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bout a month and a half after Tug's ashes were scattered on the beach_ in a ceremony with my sister and some close friends _I absent-mindedly picked up an animal rescue newspaper at the neighborhood market on an evening walk. I handed it to Amy without thinking.
   She stopped.
   ``It looks like Tug,'' Amy said. A story about a litter of Labrador/shepherd mix puppies that needed to be rescued from a shelter included a photo of a Tug-like dog.
That puppy died of a ruptured intestine before we could reach the woman who was trying to find them homes. But Amy found Selkie among its siblings.
   The Selkie is a creature from Gaelic legend, half-human, half-seal. We had recently seen ``The Secret of Roan Innish,'' which tells the tale of a man who captures a Selkie and lives in fear of losing her. We had heard she might be a good water dog, so the name seemed appropriate.
   Within minutes of picking her up, I was in an examining room presenting her to Dr. B.
Dr. B. gave the animal an exam, her shots _ we weren't going to let it happen again _ and the usual tests. She shrugged and said ``Feed her and love her.''
    ``Isn't this the scrawniest thing on four legs you've ever seen,'' she said to another vet.
    The routine returned, a puppy in the back seat on our morning commute that would stay with Amy all day.Then she developed a small cough.
   ``It could be kennel cough,'' Karen said. Maybe.
   We had her tested again for distemper. She'd been tested before and was found clean. That was the only reason we accepted her. The second test may have been pointless, since the vaccination she got from Dr. B. would have thrown it off.
   ``It couldn't be distemper again,'' we kept saying to ourselves.
   If it was, we at least knew we had a better chance fighting it now, before the seizures started. We put aside the fear for the worst and did what we could to boost her immune system. At least that might help her with the kennel cough  -- or whatever that was.
   ``The amazing coughing dog,'' is what we started calling her, even as I chopped vegetables for hours as part of a special diet suggested by the Venice Animal Alliance. I would mix them with raw lamb and the rest of her food. But Selkie wouldn't eat it.
   We started giving her vitamin C pills. She didn't like them wrapped in bread. We would have to open her mouth and toss them down her gullet.
   She remained skin and bones on four legs. She developed a fever, but we still hoped.
   Then one morning when I had asked to work at home, Amy called from the vet.  She was about to get on the freeway when Selkie had a chewing gum seizure.
   ``I'll be right there,'' I said.
   A chewing gum seizure is a twisted smacking of the gums, where the sides of the dog's mouth snarl up, and the saliva is released and sometimes foams.
   Again in an examining room with Selkie, Dr. B. asked us to think about putting her to sleep this time.
   ``I can't do that,'' Amy said. Now she was the one crying. ``Not while she's still with us.''
   Selkie started to seizure again, more like a rabid dog. Dr. B. found a point on her leg and pressed her thumb on it. `"It's an accupressure point," she said. ``It is supposed to relieve the seizure.''
   Her mouth stopped flaring.
   I had one idea.
   ``Who was this vet you told us about,'' I asked Dr. B. ``The one up in Lancaster?''
       I got a name and phone number for Dr. Sears, brought Selkie home and called.  No, a technician who answered the phone said, there is nothing they could do once the seizures started.
   I spent the next 24 hours with Selkie, cleaning her, comforting her, and giving her medication. Oddly enough, she got her appetite back and started eating everything I gave her, including that vegetable/raw lamb mix she used to refuse. In between seizures she was a normal dog.
   I kept searching the Internet for information on distemper, even e-mailed a couple of vets, trying to find out the survival rate for dogs after seizures started. I found nothing I didn't already know.
   On the second night, Amy and I were bathing her when another seizure started.
   At first I thought it was just from the shock of being in the water again.  But Selkie was locked in a permanent short-circuit.
   It didn't stop after we took her out of the bath.
   It didn't stop after we dried her off.
   It didn't stop to let us get her evening medication into her. We only were able to drip a drop or two into her mouth as her head jerked side to side, throwing spit.
   Our friend, Margaret Owens happened to stop by that night.     ``It's not fair to her anymore,'' she said.
   Our vet was already closed for the night. Finally, we decided we could not wait until morning. We started going through the phone book. Just before midnight, we climbed into the back of Margaret's four-wheel drive and she drove us to an emergency veterinary hospital on Sepulveda near Westwood.
    We waited for half an hour, with Selkie on my lap spraying spit on me as I watched a bad episode of Star Trek on the waiting room television. We watched to make sure there were no dogs around. Only cats.
   Finally we were shown in to a vet. We explained she had distemper.
   She gave her quick look.
   ``What do you want me to do?''
    ``We think she should be put to sleep,'' Amy said.
      A few minutes later, after signing the paperwork, we were brought into another room. Selkie was lying on the table, still spraying spit back and forth. A tube had been inserted into her leg. The fatal injection was ready.
   ``Good-bye Selkie,'' Amy said. ``I'm sorry, Selkie.''
       ``Bye-bye Selkie,'' I said. ``We tried.''
  We both kissed her on the top of the head. The table was cool and smooth.  The vet began the injection.
   Finally, the seizures stopped.
   Selkie's head stopped thrashing. The drooling ended. The puppy we knew returned, falling asleep.
   ``She is no longer with us,'' said the vet, almost crying herself.  ``Please, in the future, make sure you get the dog vaccinated.''
       She meant well. She didn't know the virus had beaten us to the needle again.
   Selkie died on my birthday in June. We scattered her on the same beach as Tug.
   In July we forgot about dead dogs, and returned to Upstate New York to get married. Some friends of mine sent us a card with $80, to be used to buy a new puppy.