Given the hot dry weather of the last few days after a summer of incessant rainfall it wasn't surprising after all, and seemed fitting enough, considering our dread of this day, that we awoke to gloom settled over the landscape with the day's dawn welcoming a series of thunderstorms. When Riley was taken out first thing as usual into the backyard, it was while the rain was pounding down, and he wore his little raincoat for shelter from it. His hair takes on that smell of wet wool afterward, and that's how he still smelled when we arrived at the veterinarian clinic a short while afterward.

No food, and he wasn't interested in drinking anything. He was immediately alert to the inescapable fact that this was not a routine morning. So he wasn't riveted on being fed; rather he seemed to be attempting to interpret what was happening. As we prepared to leave, he was right there behind us, ready for his collar to be put on and to be taken along to wherever we were headed. And when we drove up to the veterinarian clinic parking lot he knew where we were. It's a newly-constructed building, purpose-built to replace the inadequate old one, and looks nothing like the old converted house that served the area for so long. He has been there a few times, and had no problem recognizing where we were. He trembled and voiced plaintive uncertainty.

The personnel are invariably warm and sensitive to the needs of their clients, from those working at the reception desk, to the technicians and the veterinarians whom we choose to see there. Small comfort, at this particular time when we know we're set to leave him. Someone entered the reception area with a very young dog, a puppy whose exuberant wish to be noticed and played with was a reminder of the cycle of life. He'll be a really big boy when he grows up and his enchantment with life's possibilities muted by familiarity and boredom. And then a woman brought in a young, black-haired poodle mix, reminding us of our lost Button.

As we were led into an examination room we spoke at some length with the nurse-technician who would take Riley from us -- my husband primarily, I felt incapable of saying very much, just clasped Riley pretty close to me, and he snuggled his head into the crook of my arm, quietly waiting. Although we haven't had too much occasion to bring him in other than for regular annual health checks, he's known to those there -- or at least we are, having taken our little charges in regularly over the past two decades.

A delicate exchange was made -- Riley passing from my arms to that of the young woman who kept assuring us that he was in good hands, to assuage our concerns. Riley would be made comfortable, hydrated to ensure he wasn't in bodily distress, and the surgeon would be arriving in a few hours' time. He would call us afterward. The same surgeon who had originally performed the same type of lipoma-removal on Riley almost seven years ago. This time, a more complex operation, not merely one very large lipoma but many, and we wonder how he will manage to manipulate and remove them.

He won't be able, given their placement and numbers, to remove them all. But whatever he can manage it will give Riley more time without the complicating factor of their presence and fierce growth, and at the same time render to us some immediate relief from constant concern over his well-being.