Loss and closure

Summer 2019 was a whole thing.

I got quarantined by the department of public health due to possible measles exposure and wasn't allowed to leave my house (thankfully lifted after a week when they were able to run additional tests and confirm that I had immunity but it was a whole bunch of drama).

Dave died at the end of July, almost 11 years after the accident that made him into a totally different person. The actual death was sudden, although it feels strange to describe it that way when really it feels like it happened in slow motion. I used to mark the anniversary with a post each year but I stopped after year six, when I realized that nothing about that situation was fixable and I needed to spend some time working on acceptance. What that really meant, for me, was accepting that Dave was gone in most of the essential ways. I never was able to let go of the resentment I felt for the new person that took his place. I've tried to stop feeling guilty about that. If we're being honest, the new person was generally an asshole. That wasn't Dave's fault, and it wasn't the new person's fault, but it wasn't my fault either and it was the truth. It's hard to keep loving someone who is more often than not, obstinate, irrational, and mean. In many ways, I still resent that person, because I feel like the last decade has slowly stolen even the memories of Dave away. If he'd died in the accident, it would have been sudden and horrible and we would have grieved deeply but he would have been frozen in time at that moment. Instead, the memories of Dave pre-accident are all buried and mixed up with years of resentment and ambiguous grief. Now that he's truly gone, I'm hoping I can slowly let go of the anger and try to remember him as two separate people. Brain injury is complicated and individual and it'll probably take all of us years to process this experience. I feel like this paragraph reads as cold, a strange, dry ending to what was a huge chapter in my family's life, but that's where I am right now. I have some work to do, clearly.

Moving forward to unambiguous grief, our beloved Circe died in August, and we're still missing her feisty presence every day. At 14.5 years old, she'd been dealing with complicated health issues for a while, and we'd finally gotten a definitive diagnosis of Cushings disease just a week before. That Saturday I'd put Adrian down for a nap and I was freaking out because we'd just noticed the telltale red spots that signal hand, foot and mouth disease, and I was anticipating all the misery that would entail. So I was standing in the kitchen feeling stressed when Circe walked in, stumbled and then collapsed on the floor. I panicked, cradling her in my arms and shouting for Dustin. She was alert but not able to stand, so I rushed her to the vet's office, crying the entire way. They ran tests and checked her out but nothing was "wrong" - other than the clear fact that she couldn't walk and seemed to be getting less responsive. She was peaceful and didn't appear to be in pain so I decided to bring her home and let her pass in her own time (although we did call a vet who could come out to our house to euthanize her, in case she started to seem uncomfortable). It was a bizarre day, because we were hosting a family birthday party and everyone arrived just minutes after I rushed to the vet. So I came home, with a dying dog, and we just took turns holding her all day and eating cake while watching Adrian's spots get progressively worse. Circe finally passed away in our bed, early Sunday morning. We took her to back to our vet's office because I couldn't stand the thought of having her taken away by strangers. Our vet was there when we arrived (she doesn't work on Saturdays so we hadn't seen her the day before) and she hugged us and cried, and told me she'd reviewed Circe's chart first thing that morning and she felt sure it was a stroke, which was what I'd suspected as well. I'm still struggling to adjust to not hearing her little nails click as she walks around the house, to not having her snuggled up against me at night.



And yes, I know it's strange to post about losing a person and losing a dog in the same breath, and I realize that I'm grieving Circe far more than Dave right now. That's where I am. Missing Circe is uncomplicated, pure grief and it's easier to process. She was such a constant presence in our lives, and I'm grateful that she was happy right up until the end, and I feel lucky that she had her stroke on a Saturday because I don't know how I could have handled the irrational guilt if I'd come home from work to find her there alone.

Loss comes in so many shapes, and my struggle is always to accept it, to let myself feel it and to stop trying to rationalize it.

P.S. - Adrian did indeed have a raging case of hand, foot and mouth, and I can say with authority that having to wake up multiple times a night to slather cold yogurt all over your hysterical toddler in the bathtub (because you read somewhere that maybe, possibly, it could help) provides a bit of temporary distraction in the midst of grief, or at least makes you wonder what the fuck you did in a past life to deserve this.

P.P.S. - I know I keep promising posts to people and then forgetting to write them. I'm sorry! If I promised something and didn't do it, let me know! I have a bunch of drafts that I'll try to revisit and polish up when I get a moment (although my moments are few and far between these days).

Dealing with dog separation anxiety - Furbo review

I feel like this is such a specialized post and also I'm completely outing myself as a crazy dog person, if that wasn't already evident, but this has eaten up a ton of my time over the last month so I'm posting it anyways.

{does not look like a monster who barks nonstop}

Circe is a nearly silent and super calm dog when we're around so we were surprised when our sweet neighbors let us know that while we're at work she's been going on barking sprees that last upwards of 30 minutes. This, of course, made me feel terrible about both Circe's well being and the impact on my poor neighbors (luckily they are also crazy dog people, and were more concerned with Circe than the noise). We're thinking that as she gets older she's probably experiencing a little more separation anxiety. Unfortunately, neither of us work jobs where we can routinely bring a dog to work, so we have to come up with a system that will help her feel better about being at home alone during the day.

I read as much as I could find online about dog separation anxiety and it basically boiled down to a few core things, as far as I could tell:

- Don't make a huge deal out of leaving or coming home (this is hard for me!)
- Have something available as a special distraction when you're gone
- Make sure they're getting enough physical activity in general

Lots of people recommend crating to combat anxiety but Circe is almost 12 and I'm not about to start crate training at this point. In addition, I want her to have access to the backyard because we're gone for the whole day, so crating her wouldn't work for us.

I really wanted more detailed information about her barking patterns, so that we could try to identify what was working and what wasn't. In a fit of desperation, I purchased what is possibly the most extravagant dog item ever - a $200 camera that can also toss treats and send you alerts when your dog barks. I know, I'm crazy. I paid for it out of her allowance, though, and it's less than we used to spend on a dog walker each month (which was not a good solution for us, because Circe doesn't like walking in the middle of the day and she doesn't get particularly excited about seeing people other than family). The Furbo has a 30 day money back guarantee so I figured we had an out if it didn't work well for us. Turns out, it's amazing. We've had it for a couple weeks now, and it's made a huge difference in managing her anxiety. We can check in on her live video feed from our phones and have a mini play session by tossing her treats if she's behaving well. If she starts barking, it sends an alert to our phones and we can check in on the feed. There is a microphone option so you can talk to your dog, but we've had mixed success with this because Circe is going a little deaf and it's hard to catch her attention unless she's really close by. We have used it as a creepy walky talky when one of us is at work and the other person is still home. Ha. You need a certain size treat for the Furbo to function best, and these Zuke's dog treats work really well (plus they're wheat free, which can be tricky to find).

{bonus - Furbo is not a hideous eyesore - it's the white tower back there on my nightstand}

In addition to the Furbo I stocked up on some dog puzzles (yes, this is a thing) to keep her occupied while we're gone. She usually decimates them within 20 minutes of us leaving the house, but it hopefully gives her a positive association with us leaving. We showed her how to use each one the first time, but now we only give them to her when we're gone. We give her two puzzles each day, rotating which ones we use. We already had this one, which is beginner level, and we added this more interesting activity board, plus the higher level dog chess. (Technically you aren't supposed to allow your dog to use these unattended, I guess in case they tear it apart and eat the plastic? Circe is really gentle with her toys and we feel totally comfortable letting her play with these while we're gone, but that's something to bear in mind if your dog has a history of eating plastic)

I tried getting her this really well designed treat dispenser, but she wasn't interested in it for some reason. I think she only likes ugly toys. It was a big hit with the toddlers, though, so I guess we'll keep it as a kids toy.





We've been working this system for a couple weeks and we're already noticing a downward trend in her barking fits. I'm super impressed with the bark alert functionality. It can pick up her barking from any room in the house and it almost never has false alarms (we did have to turn it off over the weekend when we were having a party with multiple toddlers and there was lots of shrieking, but our day to day life rarely sets it off).

Some reviewers have noted issues with their units straight out of the box (treat dispenser not working, speaker sound really distorted) so I was apprehensive, but ours has worked perfectly. I'll update if it doesn't hold up to long term use. They have a pretty responsive customer support team, so I'm not too worried about it.

I am disappointed that it doesn't have logging capability. I'd like a record of when Circe barks and for how long, and also when we tossed her treats. Right now we do this manually, based on our notifications, but it would be so much nicer to have it integrated. I sent this request to the customer support team and they said they would send it to the tech team, so maybe someday this will happen.

Currently, there's no way to link multiple cameras to your account, so you can only have eyes on one room in your house unless you want to sign in and out of multiple accounts on your phone. Circe tends to hang in the bedroom so we put the camera there, but sometimes she moves to the living room and I won't see her for hours. It would be smart to offer the option to link cameras (although I'm not sure I can justify buying multiple units at this cost). Even better would be if you could have a main Furbo with full functionality, but also cheaper satellite Furbo cameras for other rooms without treat tossing capability. I know there are other options for house cameras, but so far I've resisted.

Note - if you aren't on board with spending this much money on a dog camera (I get it), I would also recommend the Dog Monitor app which I used when we first adopted Circe. I haven't used it in a few years, so I don't have the most up to date experience, but it worked decently for us back then. If you already have an iPad, this could work for you. It had the camera function (although you can only get stills when you're not on wifi) and you can talk to the dog through the mic and it will send you bark alerts. We found it tended to drop the connection a lot (and couldn't pick it back up until the app was restarted at home) but that could have been our internet.

Thundershirt - we have a Thundershirt and we have used it each time we move. I find that Circe gets really freaked out by nighttime noises for the first few nights in a new place, and the Thundershirt works great for that and gets her sleeping through the night until she adjusts. I've read that some people will use it during the day to prevent dog separation anxiety, but Circe never seems to be able to move very well in it (she won't jump on the bed when she's wearing it) so I've been reluctant to leave her in it unattended. I would probably consider it if the barking got worse.