Scrambling toward oblivion

In the middle of the night I woke to a funny scrambling noise. I thought it must be Hapi getting up and changing her sleeping position on the slippery laminate floor of the basement. Due to the summer heat I sleep in the basement now too. But the noise went on longer than I expected so I turned on the light and saw Hapi crawling across the floor toward the stairs. Apparently she couldn't stand up. She finally reached a blanket I had put down for her to sleep on, and which she avoided at all costs normally, and was able to get enough grip to stand up. She headed for the stairs.

Reluctantly I got out of bed. If she had that much trouble just getting onto her feet then climbing the stairs was going to be problematic. Sure enough, she could not do it. Her front legs were fine but the back ones were like useless appendages. I came up behind her in hopes of supporting her rear end while she attempted the climb but she did not welcome the intervention. I could feel her whole body trembling. She made the attempt several times, each time her rear legs turning to spaghetti when she tried to put her weight on them.

One final attempt and she made it, all the way to the top without pause or incident or help from me. First to the water bowl in the hallway and then to the back door outside. She spent the rest of the night sleeping in the grass.

Ideally she would realize that sleeping outdoors was her best bet, but she does love the basement, especially now that I am sleeping there as well. Outdoors she never knows when some idiot neighbour is going to set off firecrackers which scare the daylights out of her. Apparently there are people nearby who don't wait for auspicious holidays to have firecracker fun. I have a friend (fortunately not nearby) who admits to having a lifelong fascination with firecrackers and likes to set them off in the night, even now in his mid-sixties.

She does not consider sleeping upstairs indoors an option. She rarely spends any time there at all, except when her water bowl is in the hallway and she needs a drink. If I pet her she'll pause for a bit on her way out, but that's it. Definitely not a place she would consider laying down in. It's a difficult situation, clearly getting more difficult as time goes by.

On our way to the Reservoir yesterday I ran into some friends I had not seen since before the pandemic, I honestly thought they were in Mexico. But no, they were just holing up. They told me that they had just had their dog euthanized, a dog a little younger than Hapi. They decided that watching the dog deteriorate was just too painful. I said that I had done the same with my previous dog and was quite overwhelmed with guilt at having deprived him of the life he clung to. They said they were having that experience too.

We know the inevitable outcome, they do not. They still believe they have more life in them, when they do not, not really. Those damn basement stairs are going to be some kind of turning point I think. Even for me they are difficult.