Scottsdale – Page 59

Life Ends, Life Begins

I woke up early the morning after Ellie died, trying to decide if I was going to go hiking or not, as while I knew the trails would help with the healing I didn’t know if I was ready quite yet. I expected there to be tears as I got ready but there were none but I knew that might not hold when I was out on the trails and alone with my thoughts. I decided to go to my favorite park and chose a short loop trail that I know well.

Sunrise was still a little ways off so I had the trail to myself and stopped at a banana yucca I wanted to photograph. But my thoughts weren’t focused enough for photography and I felt compelled to keep moving, so I picked up my tripod and continued on. It felt good to be in the desert in those wonderful moments as the night yields to the day, comforting, calming, but even so I had to keep moving. Further up the trail I noticed a large nest in a saguaro a ways off the trail. An adult Harris’s hawk was barely visible in the nest, sitting mostly in shadow as the sun rose behind me. It was the first time I had seen an active nest, normally I would have stayed longer but not on this morning, I just couldn’t stand still. Although it was hard to keep the tears at bay I did keep from breaking down.

Until I walked into the house, because for a moment I forgot she wouldn’t be there. I had gotten used to her not being at the door to greet me, she’d been deaf for a while and although she slept by the door I could usually sneak past her and put my things away so when she woke I could be there to help her get up. If she didn’t wake in those first few moments, she always did as I heated up a breakfast sandwich, a little routine I got into as a reward for getting some exercise in the morning. Ellie loved them and while she couldn’t eat them I’d always give her a little sliver of meat or cheese or egg as I finished it.

Even in a deep sleep you couldn’t get anything by that nose of hers.

I couldn’t eat my sandwich that morning, knowing she wouldn’t be watching me waiting for her little treat at the end, but I went hiking nearly every free morning afterwards, healing more each time. A month later when I hiked past the Harris’s hawk nest, with the sun about to rise, I set up the tripod and calmly waited for the light. Two furry heads, barely visible, peeked out from the top of the massive nest.

Welcome to the world, little ones.

Dawn

A world departs
A world begins
A world apart
while I reach for heaven

The sun will rise
the wind will blow
and bring me low
down

I know the cost
it is my life
I will reach for heaven

Breakfast Landing

Early on a spring morning, a Gila woodpecker brings food to her hungry babies waiting inside the saguaro. I’m not sure what she’s holding in her bill, my first thought was fruit but I couldn’t tell for sure (the saguaro’s aren’t fruiting yet). What a jewel she is!

Environmental

I’ve photographed Harris’s hawks up close several times the past couple of weeks but I was delighted to make an environmental portrait of a distant adult as light from the rising sun swept over the desert. The palo verdes below it were in full bloom while some of the saguaros towering above it were just starting to flower.

Rage, Rage Against the Rising of the Light

A Harris’s hawk calls out from atop a blooming saguaro in the moments before the sun rises above the distant peaks. I’m guessing it did rise, a heavy cloud cover blanketed the desert so the sun hid its face most of the morning. Perhaps the hawk was staying in touch with another hawk on a nearby saguaro, or perhaps like me it was protesting the earlier and earlier rising of the sun. My alarm went off at 4:15am that morning!

Distraction

Trixie has wanted to play endlessly since Ellie died but as we played the other morning she got distracted first by a tiger whiptail then by a Gambel’s quail feeding and calling out just below the windowsill. I can’t say I blame her, a week ago I had my route planned out but spent so much time watching this Gambel’s quail singing as the sun was about to rise that I changed my plans and hiked closer trails to take advantage of the early morning light.

Standing Up For Breakfast

A desert cottontail stands up to reach flowers higher up the bush on a sunny spring morning in the Sonoran Desert. It had a large head wound that appeared to be healing, hopefully it will be OK, it was moving normally.

Morning Face

Thankfully I managed to get up at 4:30am on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and was on the trails before sunrise, as that is how I met this Gila woodpecker shortly before the sun crested the hills behind me. Most of the saguaros old enough to bloom don’t have flowers yet but are putting out buds that make handy perches. Some of those buds have bloomed, however, as evidenced by the pollen covering the front half of his head.

The Marcus Landslide

According to the signs along the trail, the Marcus Landslide occurred 500,000 years ago, which is before we moved to Arizona. The landslide itself was only discovered in 2002 by a couple of graduate students who named it after a geology professor who died while leading students on a field trip. The estimates are that the original height of the area was 4100 feet (taller than any of the other McDowells) and that 25.8 billion pounds of debris fell 1300 feet and spread out over an area 4000 feet long and 1650 feet wide. It’s a bit unusual in that the slide spread out over a much longer area than the height of the fall, making the resulting landslide less obvious. In addition to the scenery I love the trail because of the wildlife, it’s a fantastic spot for seeing phainopepla in the winter and with all the boulders I’m hoping an excellent spot for lizards now that they are out of hibernation.

Ellie at the Last

While age had slowly been taking its toll on our 15 year old pup, it was the last six weeks or so she declined the most, which unfortunately meant she only got to spend a month with us in the new house. The first week here was difficult due to her getting confused, especially at night, due to her senility and not understanding where she was. She figured it out after we paced the hallways back and forth many times, going inside and outside, until it became familiar to her and she settled down. We got a patch of artificial turf for her since there was no grass at the house, it gave her a comfortable place to go the bathroom (when she could make it there in time) or even just lay down and relax.

One of Ellie’s back legs (the one she didn’t have surgery on when she tore a ligament in her younger days) had been bothering her for a while, she compensated with the other until the end when putting any weight on her back legs was difficult. The tile in particular was slippery for her, both in the rental house and the new house, so my wife bought a variety of washable rugs and yoga mats to line the hallways for traction and make messes easier to clean in the rooms.

She started having accidents in the house that last month, at first she’d poop from the effort of having to get up, but that wasn’t hard to clean up. Her stomach started getting upset at the end though and she’d have diarrhea, and at the very end started peeing when she couldn’t walk at all, where the washable part of the rugs came in very handy. It was exhausting for my wife and I but after Scout and Emma died young it was an honor to nurse her through the end of her life while she was still enjoying her days.

Her last full day with us was one of my Friday’s off so I was able to spend the day with her. She didn’t want to walk at all that evening so I carried her out to the turf. She enjoyed that little spot and lay down and rubbed her face on it as she used to in the grass. She was panting as she often did at this stage, which I knew made her look happy in pictures, so I went in and got my camera for what I worried were going to be my last photos of her. The biggest problem we were facing was that her appetite had been off and despite my wife trying a variety of foods, she wasn’t eating enough to survive. She could eat more if I hand fed her, in the first picture you can see a few light colored bits of food on the turf in front of her from pieces that fell off my hands, but it still wasn’t enough. Her spirit was still strong and I wanted to capture that in the pictures, to remember that even though her health was failing, we had some good times during her month in the new house.

The next morning we talked with her vet who had been so helpful in her care and all agreed it was time to say goodbye. She had been able to walk a bit that morning, when I went to take a shower since she always wanted to know where I was my wife helped her up and supported her as she walked across the house to the bathroom. Mostly though, as the night before, she wasn’t able to walk even if we helped her, so I carried her where she needed to go. My wife said she didn’t even try to get some uneaten cat food in one of the bowls, a sure indication of how much her appetite had fallen. She was pretty worn out but would raise her head like this and watch us as we moved about the room, she was such a sweetheart to the very end.

This is the last picture of my sweet pup, I hadn’t really wanted to take these pictures but I knew they would bring me comfort later on. I could barely even think about camera settings but after verifying the pictures came out OK, I put the camera away. I had half an hour left with her before it was time to carry her to the car and spent that time stroking her fur and kissing her forehead and letting her know how much I loved her. I did the same after carrying her to the room they had prepared for us at the vet’s office, I’m so thankful we were both there as we said our final goodbyes, as being with us was all she ever really wanted. She ate a few charcoal treats (one of the few things she never lost an appetite for, even at her most senile the pup always remembered when she was due a treat), then died peacefully after getting the sedative and injection that stopped her heart.

Thanks are owed to Dr. Lopez and her team at Scottsdale Hill Animal Hospital, she was instrumental in making Ellie’s last year a great one. It isn’t easy managing the aches and ailments of such an elderly dog but she worked with us to map out a strategy of care that gave Ellie such a good quality of life for so long. I hadn’t actually met Dr. Lopez until I brought Ellie in that last time, we had talked on the phone but she and my wife had worked closely together to manage her care.

And a special thank you to my wife for doing so much for Ellie during that year, especially the last months when taking care of her became a full-time job, it’s a tremendous strain both physically and emotionally. We loved Ellie with all our hearts but that doesn’t make it easier, rather it makes the sacrifice worthwhile.

After she died I found an expected connection to the pup. After we got home, especially the first couple of days but even the first couple of weeks, I endlessly paced about the house. I wanted to do something but I didn’t want to do anything. It helped me sort through my feelings as I walked about but I had to laugh as I thought about how I was now pacing as she had her first week here. She because she didn’t know where she was, I because I knew she wasn’t here.

She was the best dog ever, my sweet pup, the best.