Life changes when a pet dies. In our case, our dog Trixie died yesterday.

They don’t tell you life changes, beyond the immediate, obvious loss. But, it does.

There’s probably twenty ways life is different this morning than it was before yesterday in our household.

Like, this piece of posterboard lying on the kitchen floor, right now, that I just took a photo of.

Until this morning, this posterboard was lining the bottom half of the window next to our front door. It was there because Trixie barked at her own reflection in the middle of the night. Abby doesn’t do that, so we don’t need the posterboard anymore.

Like the fact that I went in yesterday afternoon and cancelled four autoship Chewy subscriptions that we no longer need.

I knew we’d all be sad for a while. I didn’t know that would translate to neither Jared nor myself sleeping very well last night. I didn’t realize we’d miss church today. I didn’t realize Jared would still be in the bed at 11:30 AM, which is very unlike him.

I didn’t really anticipate the vacuum left by one less pet. When you have five pets in the house, and then suddenly there’s only four, on paper it doesn’t feel like the air should be that different. Trixie was not a barky dog. But, there’s vacuum. The house feels different.

And yes, there’s the petty math I did….. There will be, at minimum, $170 a month more in our bank accounts every month without the grooming, without the medications, without the vet visits, without the prescription food.

But nobody told me that without Trixie around, we’d be scrambling to figure out exactly what Abby needs, because the prescription food was for Trixie, not Abby. We just let both of them eat it, and now we will need slowly transition Abby to a new senior food.

No one tells you that your absolute first instinct is to say “never again” to a new pet in the house, but that you might go looking at Petfinder.com anyway, only to say “never again” when looking at photos of different pets available for adoption. But you go looking anyway, knowing you just won’t ever be able to do it.

No one tells you, though maybe they should, that the other pets will mourn. That maybe you do need to return the blanket that accompanied Trixie to the vet for her final visit right back to the spot it was between the chairs on the floor, vomit-covered and all, so all the other pets can explore the scents and figure out what happened.

No one tells you that Abby will return over half a dozen times, instantly upon going outside every time, to the last spot Trixie peed in the yard yesterday morning.

No one really even tells you that you probably won’t need the puppy pads anymore— that while Abby will use them, she will still bark when she needs to go out. Trixie was the one who really needed the puppy pads. I picked the used ones up after Porter and Jared left for Trixie to go to the vet and put down new ones, and the new ones are still there, completely pristine because Abby goes every time she goes out, and barks when she does need to go.

No one tells you that conversations have to be had, and decisions made, about what to do with leftover medication. My inclination would have been to trash it all, even the unopened stuff. Jared told Porter we would at least see if the animal shelter could take any of it first.

No one tells you that your adult child who was firmly not a cat person, whose beloved childhood pet died yesterday, will suddenly, still saying he is a dog person, cling to any cat that enters his space.

No one tells you that suddenly your house that was really a house with too many pets is all of a sudden more reasonable. One dog and three cats sounds a lot better than two dogs and three cats. Even if it feels heavy to say so. Even if the adult child who belonged to the recently departed dog said himself that until yesterday our house was overloaded.

No one tells you that even the cats will sniff around, knowing things are different now.

No one tells you that the children’s lives will be practically different, too— that we won’t need baby gates in front of Porter or Oliver’s door anymore, because Trixie was the main instigator behind eating the cat poop out of the litter boxes. Turns out, Abby isn’t that interested when there isn’t a leader in that particular activity.

No one tells you that cooking will be different. There won’t be that constant presence waiting for you to drop something, immediately underfoot.

Nobody tells you that loading the dishwasher will be different, even though Trixie hasn’t been able to lick the dirty dishes since we moved into this house in November of 2021 like she could at the old house. It never once stopped her from hopefully trying every single time the dishwasher was open for the past four and a half years.

No one tells you how different the first walk outside will be. Walking one dog out to go potty is way different than walking two. It has been years since I got tripped up in their leashes; Abby and Trixie had their own rhythms and walking patterns. Walking just Abby out was where the tears came.

It wasn’t until I took Abby out by herself that I remembered exactly how nervous she gets outside. I always see it, but Trixie was there to offset Abby’s angst. Abby is on hyper-alert going outside now.

And she always, first, goes to sniff the last place Trixie went, even though Abby usually prefers the other side of the walkway for her own business. Till yesterday, anyway.

And no one tells you, that even with all the ways that life will, admittedly, now be easier, and cheaper, that there is a heaviness that one less soul in this household has left behind now that Trixie’s lightheartness is gone.