Electra: Barking At the Gloaming Years

Fifteen years by anyone’s measure, is a long time, and when converted to dog years, 105 years contains multitudes. Our dear Electra, our girl black Labrador, celebrated her 15th birthday in June, a feat in itself for any large dog breed, and along with that milestone has come the inevitable question: How much longer do we have?

The price we pay for loving and being the custodian of any animal, is that at some point we have to make hard decisions for them, and put their interests first, not ours. While Electra was my second dog (excluding my childhood pets), she has since become one of five black Labs who’ve been a part of my family with Monkey. 

After we lost my heart dog, Hector, when Electra was just three years old, she grieved so deeply—taking to her bed, losing her fur, and generally showing signs of a deep depression—that I had no choice but to rescue Tank. In all likelihood, Tank was a Lab/Mastiff cross, although I never did a DNA test on him. Sadly he was in poor health, and much older than we were led to believe, so he was only with us for a couple of years before we said our sad goodbyes. 

Just two weeks later, we adopted Grace after her owner passed away suddenly. Aged 10 when she came to live with us, we didn’t expect her to spend much time with us, but she defied all our expectations and lived to the grand old age of 15 years and eight months. She was the sweetest, and goofiest, of our dogs, and being Hector’s niece, holds a special place in my heart.

Grace’s passing certainly had an impact on Electra, who by then was 11 and starting to slow down, and noticeably took a dip once she was a solo dog. So along came Arthur in the spring of 2022, a chunky black Lab puppy who has since grown to be a gigantic 82lbs and thinks every other dog is, like him, the size of a baby elephant. Over the last three years, Arthur has given Electra a new lease of life: tearing around together doing the zoomies, pouncing on her when she least expects it, and being sweet and cleaning her face and even patting her. Without a doubt, he has given her a reason for continuing to be.

But this post is really about our dear sweet Electra, who came into our lives aged 8 weeks old in August 2010. She was a sibling substitute. Monkey really wanted a brother or sister, which wasn’t going to happen, and so a puppy was the next best thing I could muster. 

While it’s hard to recall intimate details as far back as 2010, I do know that I was a single parent, running a consulting firm in downtown San Francisco, and Monkey was eight years old and in 2nd grade. I had no choice but to bring this little puppy to the office with me every day. What the hell was I thinking? As if my life wasn’t complicated enough.

To start, as she hadn’t had all her vaccines, she was too vulnerable to even walk from the parking lot to the office, so I’d carry her the two city blocks to the entrance. And she seemed to get heavier by the day, which of course is true as puppies grow like weeds. 

My young colleagues naturally loved the distraction of a teeny Lab fur ball in the office; while I had to schedule her potty breaks in between conference calls, which never went to plan. For one, Electra has always hated shiny slippery floors, so I couldn’t even get her to the elevator without much cajoling. And once we were outside, there was no way she was going to pee on the gritty concrete sidewalk of downtown San Francisco. So I’d stand there, begging and pleading, but nope. Naturally, as soon as I got her back into my office she’d go on the floor. Then there was hoping that she’d stay asleep in her crate just long enough for me to finish a conference call without the insistent puppy yapping starting up.

Somehow I survived and she thrived, and throughout it all, she and Monkey became the fastest of friends. My attempts to prevent him and his eight year old friends from winding her up and making her a crazy, jumping fiend, were to no avail. They reveled in tearing around, playing Pokemon with her and each other, and play-attacking each other nonstop. 

In 2011, she moved with us from San Francisco to Petaluma, and somehow on moving day, we lost her. We’d just finished unloading the big truck outside our new home, and I realized that she had escaped. I couldn’t believe it, or bear the thought that we could have been so careless. Thankfully one of our handsome Irish movers was quick to scour the neighborhood and quickly located her.

We soon settled into our new home, a bigger yard and local walks. We’d drop Monkey off at school each morning and she’d join me either for a hike around our local regional park, up and down steep hills and on deer trails, or she’d come on a two-mile run with me. She was fit and healthy and an easy, happy dog to have around. 

She has always had a love of socks and shoes, and thankfully never chewed them, although guests are often a little perturbed to find that one of their sneakers wasn’t where they’d left it. She used to hoard all sorts of things in her bed and if anything had gone missing, it was always worth checking there first. I’m pretty sure I found a dead bird in there at least once.

Monkey would feature her in his homework projects, and no doubt she showed up in a few photo and video shoots that I supervised for clients. 

As she does to this day, come the evening, when I am finally able to put my feet up and hang out on the sofa, she comes over for scratches and attention. In her younger days, she decided that she wasn’t technically on the furniture if her back legs stayed on the ground, so there were full body hugs. These days she does’t quite have the strength to climb up, but the spirit is willing.

In 2020, we moved to a place that had more open space, and so began her era as a farm dog. She enjoyed following me down to feed the horses, eating horse manure and chasing the deer. She’d wander the pasture and find random things like a horse boot, and bring them to me.

For years, she has shown very little sign of slowing down. Even a few weeks ago she chased a squirrel, will still rush the fence to bark at the cat next door, and loves to roll in gross stuff. She has been skunked (too many times), had foxtails up her nose, and ‘decorated’ my house with the results of upset stomachs.

And now, life is not so easy for her. Her body is letting her down, although mostly, her mind seems to be still there. She’s quite deaf, probably can’t see that well, and can’t tolerate being on her own for more than about 20 seconds without barking in a shrill, and frankly grating manner. She’s figured out that if she doesn’t eat her regular kibble, she will get scrambled eggs, rice, ground turkey and cottage cheese. There really isn’t much that I won’t do to keep her happy.

Yet the inevitable is on the horizon and it’s a heartbreaking thing to contemplate. Like every pet owner, my wish is that she goes peacefully on her own terms, but that does seem to be a big ask. For the past few weeks Electra has truly been hanging out in the gloaming – that brief, yet often beautiful time after the sun has set and before night truly falls. We know that dark is coming, but we kid ourselves that the day will last a little longer.

We’ve had a few false alarms when it seemed we needed to make the decision for her, and let’s face it, it’s one that I really wish that I didn’t have to make. It seems to me, it is the biggest burden we carry as the custodians of our beloved domesticated animals. I’ve had to make this decision three prior times, and somehow, this feels like the hardest time. Everyone says: “She’ll tell you when she’s ready” – that remains to be seen.

For now, I deal with the nightly wake-up calls for potty breaks, the inevitable clean-up after accidents, and the worrying if we are doing right by her. I treasure the sweet moments and her wanderings around the garden. I know we have given her the best life, and in return, she has given us her whole beautiful, and often bouncy, life. We love you so much, Electra.