My fingers pressed and probed his bloated belly – I thought popping the gas bubbles might ease his discomfort. When we snuggled in the evenings, or in the afternoons watching “Emergency Vets” together, my hands would wander on their own to his warm scratchy belly with its smooth balding patches.

There was an especially responsive area near where his ribs and his spinal cord met. With pulsing and increasingly firm pressure, there was almost always a great release of gas. When the gas left his body, I felt empathetic relief. I felt victorious.

Sometimes I’d lie facing him, moving his front leg over me like an arm in an embrace. We have pictures of us in that position and our mutual bliss is apparent. My fingers and palms would always find their way to his belly, relieved on the days when the bloating was minimal, determined on the days when the skin was taut and his intestines felt like hard balloons about to burst.

On Saturday, August 10, 2002, when my hands returned to their nurturing, intimate ritual, probing his belly to see if I could help, I found his bowels release under the usual gentle pressures. I used the old blanket to push the extruding bowel movement back inside and hoped the attendant would come soon to take away the carcass.