Today, January 16, 2012, she is 13-1/2. She’s been healthy and vigorous since she was 5. Mostly. There’s arthritis, things like that.

But to think of “Murphy” and “old age” astonishes me. I’m still more astonished that, somewhere along the way, deep down inside, I thought she would live forever. What an idiot I can be.

I just never expected it: either Murphy’s old age or, then, Murphy dying. I should know better, since I was only 9 when the first person I thought was immortal died, and I’ve lost many people and several animals since then. But somehow I just assumed that Murphy would skip that phase.

And now in the last few weeks I’ve learned that she is dying. Purely by accident, since I am the super careful slightly neurotic overly analytical intuitive, we discovered that she has a tumor on her spleen.

Murphy is dying.

Somewhere in the last few days I decided to record our last journey together, from the shock of discovery to the agony of choice to the stupid things you think of when someone you love is dying. A running journal. The story of almost immortal.

I know how it’s going to end. I don’t know when. I only know it happens a little bit with every breath I take, I can feel it.

The human-animal bond is a strange and wonderful thing. Living a multi-species family life is both inspiring and terrifying: every day you should be realizing that it’s one less day, not one more, but you don’t. You can’t.

Living an intuitive life where you know that all life is equal is also a strange and wonderful thing. You learn about choice, about individual choice, and family choice, and community choice. It’s beautiful. Terrifying. Absurd.

Real life is about choice. Crappy choices are part of it. How do you live, and die? What does it look like? Why should we share it? What can it mean for our lives in community, for our lives as humans with animals, and homes, and businesses, all wrapped up in the mystery of nature and of the planet itself?

What happens when someone you love is dying?

Once again, I’m going to find out. Write about it. Maybe see what you think.

Will it be cathartic? Maybe. Angry? You bet. Resigned? Never. Goofy and absurd? Most likely. True? Every single word.

Even in my most optimistic moments I can’t see anything positive coming from this, because at the end Murphy will be gone.

But something is coming.

We shall see.

Love and Choice at the Crossroads

January 10, 2012 by Robyn Fritz

Every January people think about New Year’s resolutions. I never did get that, maybe because I think of life as a choice, and I’m glad I get them.

Or I used to be.

My work as an intuitive, as one being on the planet, is about choice. How can we grow as a society by recognizing that the world, and everything in it, is alive, conscious … and free to choose its path? Everything.

Humans are not guardians and caretakers. We are equals. Equals to everything from our chairs to our cars, our homes and businesses, the land and water around us.

Equals to the animals who are part of our multi-species families.

They get to choose. We get to live with their choice. With them.

Sure, it’s cut and dried in theory. In practice, it’s fascinating and exciting, because that’s when participation in the great dance of life helps us hear, for example, what a hurricane thinks about its work, or what little tweaks would please and invigorate our homes and businesses.

But choice can be painful, and we’re living that now in my family.

My beloved eldest dog, Murphy Brown Fritz, has, in her own words, chosen to ‘walk the mystery’ and to refuse surgery that would complicate but possibly save her life. For a short while, anyway. Maybe. Nobody really knows. I tried to find out, and I couldn’t.

At 13.5, she’s had a long and fascinating journey to wellness, one that I walked with her, that we all did as a family. This fabulous life I shared with this stunning dog has inspired my work as a writer and intuitive, my view of the world and the human-animal bond, my work with my crystal partner, Fallon, my sense of humor. Together, Murphy and I got well and went out into the world to do our work.

But we now know that Murphy’s journey is ending. She has a tumor on her spleen, and there are no easy choices. Remove her spleen and she may live, a few weeks or years, we don’t know. But if it’s a bruise or a tumor that is the spleen’s own way of dealing with a lifelong platelet disorder, maybe, just maybe, surgery is not the answer. And right now it isn’t, anyway, because this all started because she had a mild cough and UTI, and she has an infection to beat first.

That we even know about the tumor is because the intuitive in me kept insisting there was something more. Now there’s another part of me that asks why I insisted on finding out.

I thought science would give us an answer, a time frame to plan our year, an answer of some kind, a clear path: if you do this, then that happens.

But science doesn’t give answers like that.

Love does.

This surgery for Murphy would be complicated. And we had a deal. Through the ups and downs of our journey to wellness our deal was that we would fix what we could because the larger journey to wellness was healing our wounded souls. We got well together. That done, we agreed that I wouldn’t ask her to do any more, but she’d get whatever she wanted. No matter what.

And she got it. She’s been healthy and vigorous for most of her amazingly long life.

But science and thoughtful care take you only so far. Love and choice do the rest.

Stunned and griefstricken at this news last week, I had sense enough to give this choice back to Murphy. “What do you want to do?” I asked her.

“We had a deal,” she said. She thinks her time is close anyway, and she doesn’t want the complication of surgery. At least not now. We are exploring her options, to give her more information. But right now she thinks she will live longer without the surgery, and she could very well be right. She wants to “walk the mystery” as freely as she can. I’ll be there with her, as will Alki and Grace the Cat. Our medical team. And our intuitive team, which includes guides and dragons and Fallon and the entire Alchemy West Committee and the one intuitive in the world I trust when I need to step aside and ask for help: Debrae Firehawk.

Murphy’s defied the odds before: the little dog no one expected to make it to 3 is 13.5. In my less rational moments I want to grab her and run as fast as I can, to outrace whatever it is that’s taking her from us. In other moments I’m arranging supportive care. For all of us.

We’ll be chronicling our journey, wherever it leads us, and we invite you to share it at our magazine, Bridging the Paradigms.

For this month, we’re just pointing us all back to New Year resolutions. Forget them. Instead, ask yourself what you will do with your choices. What do you want your year to look like? What will you do if things change? How does love choose its way? How do you honor love’s choice?

This choice terrifies me. I guess the important ones should. Everything I believe about how we should live our lives comes down to honoring Murphy’s choice. Find out everything I can. Explain it to her as best as I can. And then let her choose her path.

When I could throw everything in the universe at a tumor that may be killing my beloved dog, would I take her choice away to suit mine?

Can I? Should I? What does love look like?

It looks like choice. Her choice. We’ll find out where that takes us.

Oh, and another thing. There’s a new “energy” system, something that showed up here about five years ago. I kept trying to give it away. It kept coming back. Fallon and I have been using it at times during our intuitive consultations, when it has shown up and clients have agreed to experience it.

When I say I am not a healer, I mean it. I am not a healer. Fallon is. But I can use this new “energy” in a new way, and I will. So I can say for now that I’m a healer, but that word has no real meaning in the new paradigm. A new word will come.

This “energy” is something very new in the world. Very right. A new paradigm for vibrational work. For healing. For choice.

Murphy chose that as her option. Fallon and I are on it. As are Alki and Grace the Cat. It does not promise a cure for Murphy, whatever that means. It just helps create space for choice, for Murphy, for the tumor, for us.

Can’t define the energy right now. All I know is that it’s about love and choice.

So this New Year I resolve to honor choice. Whatever that looks like, wherever it takes us.

What choices will you honor this year?

Are Humans Too Stupid to Live?

January 5, 2012 by Robyn Fritz

La Nina is sticking around. But are people? And should we?

On January 5, the U.S. Climate Prediction Center (part of NOAA, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration) said that La Nina will last into spring way up here, in the northern hemisphere. That means they are thinking the crippling drought in the U.S. southwest and in South America will continue.

Whatever. Doesn’t seem like it will make any difference, because what really matters is what humans do.

Human stupidity, to be precise. Predicting La Nina is a no brainer. One thing they are not predicting, probably because it’s guaranteed, and therefore not subject to predictability, is people who can’t think.

Think about it.

We’ve been watching a drought in the U.S., especially in Texas, for several years. Lakes and rivers and streams and ponds are drying up. Crops withering. Cattle dying. Wastelands developing where no one, and nothing, can live. And no end in sight.

But damned if they don’t still water their lawns.

Maybe humans are just too stupid to live.

Maybe that’s why we invented government. Like the year we had a drought in Seattle. Nobody could water their lawns, and the water police made sure people didn’t water anything else except on a strict schedule. Lawns died. Watersheds survived. Somehow we all got along.

We conserved.

I visit the Alki Point Lighthouse a lot in the summer. People visiting Seattle stop in at the lighthouse on summer weekends. I happened to be there when the visitor from Texas stopped to remark on how cool it was, what a relief from the heat in Texas (yep, Texas has had its drought, Seattle has not had summer for two years).

“It costs me $150 a month to water my lawn,” the woman laughed.

Her body posture, her flippant tone, and I realized she was proud of herself for that. I was completely appalled.

She didn’t care about her community, about where water resources should go, like to grow food so we can all eat. Nope, she was going to water her lawn.

Lawns have no useful function, unless you’re into chemicals for artificial growth and you’re make money from allergies in people and animals, because lawns are what keeps those people in business.

Lawns have no place anywhere, especially in drought country. They are a choice, one that society has to make. Together.

Society is a choice. Do we have group choice that benefits all of us, or do we just have what individuals want?

If we as a society can’t smarten up enough to say, “Let your lawns die and use the water to grow food,” well, then, we’re too stupid to live.

Maybe we already are, if we’re bragging about wasting precious resources.

Or, maybe, I’m not the only one who can look at foolish choices and poor policy and speak up.

La Nina, well, weather comes and goes. It will continue.

Will we?

Better put: should we?

Walking the Birthday Walk with Dogs

December 30, 2011 by Robyn Fritz

When you live the human-animal bond, you celebrate birthdays with your multi-species family.

Even when the birthday in question is yours and you’re getting older (it happens yearly).

Okay, we were celebrating my birthday this time. But it’s in the dead of winter, after Christmas, before spring. In Seattle. Pretty much the weather sucks.

Does Grace the Cat care? Of course, she stays home.

Do the dogs care? Of course not. They’re Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, born to flirt and goof off. They have jackets and a lazy human who doesn’t like to be cold. They can routinely trump that.

So why not take the dogs for a walk in the sun on my birthday?

There are hazards. It’s Seattle. In winter. At the beach.

You expect wind at the beach. But on a sunny day you expect sun. You forget that in winter the sun only manages to get halfway up the sky, and then only stays there for 20 minutes (15 on the weekends, it’s apparently celestial labor law). And the sun, being a wienie, races through the winter days here as fast as possible, so it can hang out somewhere warm, like, well, somewhere else way far south of us.

Birthdays may warm you up, but the air, it’s colder than all get out. Why? Because we’re way far north in Seattle, almost to Canada, which is right at the North Pole. Especially in winter. Because when you’re at the beach in Seattle, you’re right in the path of that cold north wind, nothing stops it, and why is that? Because Canada ducks as it flies over, that’s why.

So, anyway, at the beach on my birthday. With the dogs. Walking the sun walk. The dogs are thrilled because the sun shining means they can see their prey better, which is all manner of completely uninteresting inedibles that smell as bad as they look and the dogs can’t sniff fast enough.

Really. Multi-species families are cute. And gross.

But it’s sunny. Except I forgot about that halfway up in the sky bit. It may be sunny, but the sun isn’t up. It doesn’t clear the West Seattle hill in the winter. We forgot that. So we’re in the shade. On a sunny day. Freezing our city slickerness right off.

The dogs don’t care. They’re on an adventure. They’re too low and too small to be real windbreaks. And, now I notice, they are standing behind me.

Survival of the fittest. They win.

“Hey,” I say to them. “Want cookies?”

Of course they do. Walk is over. Birthday cookies coming up.

Next year I’m celebrating my birthday in the summer. Every once in awhile we have one of those in Seattle.

I hope before, well, next winter.

Happy birthday me!

Solstice Sleeping: Dogs Softly Breathing of Home

December 23, 2011 by Robyn Fritz

I awaken in the night and hear it. Silence. I wait for more. It comes. I smile.

I hear the dogs breathing softly in the night. Now, in the longest, darkest time of the year, I awaken in the still, silent night and hear only my dogs’ relaxed breathing. I smile. It’s comforting. Peaceful.

My dogs snore of home.

I can tell them by their breathing. Murphy, my delicate, mild-mannered oh-so-polite aging girl, snores like the proverbial lumber jack. Only, size for size, decibels louder. First time I heard it, she had just come home to live with me, and I leaped out of bed, sure we were being invaded. Over 13 years later, each time a snort startles me, I know the invasion was successful, and smile.

Sometimes, most times, she breathes with soft, gentle sighs. Other times I rest a hand lightly on her back, to make sure she’s still there. She’ll rouse and snuggle up, and we’ll go back to sleep in the cold dark night, back to back, butt to butt.

I used to wonder, way back when, if I could ever love this puppy who was not my beloved, long-lost English Cocker, if we could ever fit. We were strangers, but it didn’t take long for love to settle in my heart. Her snorts, her relaxed sleep, remind me.

Now, as I hear her soft breathing, I know that love, home, settled deep in hers. In theirs. Because all my animals sleep well, comforted in their safety. Knowing we are family. We are together. They do not have to be on guard. They can let down. They can breathe softly in the night.

Love created space to sleep.

Alki, my raucous ten-year-old boy, is rambunctious by day, soft murmuring dreamer by night. His breath whispers of deep dreams, contentment, secure and relaxed and deeply resting in his secured spot in bed. Storing up for daytime mischief.

I smile in the night.

Sure, I poke Murphy sometimes when her snoring shakes me out of mine. She’ll start to grumble but is asleep at the next twitch. Alki’s soft breathy lullaby ripples mildly.

I never hear Grace the Cat breathing. No snuffles from her cat perch above my desk, no soft snores from her Snuggly Safed bed at night. She’s there. Just can’t hear her. She’ll prowl the night, inspect us, snuggle.

Suspended in darkness, I am awake, happy, content. They are here, content with me. Species mingled, personalities meshed, family.

In the heart of a 21^st-century city the only sound in the deep night is a 21^st-century family, sleeping the human-animal bond.

Soft breathing, counterpoint. Pause. Rhythmic.

Life resting before dawn.

How did it come to this? How did so many years go by before contentment settled so easily on me?

But it did. We’re family. Here. Now. Content. Woman, cat, dogs.

Murphy snuggles closer. Alki is still, soft swoosh rising. Grace the Cat burrows deep.

I hear the dogs softly breathing.

Yes, they snore of home. Of love.

I smile.

All is well.

I am home. We are home.

We are family.