The Dog Who Stayed

Everything else she was responsible for was being taken away from her, one thing at a time. Luke was the one job nobody could argue she was unfit for.

Why we got him

Because I knew she liked having a dog nearby, and because our old dog had died. It was that ordinary.

We had an older dog for years, and he passed. The house was quieter than it needed to be, and Lori had already been diagnosed by then.

I knew she liked having a dog close. Not doing anything in particular — just in the room, on the sofa, near her feet. So we went to the pound.

We were not looking for a therapy animal and I had read nothing about animal-assisted anything. We were looking for a young dog, lap-sized, a companion. That was the entire brief.

We came home with Luke, a chihuahua–dachshund mix, the kind people call a chiweenie. Small enough to sit on her, young enough to have years in him.

What he actually did

He gave her something to look after. That sounds small and it was the entire point.

The thing that goes first is not memory. It is jurisdiction.

One at a time, quietly and usually with love, the things a person is responsible for get moved to somebody else. The driving. The bank. The stove. The appointments. Nobody announces it and each individual handover is reasonable, and the cumulative effect is that a competent adult is gradually left with nothing that is hers to do.

Luke was a job that came back every few hours and could not be reassigned. He needed his treats. He needed his meals. He would sit and look at her until one or the other happened, and she was the one who dealt with it.

That is a small thing to write down and it was not a small thing to watch. It was the only remaining item on a list that had been getting shorter for years.

• It was concrete. Not "keeping busy" or an activity somebody had arranged. A dog who was hungry now.
• It was hers. I did not have to invent a reason for her to do it or persuade her it was worthwhile.
• He asked, so I did not have to. The prompt came from him, not from me, which meant it was never me managing her.

That last one is worth sitting with if you are the person doing the caring. Almost everything you do in a day is prompting somebody. An animal prompts them instead, and the relationship stays what it was.

The walks

They were as much for me as for her, and that is not a confession — it is the point.

A small dog has to go out. So we went out, most days, the three of us.

Caregiving shrinks a house down around you. You stop going anywhere because everywhere is complicated, and then the not-going becomes its own problem, for both people. There is a version of those years where we left the house only for appointments.

The dog made it non-negotiable and gave it a reason that had nothing to do with her illness. We were not going for a walk for her health, or to get some air, or because I had read that it helps. We were walking the dog.

When she went into memory care

He could not come with her. So he came with me, every single visit.

When I placed Lori, Luke stayed with me. For a few months he was at home on his own more than he was used to, and I was somewhere else, doing the thing you do after placement, which is not resting.

I took him to every visit.

The facility was fine about it, as most are — it is worth asking rather than assuming, and the answer is more often yes than families expect. We would sit with her, and when the room got heavy we would take him out and walk him around the courtyard, which gave us all something to do that was not a conversation.

She was delighted to see him. Every time.

Toward the end she did not know that he had ever been her dog. That connection was gone. What did not go was that a small warm animal climbed into her lap and stayed there, and that her face changed when he did.

What I would tell someone considering it

Be honest about which of the two of you it is for, and be honest about the work. Both answers can be fine.

This worked. I would do it again. And I have written the companion pieces precisely because it does not follow that it will work for you.

• The benefit I saw was purpose, not calm. He did not settle her agitation. He gave her something to do. Those are different things, and the research points the same way — the reliable finding is mood, not behavior control.
• The size mattered. Lap-sized, so he could be with her without being a hazard. A bigger dog underfoot is a fall, and a fall at that stage is where the road turns.
• I did the work. The vet, the boarding, the walking in the rain, and every meal that was not a treat she gave him. Going in, assume all of it lands on you, because it will.
• We adopted an adult from the pound, not a puppy. That decision looks better every year I think about it.

Luke is with my mother now — the one who made Lori the fidget blanket. He is getting on, and he is still the same happy little companion, just for her instead.