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We finally had word back about the pathology report. There is no clear cause of death for Ty. Basically, he was just perfect, physically.

The Cop called me at work to tell me the vet had called and that I should touch base with her to ask any follow-up questions I might have. The Cop was shocked and dismayed about the lack of a clear cause of death. I wasn’t. It was kind of what I had imagined.

I’d been out on the internets doing my research over the past couple of weeks, of course. And I’d narrowed the possibilities down to two: fatal arrhythmia or epileptic seizure.

So I spoke with the vet and discussed what kinds of signs would be left if either of those two disorders were in fact the cause of death. She pretty much ruled out epilepsy (as much as she could, being objective about the fact that we just really won’t ever know). Still, she said that she’s known dogs who’ve had seizures that lasted 30 minutes and lived. If he’d suffered a vascular event so dramatic that it would cause death, there would be evidence of it for the pathologist.

On the other hand, a single fatal arrhythmia, while rare, could leave no trace. It would essentially be the body’s electrical system seizing up. Like when a computer freezes.

That seems consistent with what happened that afternoon.

After I talked to the vet, I came home and The Cop and I discussed. He was really hoping for some definitive answer that would offer closure. I hadn’t been expecting that, and just wanted to know if Ty’s death could have been prevented. I was terrified she was going to tell me he’d managed (finally, after many tries) to eat some dirty socks, or that he’d had a disease that needn’t have killed him if only we’d known about it.

So that is all the information we will get.

Honestly, I used to be undone by unanswered questions and painful experiences that I knew I would never be able to understand. There’s a whole class of koans designed to pry our grasping human fingers away from the delusion that we can know the answer to “Why? Why? Why?” — so thanks to the monks who’ve brutally and compassionately smacked me upside the head about this.

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Last night in my dreams I had a chat with Richard Freeman. Ty was there, too, hanging out. A beautiful California day, with wildflowers and warm breezes. RF wanted me to know that Ty would be coming back as a fuzzy rescue dog.

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Might as well wrap up with a little learning technology humor. I am a huge fan of Web 2.0 — blogs, wikis, discussion forums — but there is always hesitancy in corporate about these technologies: what if the information is inaccurate? Horrors!

Much to my satisfaction, the organization is carrying on with a project to build an online community for our customers (and non-customers — just plain old uncontrollable strangers!). Really, it makes me proud.