The greatest gifts my dog Cleo gave me

An alternate title: How we knew we were ready to have a baby

Another alternate title and a warning for those who need to guard their hearts a little today: The dog dies in this one

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A year ago on the day that I write this, September 20th, my husband and I were taking our sweet girl Cleo for her last walk in the woods and her last splash in the river. We said goodbye to her in the shade of our backyard. I still miss her so much. Cleo was my first pet as an adult and my first dog. Michael and I could barely afford her adoption fees at the time, but I looked at her fuzzy little head online and knew she was my girl. I was right.

Cleo Sabrina was a particular little puppy who grew up to be a very particular little dog. As Michael’s parents said recently as we all laughed around the dinner table: “Cleo wasn’t a dog.” She wasn’t. She was more part cat, part human, part twinkle-toe princess. She was also our first baby.

We took Cleo to the oceans of Cape Cod and the mountains of Colorado. She snuggled into bed with us every night. She required us to spoon feed her each meal until she was five. She insisted on miles-long walks to go to the bathroom, refusing to dirty her yard—even during the infamous polar vortex. She slept on my chest while I napped on the couch. She chased squirrels and barked at cars along the alley and had interesting relationships with other dogs. Some, she got on with swell, others, not so much. She crossed a dog on the street and seemed to say: best friends or enemies, you decide, and if the dog picked enemies she was ready to rumble, even though she was the most gentle creature. She nibbled corn off the cob and took treats so delicately from your fingers you couldn’t believe she was the same species as other dogs who snapped up treats with a ferocious glee. She loved to run really, really fast, and she loved to splash in the river or in puddles with her mouth open. She sat outside for hours, smelling the breeze and soaking up the warm sun. She showed me daily how to appreciate the present moment, how to truly enjoy the small things that bring you happiness, and how to be your unapologetic self.

I am not lying when I say to you that I would often cry just thinking about the eventuality of Cleo’s death. I honestly couldn’t comprehend how it would be possible for me to living my life on earth and for her to just…be gone. She had walked by my side every day since we picked her up from Safe Hands Rescue. Even before she was gone, I could imagine the hole in my heart her absence would make so acutely it was physically painful and I couldn’t catch my breath.

And then, late in August 2021, just days after the three of us returned home from Cape Cod, I was on the phone with my mom and brother when Cleo punched the door to chase squirrel outside. I opened the door, she sprinted out, and then I heard her scream. The phone dropped from my hands and I ran to her. My first thought was that the squirrel had attacked her somehow. I saw Cleo, prop herself up with her front paws, try to stand, and then fall down. Her eyes were full of pain. I scooped her up and held her. I thought that maybe she had torn both her ACLs or broken her legs. She’d always had the skinniest little legs. Michael had run outside from where he was working in the basement after hearing me scream Cleo’s name.

We took her to the University of Minnesota Veterinary Emergency Clinic. It was still during Covid, so we waited outside for hours while they sedated Cleo and gave her an MRI. A veterinary student named Kyle called us with the diagnosis. We were sitting at a small stone table. I was sobbing, certain that Cleo had torn ACLs and would need surgery. What he told us was so much worse. Kyle explained that in their examinations, Cleo was exhibiting a lack of movement and a lack of even deep-pain sensation that led them to conclude she was paraplegic. The MRI later confirmed that she had suffered a very rare, completely unpredictable, completely unpreventable spinal injury. In the moment, it was quite painful, but now Cleo could not feel anything halfway down her back to her tail. They had no idea if she would walk again. I remember hearing the words and struggling to make them compute. It was like I was hearing them in another language or underwater. They asked if we wanted to come in and see her. Those words I heard clearly. Yes, yes we would come right now.

They brought Cleo to us by having her walk on her front paws with her hind legs dangling over a towel they held up. She was so, so happy to see us and we were so grateful to see her. We cradled her on the floor of the examination room and cried into her fur. Then she had to leave us to go for more observation. We watched her walk with assistance down the hall and I thought: “Go, Cleo, go.”

A few days later, we got to take Cleo home, armed with a Help ‘Em Up Harness, medication to keep her calm and to keep her bladder relaxed, and a slew of physical therapy exercises to keep all four of her limbs as limber and mobile as possible. We were also to pinch in between her toes to get her reflexes going, hopefully helping pathways along her spine refire again as they healed. We did her PT exercises three to five times a day, we took her on minuscule practice walks with her harness, we sprawled on the grass in our backyard with her for hours so she could smell the breeze and keep tabs on the neighborhood. At night we slept in shifts, waking every three hours to manually express her bladder. Cleo refused to sleep on the floor at night, so we covered the bed in puppy pads and blankets and took turns sleeping on the couch since both of us didn’t fit with the amount of space Cleo required now that she couldn’t curl up.

We did this for weeks and miraculously, a few months after the accident, Cleo was walking again. She was wobbly and stumbling, but she was doing it. By the winter blizzards, she was sprinting through the snow.

Everything we did was absolutely worth it. We got two more beautiful years with Cleo. We got to take her splashing, hiking in Grand Marais, and we got to laugh at her silly ways every single day. And in the midst of our heartbreak and grief, our resilience and strength, and the profound joy we found in one another as a unit of three, we received the most profound gift from Cleo. In caring for her and loving her unconditionally, we realized that the things we had feared about becoming parents were things we were already doing. We were waking multiple times a night to change diapers and get Cleo something to drink. We were helping Cleo find beauty and joy in life despite newfound limitations, and our slower, shorter works taught us about living deeply instead of widely. We learned that the unexpected and tragic will happen because this is life, and that we will deal with it. We will laugh in the midst of it because we have to. Michael and I learned from Cleo that our bond with each other as partners is unbreakable and that we were not only capable, but we were ready to continue to love deeply, fiercely, joyfully. Once Cleo was running again, we started trying for a baby.

We were beyond lucky to welcome our son into our family the following fall. As he grew and developed, Cleo started declining. A long winter full of deep snow and ice ridges, a broken ankle (Michael) and a busted pelvic floor (Kaia), did not help matters. We loved Cleo as much as we possibly could, but her injuries were so severe and it was so hard to maintain the rigorous physical therapy regimen she needed. By the time the snows melted, I had a feeling that we would have one more summer with Cleo. We decided to make it the best summer ever and reassess in the fall.

Because Cleo could not walk far distances, we buckled everyone up into the car and drove to nearby creeks and parks she loved. We walked parts of Lake Harriet, we splashed in the rivers, and hiked the wooded paths at the far reaches of our neighborhood. We watched her delight in the earth. When she stood in the creeks with the water flowing around her chest, her face tilted toward the sun, we waded in with her.

I knew it was time for Cleo to go when I woke up in the morning and she didn’t stand up for the first time. I crouched down and kissed her face and she smiled at me as if to say, I love you, it’s okay. My mother and mother-in-law came and took our son for the entire day and Michael and I spent one final, glorious day with our precious baby girl. We waded in the river, we fed her puppy ice cream, we watched her give one final romp in the water, and a motorcycle drove through the neighborhood, giving all three of us the chance to run after it and bark. Cleo rallied that day. I truly believe she knew it was the end. I could tell by the way she opened her mouth to splash through the water as best as she could when we told her it was time to head home. She had always done that so exuberantly as a puppy and a younger dog, and it was like she trying to drink up the last bit of this joyful, beautiful life that she could.

Saying goodbye to Cleo was the hardest thing I’ve done in my life. She taught me how to be the mom that I am to Bodie. She taught me so much about love. I absolutely hated saying goodbye to her and knowing that I will walk through the rest of my life without being able to physically touch her body or smell the top of her head. And at the same time, I knew, as we cradled her body one last time as she took her last breaths, that I was receiving another gift in being able to be there—right there—for her during her peaceful end.

It’s been a year since Cleo died and I think of her every day. She truly is one of my soul mates and when I slow down and look at the world and it’s beauty around me, just like our slow walks taught me, I feel her around and in me in all that I do.

I want to leave with you with one last image and quote. On one of our fun adventure walks during our final summer with Cleo, we went to the parkway in our old neighborhood where Cleo made us walk miles and miles even in the freezing cold. We passed by this stone with this quote on it. I took a picture of Cleo walking past it with my and Michael’s shadows because I knew that someday it would comfort me. I was right.

It reads:

“What is lovely never dies

It passes into other loveliness

Stardust or seafoam

Flower or winged air”

My life is overflowing with love, and I see Cleo everywhere I look.

With love from my kitchen table,

Kaia

P.S. I hope you will excuse any typos or grammatical errors. I needed to write this today, but I cannot bring myself to read it through. So I send it off to you just as it is. Wherever this finds you, I hope you feel love.