Beauregard

I was going to title this post the skunk story but, after reflection, it seems too flip, too casual.  I will start off with the skunk story though.

When Beau was a few years old he would occasionally tangle with creatures that roamed the night in our little suburban neighborhood.  A raccoon would lumber through the backyard and Beau would fly out the dog door and total pandemonium would ensue.  Always in the dead of night when the house was quiet and the neighborhood peacefully sleeping. 

There would be this wild commotion and all kinds of howling and we would bolt awake and run out to see what mischief was underway.  Let me be the one to tell you that the sight of a man, in the altogether, breaking up a fight between a 35 lb. beagle and a raccoon of a similar size sears itself into your brain and isn’t something to be forgotten easily. 

One evening, late but before we had gone to bed, Beau went outside and then there was this awful, painful howling.  Rick ran out to see what was happening while I helpfully stayed in the house and peered out the back patio windows.   Beau was literally foaming at the mouth.  We were absolutely panicked – did he get bitten?  Does rabies take effect that quickly? 

Then we noticed the smell. 

Freshly spray skunk doesn’t smell like what you get when you drive past a skunk that didn’t get out of the way quick enough.  In retrospect that almost has a nice, familiar scent to it.  No, freshly sprayed skunk has a very strong chemical quality to it.  But unmistakably skunk.  And Beau had gotten sprayed straight into his face.

Mind you I am still in the house, cracking open the back door to offer my opinion of the situation.  I got on the phone and called the 24 hour emergency line at the vets where they very quickly told me NOT to bring him in.  They gave me the recipe for a shampoo concoction that called for lots of peroxide, baking soda and laundry detergent.   

I hopped in the car and drove to the supermarket where the night crew was restocking the shelves.  As soon as I walked in the door I could hear murmuring down the aisles.  "Do you smell that?"  "Is there a skunk in the parking lot?"  As I walked past each aisle the talking would cease and people would just stare, rather horrified at me, their hands covering their mouths and noses. 

I swear I wasn’t anywhere near the dog or the outside but still managed to imbue my person with the unmistakable smell of skunk.   It took a good three weeks for the smell to totally go away and I don’t think my winter coat ever did smell right – I ended up tossing it.

Beau had Addison’s disease.  It started out that he would get these horrible infections in his claws and they would all fall out, grow back, fall out again.  It was some sort of autoimmune response to the Addison’s.  We finally got it sorted out and he was on a monthly regime of medication that would keep his potassium and sodium levels in check.

A couple of months ago he started to lose his appetite.  Beagles are known for their appetite and for him to refuse food was just unheard of.  Many tests were run and finally it was determined that the years of medication and the disease itself had finally just worn him out.  He was in renal failure.  They gave him a few months to a year to live.  The best we could do is keep him comfortable and on a kidney friendly diet.

Last week his little body just couldn’t take it anymore.  On Tuesday Rick said he was restless and wandering the house, looking for a dark, quiet corner to lay in.  On Wednesday morning Rick found him in the same predicament, trying to find some relief in the darkness of our closet.  He picked him up and put him in his bed were he napped for a bit then woke up, restless again.  Rick picked him up and took him outside, carrying him one last time around the property before loading him and his bed into the truck and to the vets. 

What happened there I’ll never truly know.  I was down in the bay area, recovering from surgery so I don’t know what those last minutes were like.  I can only imagine.

The house has an emptiness to it that is hard to explain.  Who knew a small little beagle could take up so much room.