And Then There Were None: Losing Trent, the Last of my Original Crew

No loss is easy, even as you anticipate its impending nearness. It’s still jarring and it rips an open wound into one’s soul. Even worse is a sudden change. There’s little time to prepare for the inevitable. The stark differences in every day life are there to remind you every second of how your life has changed so much.

Trent was my 14 year plus year-old Pit Bull mix, whom I had shared my life with since he was just over one year of age. He was my accidental dog. A former boss of mine came to me with the sad story of her granddaughter’s allergies to the puppy her son had for nearly 6 months. She loved this puppy, named Guido at the time, but her skin didn’t. I referred her to someone I thought that I knew well, who ran a rescue. She took Guido in and renamed him Tony. Tony was a lovely 6-month-old brindle Pit Bull with what was supposedly a sweet disposition.  I saw endless pictures of the 3-year-old child with her Guido. None were concerning.

Said “rescue” friend turned out to be in over her head and was basically warehousing dogs who were spending endless hours crated in their own feces. I was horrified. The shelter that I spent double digit years volunteering at sent their humane agents in and the dogs were seized. I asked to have Guido/Tony turned over to me, since I was responsible for sending him there. At the time, I ran a Doberman rescue, so I thought I would place him through said rescue. My dogs greeted him just fine. They were used to dogs rotating in and out our house. Kera especially seemed to enjoy playing with him, which wasn’t typical for her with new foster dogs. I renamed him Trent. Tony was not a suitable name for this sleek shiny boy. Trent bonded with Siri the most since, they were closest in age, for every day BFF status, but played well with all 3 of my personal dogs.

As time went on, it appeared that Trent had some quirks, such as extreme leash reactivity towards other dogs. I assumed that it had developed in his time in “rescue”. I worked on this as much as possible, but it became clear that he was not going to be able to be placed in a normal dog parent home. I did not want to take the chance of a Pit Bull being in the news for the wrong reasons, so I committed to keeping him.

Trent actually did fine with other dogs off leash in my house. He just looked like a raging Tasmanian devil on a leash when another dog was in sight, even at a great distance. I had Doberman after Doberman rotate through my doors and Trent was great with all of them. He and Siri especially enjoyed when we dog sat for a brindle Great Dane puppy belonging to a friend. They looked like one dog with many limbs when they wrestled and rested.

Trent and I got along just fine. I loved him, and he loved me but we never shared the same bond as I did with Merlin, Kera and Siri. He sought affection from the dogs first, though I spent many hours laying on the couch with him and Siri wrapped as one, leaning on me. He was very social with any human who came to visit and changed a few minds on the subject of Pit Bulls. He was definitely a lover.

When Merlin was battling cancer, Trent watched over him with a keen eye, just like Siri did. Kera was starting to lose cognition so she was less aware, but Trent always made sure that Merlin was safe and nearby. He acted like a mother hen. I was very proud of him. We all mourned when Merlin passed but Trent wasn’t showing interest in eating dinner the next few days. I had to tell him that Merlin would want him to eat. He appeared to think about it and consented.

We lost Kera only 7 months later. It was just him and Siri for a bit and then Kenzo came into our lives like a lightening bolt of fur to shake us all up and add life again. Siri was afraid of the furry puppy that Kenzo was. She was still suffering all of our losses. But Trent rolled Kenzo on the floor every night for a week, eliciting puppy squeals until finally Siri decided to see what all the fuss was about. She never looked back. Trent gave her the courage to live and love again. They became the 3 musketeers. It was a joy to watch.

Trent got worried as Kenzo grew larger than he had likely ever seen a dog be. But Kenzo was (and is) a lover so he had nothing to fear. The one time that Kenzo decided to posture, at about 7 months of age, by standing over Trent, Siri immediately rose to the occasion with a big sister roar. Kenzo’s eye grew as large as the sun and he backed away to never try that nonsense again.

When Siri grew weary of life, Trent watched with concern. I think he suffered even more than I did when we lost her. They were 2 peas in a pod. For about 6 months, it was just my 2 boys. We had adventures such as a road trip to Maine where I discovered that Trent LOVED adventures. We went to Moraine State Park regularly so that my boys could hang out by the lake. And we hiked a lot in the local park. Finally, we added to the crew, a blond Chow Chow who was a stray who found herself at the local shelter, whom I named Mela. Neither boy welcomed her immediately, but Trent held his own and laid down his personal space rules and Mela respected them. The dynamics of this little family of mine were not the same as the previous fabulous foursome but we were happy.

During the past year Trent’s pace grew slower. His recognition of personal space declined. He was no longer able to jump up on the bed and refused to use the dog stairs. I put him on CBD oil for mobility purposes and he also grew a bit more alert for a little time. He still went on daily walks and mostly kept up and sniffed with the best of them. But in the last 6 months or so, he stopped coming upstairs to lay on the guest bed and instead chose the couch during waking hours. He stopped coming upstairs to see what Mela left in her snuffle mat when I got home from clients. He didn’t seem interested in our training games. He always ate well, and his housetraining remained 99% intact. So, it was easy pretend that he would last forever. After all, he turned 14 in August and although slower, he was still doing the important stuff as usual.

At his last vet visit in June, we decided to put him on Rimadyl. It was a great decision. He was clearly much spunkier and enjoying his walks even more than he already did. It made me happy. But I would be lying if I did not mention that his cognitive decline had made life much more annoying for all of us. The circumstance that decided that he would have to sleep in the “doggy condo corner” of my bedroom on the twin bed that was part of the dog beds there was because he had taken to stomping around the bed in the middle of the night and once jumped off of the bed in the dark onto Kenzo. Needless to say, that didn’t go well. He no longer recognized personal space boundaries and would walk straight at the other dogs when engaged in something that used to be obvious should not be interrupted such as a meal or pottying. His hearing was selective, and he tried to bite me frequently for trying to physically help guide him up the steps or onto the couch safely. He nearly walked straight out of my very high vehicle numerous times while I was trying to get the steps out, so I had to constantly make sure that he stayed in while I got them out. He would bound across the bedroom randomly when we first got up, straight into the other dogs with no recognition that this might not be a good idea. As with all seniors of any species, when he wanted something, he wanted it right then.

Because of this, I was more impatient with him than I should have been, more frequently than I was for his entire life until recently. I will likely be beating myself up about that forever. I tried very hard every day, but I wasn’t always successful at hiding that impatience. After all, I though he would live forever. I cannot even begin to describe the pain this brings my soul.

We had a lovely Thanksgiving Day. Trent managed to get his collar off again during our walk, which made that the second time in about a month. We walked in a local cemetery that day as we had the last time he lost it. But this time, the tags were not on as he had also managed to somehow loosen those in my house and I had them. My intent was to switch to his Christmas collar the day after Thanksgiving and add the tags then. But I never got the chance.

The day after Thanksgiving started like any other, aside from Trent seeming more wobbly than usual getting out for first potty. I noticed but not as much as I should have. Then when I went to bring him his breakfast, he wouldn’t get off of the couch and he was heavily panting and clearly in some kind of pain. I could not tell exactly from what, but it was a look that I recognized from the day that Siri passed, the end of life organ failure look. I was frantic. I needed him to eat in order to take his Rimadyl. I wanted to see if that helped but he would not swallow anything that I tried to give him. I called the vet. They said to bring him in in a couple of hours if he wasn’t better. He was a small amount better in that he could walk without falling but he was still panting and in pain. I made the decision to help him cross the bridge that day. I waited too long with Kera and I never forgave myself for that. With Siri, she passed on her own at home in my arms, but I still wonder if I should have given her peace from any suffering sooner. I didn’t want that to happen with Trent. I took him in and gave him some treats that he ate and held him sobbing my soul out while he crossed the bridge.

The next day, we went the same route on the walk that Trent had lost his collar, in a desperate search for it. I asked the universe and Trent to guide me to it. Halfway through I was starting to lose hope. Then we rounded the bend and it was there, laying in plain sight in the grass. I was so happy to have that collar back, it felt like Trent has made sure we would find it!

The losses never get easier. Despite my relationship with Trent not being the same as with my other original crew — Merlin, Kera and Siri — his loss left a huge hole in my heart. I cried for about 3 days straight, nearly non-stop. I am still mourning of course, Christmas without him was very hard. A few days after Trent crossed the bridge, first Mela on one day and then Kenzo, the following day, slept in the exact same spot on that twin bed in the doggy condo corner that Trent slept in. They have never done that before those instances and they have not repeated that since then. It felt like they were honoring him. They both stretched out in such a way that I don’t often see them do elsewhere. They both looked pleased. It was nice to see.

Part of my life is gone now and that makes me sad. I don’t know what the future holds but I like to think that every dog that I have shared my life with has taught me something about how to be a better person. I hope that the lessons that Trent left me with are more patience. I will do my best to honor him by cultivating that quality. Thank you, Trent, for sharing your life with me. I hope that someday I can be the person you wanted me to be. And I hope that you are free of pain with your “siblings” smiling in happiness.