Fidya Tanner Ayala came to us in March 2008. I guess you could call him a filler. We had a void, and Fidya filled that void. Being named after my favorite Russian student, he constantly got called a "she." I hope the real Fidya never comes to America, and if he does, I hope he changes his name. We gave Fidya his middle name because he loved to let the sun beams soak into his black fir.
For a long time, Fidya was our one and only. He was our pride and joy, our morning and our evening star. We couldn't bare to leave him at home alone, so we took him everywhere with us. Parties, road trips, work, you name it. He was loved by all who had the opportunity to be in his presence. Once our first child came along, it wasn't so much that way. I regret losing sight of who he was to us, that our love changed a little after we started having kids, but we still remember how much we loved him when he first came into our lives. We just started to love him in a different way, more as a pet, less as a child. And as a pet, he was so great with children. He would let them chase him around as much as they wanted. He actually welcomed the attention. He never became jumpy or scared around kids. In fact he loved all that they had to offer. The sticky hands, the fact that they would drop food on the ground for him to clean up. He was just the best indoor dog one could ask for (aside from the occasional accident he liked to have at my mom's house. Sorry Mom). (I use the word "occasional" loosely.)
Fidya has cheated death a few times in his life. The first time was when he ate an entire plate of brownies. We game him several doses of hydrogen peroxide mixed with water, but it just didn't seem to do the trick. We thought he was a goner, he was so sick, but he got over it by the next day or so. The second time was when he ate, I don't know how much, laundry detergent, we think. Either that or it was a snail. Whatever it was, it was causing him to bubble and foam uncontrollably at the mouth for hours. We weren't sure what was going to happen. He threw up several times, and by the next morning, he was fine! So resilient. The third time was when he came face to face with a coyote. The coyote won that battle. Grabbed Fidya by the neck and shook him around with his teeth. My brother Jesse heard the screaming and ran out and scared the coyote off. Jason took Fidya to the vet who cleaned his wounds and said that if he would have bit in just a tiny bit more that he would have taken Fidya's life. We had to clean his wounds for weeks and bare through the post traumatic stress that followed such an experience. He could be heard screaming 3 or 4 times throughout the day and night, just randomly. Then he would shake in fear. No pain, just anguish. But he healed eventually. He always healed, eventually, until now.
My mom once had a dream that she came out into her family room and Fidya was being roasted on a rotisserie in her fireplace and when she looked to Jason and I, we both just said it was for the better.
So maybe this is for the better. We are faced with having to put Fidya down. He has developed a cancerous tumor that has spread and there's nothing we can do for him except love him until his last day. I believe he has a higher purpose to fill in the eternities to come. Hopefully when we die and hear all he has to say to us that he won't be upset by our disciplining decisions or by our more recent neglect. For the 5 years that we have had him, he has truly been a joy. It is with great sadness and not without tears that I now say goodbye to him. Once loved, never to be forgotten. Our firstborn. Our Fidya Tanner.
