This one … this loss was devastating.
On Friday morning when we went to let the dogs out of Kelly’s Cottage, we found some diarrhea and chewed grass thrown up on the floor. We watched the dogs file out to see who it might be, and quickly realized it was Birdie.
She had a form of muscular dystrophy unique to Labs called centronuclear myopathy, and as a result she walked with a hunched back and short, stiff gait. Her exterior muscles had atrophied, leaving her thin looking, but she was smart, funny, talkative, and otherwise very healthy. Birdie was the kind of girl who was always the life of every party. Indeed, on our visitor weekends, Birdie was convinced that everyone had come from far away just to see her, and she did her best to steal the show. She greeted visitors when they arrived by sitting up like a seal and making high-pitched seal-like barks to draw people over to her … and yes, it worked. I would always tell Birdie: if you want to look like a seal and sound like a seal, you need to learn to balance a ball on your nose like a seal.
But on Friday morning, there were no entertaining antics. She wasn’t her usual, happy, bouncy self. She walked over to a water bowl and started drinking. And drinking. Then she got up, walked behind a cottage and tried to poop … but couldn’t. She repeated this cycle of copious drinking and unsuccessful efforts to poop.
A short while later we loaded her in the truck and I was on my way to our vet clinic in Helena with her. I took the photo above of Birdie just before taking her into the clinic. I figured she had some kind of intestinal problem — perhaps colitis — and would be back home soon enough. I had no idea how wrong I would be.
X-rays showed an intestinal blockage, and she needed surgery right away. Our internal medicine specialist, Dr. Britt Culver, operated on Birdie Friday afternoon. From "skin-to-skin" — initial incision to final suture — Britt had Birdie in and out of surgery in under 45 minutes. He called to say everything had gone well, and he didn’t have to resect, or remove, any part of her intestine. That speeds up recovery and reduces the risk of complications.
On Saturday morning, our primary care vet, Dr. Brenda Culver — Britt’s wife — called to say Birdie was doing well and that she was up and walking. Overnight, Britt had added some support therapy to help strengthen Birdie’s heart because of her myopathy. Any time you have a systemic disease like this, the body is more compromised and thus the risks are higher, hence the precaution. Brenda said they had Birdie on a bed on the floor of the surgery area, and whenever they talked to her or petted her, Birdie would wag her tail and thump it on the ground.
When we signed off the call Saturday morning, Brenda had said the next time she’d call would be with the ‘Sunday morning report’ unless anything changed.
Alayne and I had been in bed for a short while Saturday night when the bedside phone rang. I looked over at the clock and it was 11:08 p.m. The screen on the phone lit up with the clinic phone number and name. My heart sank. I knew something terrible had happened. I grabbed the phone.
It was Brenda. Birdie had just died.
I was stunned as I listened to Brenda describe what happened. She had been making the late-night rounds at the clinic, looking in on all the patients, and was doing a TPR check (temperature, pulse, respiration) on Birdie. She was listening to Birdie’s heart with a stethoscope, and her heart sounded fine. As she pulled the stethoscope away and was about to stand up, she looked at Birdie and suddenly sensed something wasn’t right. Brenda put the stethoscope back on Birdie’s chest, and as she did so, Birdie took a breath and rolled over, dead. Just like that. She couldn’t revive her.
Brenda said there was no seizure, no vocalization, and no struggle. It was quiet and peaceful and instantaneous. Brenda told me she had called Britt, who was at their home, to tell him what had just occurred, and he suspected a blood clot had caused a stroke.
As Alayne began piecing together what had happened from overhearing my end of the conversation, she started crying, and I couldn’t hold it together much longer myself. I told Brenda I would call her back today after we had a chance to come to grips with the news.
Both Alayne and I were in tears by then, and we got up and walked down to the living room, where we sat for hours, crying and telling Birdie stories and hugging some of our other dogs. We weren’t prepared for this at all. Birdie was only about 5 years old, and she was right up there with Widget and a few others as among the most-special dogs we’ve ever had in our lives. Birdie was the kind of animal who brings you joy every day, who makes you laugh, and for whom a ‘day-without-Birdie’ isn’t a complete day at all. She was so smart I was convinced she understood every word I said. I could say, "Birdie, get on the cot," and she would climb right up on it. She had long ago mastered how to read people and their emotions, and thus how to get people to do her bidding.
In many respects, Birdie was an icon for the ranch — she’s even the centerpiece of the ‘Meet the Animals‘ page on our Web site — and to lose her was to lose a part of ourselves.
It was a long, sleepless, emotional night.
Britt and Brenda were shocked by what had happened, too. Britt drove over to the clinic late last night so he and Brenda could do an immediate autopsy on Birdie. What they found was that the intestinal surgery had held up fine, no sutures had dehissed, and everything was intact. This supported Britt’s view that Birdie most likely had thrown a clot that either caused a stroke in her brain or shut her heart down. It was also consistent with how quickly and quietly she died.
Brenda explained to me today that clotting is always a risk during and after operations because the body reacts to surgery — having tissue cut open and thus bleeding — by trying to clot and stanch the blood loss. When a major clot is produced somewhere in the bloodstream and causes a stroke following surgery, it’s called a ‘thromboembolic accident.’
This morning, Birdie’s cottage seemed strangely sad and empty without her. There was no hunched-over black Lab bounding out the door, grabbing a toy in her mouth to wave in front of one of the Dachshunds — she was always trying to get some kind of game started first thing in the morning. There was no Birdie at the breakfast table, trying to get a biscuit from us. (We called her ‘Biscuit Birdie’ on these occasions and in general, ‘Bossy Birdie’ because of her talkative, demanding ways.) With only one dog missing, it was suddenly a very lonely day.
I think the worst part is simply that we never had a chance to say goodbye to this dog we adored so much.
So this will have to do. Goodbye, Birdie. We will always love you.
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