Lifestyle

Woman makes the best bucket list ever for her dog with cancer

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Lauren Watt with her dog, Gizelle.Courtesy of Lauren Watt
Courtesy of Lauren Watt
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Courtesy of Lauren Watt
Courtesy of Lauren Watt
Courtesy of Lauren Watt
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Courtesy of Lauren Watt
Courtesy of Lauren Watt
Courtesy of Lauren Watt
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Courtesy of Lauren Watt
Courtesy of Lauren Watt
Courtesy of Lauren Watt
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When Lauren Watt learned in 2015 that her best friend, Gizelle, had cancer and wouldn’t live much longer, she created a bucket list of all the things they wanted to do together before Gizelle passed away.

“It was a silly thing,” said Watts, now 27, of her final plans for Gizelle, her 7-year-old mastiff. “But it helped me create memories as opposed to crying about it.”

She details the experience in her memoir, “Gizelle’s Bucket List: My Life With a Very Large Dog” (Simon & Schuster, out Tuesday). But it’s not just a story of death; it’s also about how Gizelle saved Watt’s life.

‘My heart hurt miserably. [But] I knew that we had the best adventures we possibly could have had.’

The author was 19 and about to start her sophomore year at the University of Tennessee when she got Gizelle as a puppy in 2008. At the time, her mother was struggling with drug and alcohol addiction. Watt writes of her mom having a drug-induced seizure at Christmas and being so out of it that she “answered” the family’s Chihuahua instead of a ringing phone. Watt would temporarily flee the chaos of her home with Gizelle, the two of them driving, walking, even running for hours to escape.

“No matter how bad you feel about yourself, [dogs] are always there providing love unconditionally,” she said. “So I made up my mind to love my mom no matter what.”

When Watt graduated in 2011, the two set out for New York City. While looking at apartments, the author would tell brokers that Gizelle — who weighed about 160 pounds — was “just over 100 pounds” so as not to be turned away.

The two moved, along with a friend, into a small two-bedroom apartment in Times Square.

Lauren Watt with her dog, Gizelle.Courtesy of Lauren Watt

“Gizelle was so mellow and laid-back, so it wasn’t too bad,” Watt said of the space. “We were happy.”

The canine soon became a local celebrity after she took part in the Tompkins Square dog-costume competition one Halloween, dressed as the Beast from “Sandlot.” But when Gizelle was about 7 years old, she was diagnosed with “aggressive” bone cancer. Doctors could amputate Gizelle’s back leg and start chemotherapy; the treatment would be painful and, as the cancer had likely already reached her lungs, she would not survive. Or Watt could make the most of her pet’s last days.

“I was devastated. I didn’t want to lose my best friend,” Watt said. “It was a matter of learning to accept the situation and then figuring out [how] to make it not-so-terrible.”

One of the first things that came to mind was the fact they’d never been to the beach together. In fact, there were a lot of things they hadn’t done yet: eating ice cream, going pumpkin picking. Those things turned into Gizelle’s bucket list.

Completing the items on the list was bittersweet. Sometimes the days were full of laughter, like when Watt took Gizelle on a canoe in New Hampshire and nearly fell overboard upon the discovery of a spider. One of their best times was a trip to the beach, where Gizelle got to play in the waves, and dog and owner napped together on the sand.

Lauren Watt with her new dog, Bette.Courtesy of Lauren Watt

On their last night, Watt made steaks. That’s how she knew it was the end, she writes: Gizelle barely lifted her head when the steak was ready. Months before, she would have wolfed it down.

“My heart hurt miserably,” she writes of the day in 2015 she took her best pal for a final ride to the vet. But “I knew that we had the best adventures we possibly could have had.”

Two years later, Watt still thinks of Gizelle every day. In August 2016, she adopted a basenji mix named Bette. “I know Gizelle is happy I have a new friend,” said Watt, who moved to Los Angeles in 2016.

“Dogs help us live in the moment.”