The Life of Wally

“I just don’t think I could ever love another living thing as much as I love this dog right now.”

“Okay…” Tighe barely even looked up from his laptop, where he had zoned out. He claimed he was working, but he was probably reading The Sports Guy’s Mail Bag.

It was February 2012, and I was 40 weeks and 5 days pregnant, sitting on the floor of our living room where I was trying to stretch after a lazy pregnancy workout. Hindering my ability was Wally’s head, which was resting in my lap. Because if there’s one thing about Wally, he can never get close enough to you. 

If you’re petting the top of his head, he needs to push his whole 80-pound torso into your thighs and hips, pinning you up against the nearest wall or stationary object, then nuzzling his head into your crotch, ensuring that you can’t get away. 

If you’re seated, he needs to rest his head on your lap. If you’re on a sofa, he starts with his head in your lap, then gradually starts to rotate his body and inch himself into your knees and thighs until he’s backing onto the couch next to you as though he’s been invited. 

If I’m nearby, he gives me the side eye to see if I’ve spotted his misdeed, and if I have, he lowers his head, embarrassed, and reluctantly returns to the floor. 

Wally fancies himself a lapdog, and although we’ve never allowed him on the sofa or on the bed—did I mention he weighs 80 pounds?—I imagine if we had let him sleep with us, he would have made acts of reproduction incredibly awkward, if not impossible. Which was probably his plan all along.

Joan, our next-door neighbor in our Baltimore townhouse, let him sleep on her bed. And on her basement sofa. In the spring of 2008, we got puppies from the same litter. I picked Wally, who snuggled in my arms the whole two-hour car ride home. Joan picked out his sister Charly, who whined and cried from the backseat for two hours. 

To encourage both the canine sibling bond and our neighborly bond, we made a gate between our fences, so the dogs could sprint back and forth between houses. I never knew which dog would greet me at the front door when I got home from work, or got out of the shower, or dropped bits of food as I made dinner. 

And, as though he was a newborn baby, we took Wally everywhere with us. To my parent’s house to watch Ravens games. To the beach. To Tighe’s parent’s house, two hours away, on the way to the lake for the weekend where he roamed free, from cottage to cottage to fetch a treat.  We didn’t believe in leashes in those days. 

I even remember coaching a lacrosse game while he napped in the shade under the scorer’s table. You can imagine how excited that group of high school girls was upon seeing this soft, cuddly puppy. I might as well have had a newborn baby to share with them.

Which brings me to my next point: Nate.

Nate was born within hours of my pronouncement that I would never love anything as much as I loved Wally. After four days in the hospital, newly christened parents, we returned home to a shamelessly excited Wally. We’d never been apart that long.  

He was thrilled to see us, sniffed the newborn in his car seat for a moment, and then resumed assaulting us with his aggressively happy whimpers and hyper bouncing. And then he took a proverbial backseat. His life was never the same.

Wally and Nate as Ninjas, circa 2015

I had to nurse, I had to change diapers, I had to hold Nate, not Wally. Suddenly our daily 5-mile walks became few and far between. When we moved to Kansas City, our new neighborhood wasn’t exactly dog friendly. There were very few dog parks, and even when I would leash him, I suddenly had two kids, and it was difficult to manage the stroller, a toddler, and a massive, overly exuberant dog who still wants to greet every person he encounters with a chest bump and an open mouth kiss. 

And so Wally’s outings became fewer and fewer. Each child meant fewer walks and more importantly for Wally, less time and attention. 

Wally enduring another summer road trip back East. Also pictured: Nate’s Monkey and Blanket.

When we were almost finished having kids, after Tess but before Lou, we gifted Wally a canine friend, a nice little pit bull/lab/boxer mix we rescued from a shelter. Since he doesn’t even like other dogs, Wally was less than thrilled with the new sidekick, who tried to wrestle and play and chase him around the yard, behaviors Wally is too sophisticated for. 

And now, it’s almost thirteen years after we brought Wally into our home as part of our family, and although he’s been on the verge of death several times over the past few months, he continues to live. 

A tumor has sprouted on his hind leg, right at the knee cap—do dogs have kneecaps?—and swelled to the size of a grapefruit. The giant extra juicy ones that you used to get in a Harry and David gift box or from the local high school’s citrus sale. You know, bigger than a softball, but not quite the size of a bowling ball.

Anyway, the vet recommended we let it ride. Chemo is prohibitively expensive and it could kill him. Surgery isn’t an option because of the location on his body. Even a specialist probably couldn’t remove it all, it would be traumatic, and it would likely grow back.

So we ignored it. And he was still a heartily healthy dog, galloping around the house greeting the mailman and little friends that came to the door, his tumor swinging back and forth like a saddlebag filled with drinking water for a thirsty cowboy.

“Mom, his tumor accidentally hit me in the face!”

Until one day it popped! 

And we’re not even sure how it happened. Tighe thought Wally had been fed up with the sagging appendage and attempted surgery himself. And maybe he did. But whether it popped or Wally punctured it with his teeth, it suddenly morphed into an open wound the size of a golf ball. A close, reluctant examination during which I realized (yet again) I never wanted to be a doctor revealed the grossest sight these eyes had even laid eyes on.

Wally’s tumor, in late October 2020, once it popped. See how it looks like a brain oozing out? (But seriously, if you want an actual picture of the tumor, message me. And then brace yourself.)

It looked like a brain slowly oozing out of his leg. All pink and soft and mushy, like the Krang from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. 

“Don’t look at Wally’s tumor!” Nate called out, breathlessly restraining the dogs by their collars as he opened the door for Tighe’s sister and her new boyfriend, literally meeting him for the first time.

“Uh…okay,” he murmured, slipping inside the house and assuming Wally was a human. Little did he know that an accidental glance at Wally’s leg could send one into convulsions. Or at least cause one to lose their appetite for multiple days. 

And occasionally, little white, pea-sized nodules—I don’t know if nodule is the proper medical nomenclature—coated in blood slipped out from the gaping wound.

“Mooo-ooom! Wally’s tumor is on the floor again!”

The vet prescribed some antibiotics and told us to try and keep the wound exposed so it would heal, but not to let him lick it, so he sent us home with a plastic cone around his neck.

Which limited his vision. I watched as he walked into walls or got stuck on a piece of furniture that he had forgotten about. 

And Rocket saw the cone as his personal chew toy. Wally tried to shake him loose, but as a pit bull, Rocket is relentless. Geriatric or not, Wally’s irritation only fuels his fire to play and wrestle. Rocket’s a dick.

So I removed the cone, tossed into the recycling bin, and slipped a tube sock over Wally’s leg.

Which he pulled off. 

So I tried to tape it in place. 

But the vet insisted that we not impede his circulation. 

So I pulled off the sock and the tape and we all just ignored it.

And that’s when—things are about to get gross here—the blood diarrhea started. 

I mean, first it was just regular old canine diarrhea. Which is gross no matter who you are. The dogs sleep in the sunroom on the first floor, with the French doors closed, mostly to contain Wally’s angst during thunderstorms. On diarrhea mornings, the stench was like a wall as soon as we walked down the steps. And on really bad mornings, it hit as soon as we opened our bedroom door.

“No more dogs, no more kids,” Tighe muttered to me, a spray bottle and roll of paper towels under his arm. That’s actually become his mantra.

And then there were the nights when Wally woke us up every 90 minutes or so, urgently scooting outside, where he paced back and forth in the darkness, either vomiting or squirting runny diarrhea into the snow.

“This is worse than a baby,” Tighe mumbled around 3am as we stood in our robes, watching Wally in the backyard, our foreheads pressed against the cold glass doors. We were some combination of concerned and curious and annoyed.  

Within minutes of eating anything, he’d vomit.  So he stopped eating. But the diarrhea continued. It was just liquid with lots of blood—the odor was so foul and putrid. Worse than a typical dog poop, like all the acids and bacteria from his intestines were just pouring onto our hardwood floors, plus the metallic stench of blood. It was like he was doing his own cleanse. 

We really thought it was the end. Especially because he was refusing to eat anything and he was emaciated and lethargic.

He was surviving on burgers. For about a month I cooked a slew of hamburgers for him each week, and he ate half of one in the morning and the other half in the evenings. It was the only thing he could keep down and the only thing keeping him alive. 

Finally, one Saturday, after four or five consecutive mornings of awakening to the stench of blood diarrhea, I called the vet.

“We don’t have any openings today and we’re closed tomorrow, but bring him by on Monday morning and we can do another ‘quality of life’ exam.”

And just like that, Wally was better. He took all day Sunday to recover. Suddenly, he was begging for food again and rushing across the dining room to beat Rocket to the next crumb that fell from the high chair. Slowly he regained weight and we weaned him from the burgers back to regular dog food.

As Tighe keeps saying, if the vet had been open on Sunday morning, we would have put him down then. It’s almost as if discussing his mortality inspired him and he dug deep and found the will to live. 

Now, about three weeks later, the tumor has grown back to the size of a grapefruit, and we’re wondering what’s going to happen next? Will it pop again? Was the stomach disruption caused by him licking the bacteria on the wound? Or did the bacteria in his mouth cause an infection in the wound, of which vomit and diarrhea was a side effect?

Now the tumor is the size of a grapefruit again… what’s next?

Sam, without looking up from his Legos: “Or maybe he just got corona.”

Stay tuned…