Ellie was an extraordinary dog that had a sense of purpose that I have never experienced with any of my other dogs. In practical terms, pets not only help us physically, but also mentally and emotionally to at least the same degree, but perhaps even more. I think we totally underestimate the power of connection within ourselves and others, and the support and healing that is available to us through this type of relationship. Pets are very aware, conscious and loyal to their role and charges and take it very seriously. They challenge us like our relationships, our family, our work and our children do, to love ourselves more, to be ourselves more and do the things in life that they know you are meant to do, because they always see the real you.

In my family, the past few years have particularly challenging and Ellie witnessed the highs and lows in each of each of us, without judgement, only love. If you needed someone to hold space for you, any time, day or night, she was your girl. As my son Derek has said on many occasions, “You just couldn’t help but be in good mood with Ellie around. Her endless amounts of energy and joyfulness was comforting especially during tough times. She always knew how to make everyone she crossed paths with, happy”.

***

Ellie came into our lives in 2008. It had been a year or so since we’d lost our last dog, Miranda, when my family took a drive across the bridge in Ottawa, to the SPCA in Aylmer, Quebec.

There were many dogs at this location, all different ages and breeds, including a one female lab, boarder collie puppy and 4 aussie shepherd pups. The vet at the facility told us that she had rescued all of the puppies from a farm nearby.

Over the next few hours, we took various dogs out for walks and hung out with the puppies. There was one however, that we all really gravitated to, the female lab, boarder collie. Her name was Echo and after spending a few hours with her, we were told that she was actually spoken for and was going to be picked up the next day. Disappointed, we turned our attentions to the remaining Aussie Shepherd puppies, but none of them really felt right for us. So home we went.

The next day, we decided to take another trip out to the shelter to have another look and much to our surprise Echo was still there. Apparently, the person that was to take her had thought about it over night and realized that she was not in a position to take on the responsibility that this type of puppy requires. So Echo was available if we wanted her, to which we said a resounding, YES!!!

Life in our household changed dramatically in many ways we were yet to realize with the introduction of our new puppy into our family. The name Echo didn’t seem right for her and through a few discussions we all agreed to the name Elliemae.

Oh my goodness, what a sweet little soul. She settled right in to our daily routines. I thought, had it not been something nudging me to go back to the shelter and had I not been present enough to listen to that nudge, we would have never known that the universe had arranged for us to have her in our life, I believe that. Looking back now, she was truly meant to be with us.

Big on socializing dogs, Ellie went everywhere with us. When she was little and still small enough to throw over my shoulder, I would take her with me when I would pick up my youngest from work at West 49. At the end of the day the mall was mostly empty, so she could run around a bit and much to the enjoyment of her co-workers, hang out with them too. When we would visit family in Toronto, she went too, visiting with my mom and dad and her Auntie Joanne and Uncle Alex. During the celebration of life here in Ottawa for my mom, she joyfully spread her love with everyone who attended, but also reminding everyone that she would gladly eat any leftovers.

She was a member of our family and each of us developed our unique bond with her. Teaching her all the usual things, sitting, staying, not begging at the table, we were never truly successful at that being a food driven breed and me caving more often than I care to admit. But she was great, smart and at the same time, making a few, not smart choices, like the buffalo hot wing incident of 2011. She opened the cupboard and the garbage bin to help herself to 12 buffalo hot wings. Over the next week, I spent alot of time doing daily counts of the bones that thankfully came through her. That’s a lab, boarder collie thing. If the lab was dominant that day, she would do silly things and if the boarder collie was dominant, so smart.

Boarder Collie’s are working dogs, so we were always looking to keep her busy and she always reminded us to get on that. I thought of enrolling her in agility training, but hesitated each time. Not sure why, but later in life she ended up having to have both knees replaced, due to the breed and her style of living, 0 to 200, living life to the fullest on her own terms. Had she done that type of training, her knees probably would have given out on her alot sooner.

Ellie has been a part of every aspect of our family life. She loved to go the beach, play outside with her LARGE variety of sticks, play in the snow, particularly if you were willing to throw snowballs or go for a walk in the woods. I could always count on her to be over the moon to see me, whether I was gone 15 minutes or a week if I’d been away. Ellie also had a large pack of people friends who were always glad to see her and she them. She didn’t have alot of dog friends as she preferred people. I often mused that she was a person in a dog suit, because she did behave more like a human.

Her adventures were vast. She once got her head stuck in an ice tea box going after a can of tuna which was inside to go to the recycling bin. My eldest daughter Erika noticed that Ellie was no where to be seen in the house, “it was just too quiet”, she said. Upon looking, I found her downstairs, frozen, hoping we wouldn’t notice, with the box on her head.

During thunderstorms or fireworks, Ellie was terrified. I got her a thunder coat and gave her Bach Rescue Remedy, but her solution to her predicament was always to do the army crawl under my eldest daughter Erika’s bed, to ride out the storm.

Ellie would often go for a sleepover at my youngest daughters home. This particular day they stopped at a local restaurant/bar in the city which they frequented, to say hello. Being the good girl she was, while she chatted with the staff, Ellie sat next to her on the floor at the bar. Any time a new customer would enter the bar, Ellie would perk up and head over to the door to greet them. On her way back from greeting them, she would check in with every table that had customers, all the way back to the bar, before planting herself back on the floor next to her.

On this occasion, Ellie of course, had brought her stick with her and chewed it to bits on the floor. We only stayed over one beer, but after tearing her stick to shreds, I guess it upset her stomach and she threw it up on the bar floor. After I cleaned it up, we all agreed that Ellie was cut off.

In such a short time Ellie, had won the hearts of everyone in the bar, recalling one girl calling to her with a tone of disappointment to see her go. Sensing this, she ran over to her for one last pat.

***

In February of 2021, I noticed a looney sized sore on Ellie’s chest when I was brushing her. Not sure what it was I set up an appointment with the vet. My daughter Erika and I took her to the appointment and upon arriving she didn’t want to get out of the car. This was unusual for her, as she loved visiting Dr. Olender and the gals at the clinic, and there were Benny Bullies there to eat.

This was during Covid and so Dr. O came out the car and took her into the clinic and we waited. Fifteen minutes turned into about and hour when finally he came out to the car with Elle. His face was white and he looked particularly distressed. He said, “Bev it’s not good.” He suspected Lymphoma and would be sending off a tissue sample to his cancer specialist for confirmation and recommendations. He gave her about 3 weeks.

The English language is inadequate to describe my feelings in that moment. I felt as though I had been kicked in the gut, I was angry, heartbroken and triggered at so many levels. Thank goodness Erika and I were together at the appointment to help each other cope with this news and more importantly, Ellie, because she knew something was definitely going on.

A week later, it is confirmed, our beloved Ellie is dying and we have decided that everyday single day that she has left, is going to be the best days ever.

It is so hard to witness, that she can be terminal, but is still functioning well at this point. It really does mess with your mind. So, we go into action and pretty much just amp up the activities that we typically have done all these years. We go to the dog park, walk her daily in the woods off leash, to the beach several times a week, Dairy Queen for ice cream, Tim Horton’s drive thru for timbits. In addition, she gets to eat pretty much what she wants, within reason. Two of my kids begin to come to house more often and Erika and I are in charge of the palliative care for Ellie.

As time goes on, we pass the three week mark and she is still with us, but definitely there are subtle indications that she is slowly slowing down. We check in with Dr. Olender on a weekly basis, tweaking her medications and monitoring her closely. He prescribes a 4 medications, 8 pills a day, one being a high dose of prednisone which can never, ever be missed, or the downward trajectory will happen even more quickly. This drug is also a diuretic, which means we have a schedule to let her out in the night a couple of times as she gets really upset if she has an accident. We also have a discussion about what we will do when things get really bad. We decide that we would like him to come to our home when that time arrives, and he agrees.

I begin to notice that when we are walking anywhere, she is much more stubborn and very chatty as to where we are going and how long we will be staying. She will literally dig her feet into the concrete if she doesn’t want to go the direction you had planned as it’s usually the beach where she wants to go.

On this day, it’s her and I walking to the beach. We take our time, and when we arrive, I let her off leash and she heads straight into the water and lays down. An hour or so passes and I try to get her to come so that can bring her home, but she is not having it and so after repeated coaxing, I comply and we stay for pretty much the entire afternoon. I realize that I need to just sit and enjoy the day as much as she is. My girl and I are together.

On another day, our whole family decides to go for a walk down the beach and bless her heart, she made it to the far end of the beach and back without one complaint. The last time we did this walk it was in the winter, loving every minute of it, snowballs, us kicking the snow and her running off leash.

As the weeks continue, every day is a blessing. There are sores appearing in her mouth and on her paws. We clean, we bandage and Erika picks up some baby socks for her to keep her feet dry and clean. The chart is on the fridge for her medication and meals. Eating is now becoming an issue, probably due to her throat now becoming sensitive. Erika and I get creative, canned tuna, ham, hamburg with rice mixed with liver dust. A one point I even crumbled up a timbit in her dinner.

Erika and I are both tired, very, very tired but we continue to trade off. Maddie comes out most weekends to help out and Derek is coming out more often as well. We set up some air mattresses in the living room and kitchen so that we can be with her but make sure when we are not on for duty, we sleep in another room with the door closed until it is our time to help out, that way we get a few hours of sleep in. This whole thing is not unlike when we were caring for my mom, so self care is essential to enable us to care for our sweet Ellie.

Her people friends and dog friends continue to drop by for short visits. One afternoon a friend of my youngest daughter comes for a visit and brings Ellie a bag chock full of goodies including a stuffed sea horse that squeaks. Ellie has never ever been a fan of stuffed toys and especially one that squeaks, but this becomes her favourite toy and we fondly name him Steve the Seahorse and everywhere Ellie goes, Steve goes too.

Ellie is now having more difficulty walking as she is becoming weaker. We decide that it’s time and reach out to Dr. Olender to come to the house. At the same time, one of my family is diagnosed with Covid. We are all tested and come back negative, but will have to quarantine for two weeks as a precaution, but for Ellie, it means the vet cannot come to the house until our quarantine is over. Our only choice that we bring her to the vet clinic, they take her in where she will be euthanized, while we remain outside. I can’t do it. None of us can do that.

Covid has affected our lives in so many ways, aside from the many who have suffered great loss, the disease in itself is just the tip of the iceberg. It has effected so many aspects of services and businesses in ways that we don’t even think of including how we care for our pets in a compassionate way during a pandemic.

Given our choices, we begin with setting up a place outside in our backyard for her, where she can spend her last days, where she is happiest. During the day she will be outside and in the evening we will bring her in. Ellie can no longer walk now, my daughter does most of the lifting as we struggle to be strong for Ellie, but it’s damn hard to see her this way.

It is ten and half weeks from the day we where told by Dr. Olender that she would probably only have three weeks. I had not shared the news of Ellie’s illness on Facebook or on any social media platforms, but on May 1st, I decided to post a request to my Facebook friends asking for prayers and love for a peaceful transition. As a family, we told her she could go, that my mom and dad would be waiting for her and that we would all be fine and the next day, May 2nd she passed away on her own terms, in my arms, in our backyard, in the sunshine, with her family and Steve the Seahorse.

***

Ellie was an extraordinary dog, sent from spirit, so aware and in tune with herself and those who were in her charge.

She was my walking buddy, my best gal, who helped me find my way back to myself with love and compassion, even on my darkest days.

I feel you everyday and I miss you so much my sweet girl. I promise to continue to walk everyday with you. To be present, remember who I am, and find love and joy in even the smallest of things.