Calvin

This is Calvin.

 He's a dog.  He is, much like every other North American pet, much loved and overindulged.  He is lucky to be in our family--and we are lucky to have him.

He's cute and fluffy and insanely smart and totally evil.  He opens doors and turns on the stove and walks on the roof.  He is incapable of remorse.  He is better than TV.

In case you were wondering, yes, we are aware that we are simply horrible dog owners.  My response when I am criticized for my lack of consistency with our dogs is, "They're Goldens.  What's the worst that could happen?  They could be annoying."  And they are.  Calvin is.

Calvin's official AKC name is Calvin T. rex Kroner.  When we were waiting for him as a puppy, my husband wanted to name him Adam Smith, I wanted to name him T.rex (I  have a thing for dinos, but that's for another time), and our 3 teenagers wanted to name him anything but Adam Smith or T. rex.  So we named him Calvin.  It seems fitting.  As a bonus, I still got my dino name, and Calvin has the privilege of having official license to be despotic.

Evil aside, Calvin has always been kind of a doofus.  He's got large feet and can't really catch a ball.  Our other Golden, Beta (another story), is really goofy looking and gangly and weird, but he's a total star athlete.  Calvin looks like the high school quarterback, but he's much better suited to the chess club.  Which is probably yet another reason this family of dorks loves him so much.

Anyway ... doofus.  Large paws.  Actually, large, dragging, scraping paws.  Occasional falling down the stairs.  Overall clumsiness.  Maybe we didn't worry about it because we see these traits in ourselves.  I mean, who doesn't fall down the stairs occasionally, especially when the promise of a good meal is waiting at the bottom?

I forget that dogs are not people, and that dogs who are clumsy are actually not all that common--natural selection and all that.  I remembered this for a lucky moment and made an appointment with our soap-opera-star vet (suffice it to say that I put on makeup before going to see him).  He examined Calvin, listened to me, took some xrays, had me bring Calvin in again ... and referred us to a neurologist.

Huh.  I did not expect that.

My husband, Ken, and I discussed whether taking a pet to an expensive specialist was justifiable and ended up deciding that one teensy consult, no expensive exploratory tests, would be ok.  But that was it; we just wanted to know what we were facing.

So ... on Friday I took our little tyrant king to see a neurologist.  She examined him, took him off for some more quick tests, and came back with a diagnosis of cauda equina syndrome.   Which essentially means that due to some horrible stuff happening in the base of his spine, Calvin is losing control of his hindquarters and will die unless we intervene.  Quickly.

So we are faced with a decision now.  We can choose to spend thousands of dollars to give a dog (just a dog!) a regular life and a chance at a normal lifespan.  Or we can do nothing and soon face a Decision of an entirely different sort.

What would you do?

Update:  If you were us, grateful  for options, you would look at this face and say, as Ken did, "We have to save him."   There's probably some larger lesson in there--about compassion and the power of connection, but we will think about that after Calvin is back to being an evil--healthy--genius.