Personal Narrative: The Dog Seeley

It was hard to remember the dog Seeley had been before she became ill. A happy girl with curly, silver hair that relished each morning and delighted in each night. We knew she had been through quite a lot in her life, telling from the moon-like cataract clouding her left eye and the swollen nipples that hung lowly from her stomach. She enjoyed cuddling and seldom barked, but did often make weird scoffing noises when she was excited. She was our baby. It was hard to know what changed. One day she sat on her favorite pillow all day and didn’t get up. She rarely ate and didn’t drink enough water and smelled weird. Even though the local vet said that the medication would help the problem with a name I don’t remember, we watched in quiet anguish as our beloved schnauzer, Seeley, aged and grew sicker at an amazing speed. …show more content…
Discolored mucous clouded her nostrils and made her breathing raspy and hollow. I took pride in gently cleaning her nose with a tissue, thinking that I was fighting her illness, one snotty napkin at a time. My step dad always told me I was helping her breathe better, and even though she didn’t seem to enjoy the daily cleansing at the time, he said that she appreciated it later. She was no longer the happy dog with a tail that was a stub more than anything. A deep, dark hollow formed in the pit of my stomach as I climbed into our car after school each day and asked if today had been the day. The day Seeley passed away. The answer was always the same: no, followed with a report on how her day had been. How much she ate (not enough, never enough), how much she slept (way too much), how she acted (weird). Finally, the day had come. We had to make the hardest decision for any pet owner—whether to let your loved one live and suffer or be