Ode to Lucie

A couple days ago Lucie—our beloved black lab/border collie mutt—tried to jump up onto our bed for her ritual pre-dawn cuddle… and didn't make it. Her back legs just don't have the oomph any more. It was a sad moment.

Lucie weighs about 50 pounds and turned 12 this month. While otherwise in good health, a dozen good years is about all you can expect for a large dog, and here we are. Though we knew this time was coming, it's no less difficult for having arrived.

We three—Susan, Lucie, and I—are the sentient animals that comprise home base for us, which is all the more precious in these days of home quarantine. While we are all getting well along (Susan and are septuagenarians and Lucie is the canine equivalent) we are loath to break up a good thing.

To be sure, age has been creeping up on Lucie for some time. In the last couple years she's lost interest in playing fetch (too much running), and a few months ago she started balking at walks that featured too many uphill steps. This month we started feeding her glucosamine supplements to help with her aging joints. This morning Susan and I discussed making her a step platform so that she can get onto the bed—which may or may not solve the immediate problem.

At this point Lucie has no trouble getting into her usual spot on the living room couch, which is only 18 inches off the floor, and she can still manage to ascend onto the bed in the back bedroom (22 inches), from which second-story perch she can oversee everything happening to the east (border collies like to be in control, which can make them difficult to distinguish from humans). As our bed is 28 inches off the floor, we're thinking of a platform that's 14 inches high so that she can negotiate the bed in two steps. (I like to think that Susan would build me a step platform, too, if I had trouble getting in and out of bed—but hopefully that level of allegiance won't be tested.)

While Susan and I are hopeful that we'll have an extended stretch of quality time with Lucie yet, these changes in her range and capacity bring her mortality into our consciousness, and it's a tender topic. It causes us to reflect on how much dogs can become integral components of our emotional world, which they accomplish through an attractive combination of attributes: touch friendly, highly relational, comfortable with routine, minimally judgmental, and extremely loyal. They are the quintessential personification of unconditional love, and who has too much love in the their life?

Lucie joined Susan's household in 2009. I joined in 2016. Both Lucie and I have a similar story: we experienced upheaval in our respective worlds and Susan became our safe harbor in storm-tossed seas. The last four years have been a terrific time all around. A silver lining to staying home right now is that I'm not missing any of these days of poignancy with Lucie. Blessedly, we three have the spaciousness in our lives right now to make the most of what we have.