First published in the Tri-Town Transcript July 25, 2019
By Esther C. Baird
Well it’s mid-summer. We spend most of our time over on Lake George in the Adirondacks at our family camp and neighboring YMCA conference center down the road where we work, volunteer, swim, boat and repeat.
And so when, on the very first day there, Blue Ears, our eight-and-a-half-year-old Bernese Mountain dog, woke up with a super weird mass on his ankle that had apparently burst through his skin (sorry, it sounds gross because it was) I didn’t have a place to file it. Where did “injured dog” go in the summer plan? Plus, our vet who understands my neurosis with respect to owning two Bernese Mountain dogs (one of whom, Moose, is certifiably crazy) was five hours east of us in Danvers.
I panicked.
My mom suggested the local vet up in the mountains of Ticonderoga, and given my options, Blue and I went.
The vet was a little younger than me and seemed to be down to earth and friendly. But how was she with high anxiety dog moms? I took a deep breath and showed her the mass and she agreed it looked both gross and pretty suspicious with respect to a common form of dog cancer. I started the little speech I had practiced in my head 100 times.
“I know Berners have shorter life spans and this may be cancer, it may be THE cancer, but Blue loves the lake, he’s so happy here. I don’t want to do major invasive stuff on him that would keep him from walking or swimming, no major foot surgery or chemo, I just want him to have his best…”
I burst into tears.
She smiled calmly, “You want him to have his best summer ever.”
“Yes!” That was exactly what I wanted.
“Of course you do, and that’s what he’s going to have,” she said with authority, and Blue and I believed her.
She was calm and let me stay in the room, holding Blue’s head, while she dabbed and swabbed and did a little local anesthesia procedure. She let me talk nonstop about Blue and how he loved to swim and how long suffering he had been when Moose was a puppy, but how at the lake Blue kept Moose in his place. She listened to me ramble about how I’d wanted to be a vet as a child, (something I’m sure she’d never heard before). And finally, she let me walk him out with a new sparkly blue bandage (to match his name) and an honest assessment that there was a chance it was cancer, but Blue could still have a great, best ever, summer.
And we went home, with some labs ordered and some meds prescribed.
Blue immediately internalized the message. Blah blah blah blah, best summer ever for Blue, blah blah blah.
It’s hot at the lake. There is no air conditioning, so we strategically set up fans to keep both of the boys cool inside the cabin. Not Blue. The next day he pushed open the cabin screen door, something he’s not done in eight years, and went outside. It was his best summer ever and he wanted to swim, so he did.
We also have a two story dock that the dogs can cool down on while also gated from getting loose. But when Blue saw another dog across the way he was gone, jumping across rocks and scrambling up the bank — again nothing he’s done before. But, easy, beezey, um, best summer ever, remember??
Apparently this policy extended to meals. The meds made him lose his appetite a little bit (or so he claimed) so I coated his food with sprinkled cheese or leftover burgers, or more recently, a spoon full of cat food mixed in his kibble. Gross? Yes. Best summer ever? He thinks so as he licks his bowl clean and winks at me.
And so here, in mid-summer, Blue is living life to his absolute fullest including his favorite activity of rolling all 110 pounds of crazy fur in the dirt whenever he wants to. He doesn’t have to brush or groom himself, so what’s the problem?
Recently when the vet called and said it was not cancer, but probably a bug bite that got infected, we all breathed a sigh of relief. Blue could have more summers in him! Certainly Blue was pleased to be cancer free, but when three mink scurried off to their den across the shoreline, Blue looked at us as if to say “you didn’t tie my best summer ever to a diagnosis!” and jumped across the rocks and ran like a crazy young dog after them. He didn’t get close thankfully, though if he had caught the mink I’m sure he would have thought it was great.
The very best in fact.