Jojo, my first dog, was
diagnosed with epilepsy when he was almost 3 years old. We’d just moved from
Illinois to New York for school, and his seizures started not long after our
arrival. The vet said that they were possibly environmentally induced.
A dog with epilepsy faces a life
on medication, in Jojo’s case
phenobarbital. His seizures started infrequently, but became so commonplace and
severe that he could barely get outside for walks. Often times my boyfriend and I would have to carry him up
and down the stairs of our East Village apartment building to the sidewalk. There
was no more running, jumping, or fetching in his future. In fact, the vet had suggested we
put him down.
One day not long after starting an
increased round of medication, Jojo went out an open kitchen window while we
were out and fell three stories into the concrete courtyard. At roughly the same moment my dog
was falling out a window, I was gripped by inexplicable distress and
overwhelming sadness at my job, and left for home without saying anything to
anyone.
When I got to the apartment and Jojo
wasn’t there, I asked my
neighbor if she’d taken him out. No, but she’d heard
a bark a half hour ago and thought little of it.
Looking down from the open
window, I saw nothing in the courtyard. We searched the building. Nothing. We left
to search outside.
From the building's front sidewalk, I peered down the stairs leading to the passageway into the
courtyard. Lying at the bottom of the first rung, my Jojo raised his head slightly to look at me.
I hurried down and took his head
in my lap as my neighbor went to call the vet. A few minutes later, after three
short, labored gasps, Jojo died in my arms.
I know, I know. Dogs don’t commit suicide.
But I have always wondered what possessed
Jojo to go out that window. Had he seen a pigeon? Was he trying to leave the
apartment? Did he see someone he knew in another window and try to reach him? Or
did he simply slip, medicated and unsteady, trying to feel sunshine?
And while I am not one for
psychic phenomena, something happened to me that day at work that I’ve never been able to
explain.
