Earlier this year I had to make the decision to have my 13 year old Kelpie/German Short Haired Pointer, Coco, put down. I'd had her since I rescued her from the Ballarat RSPCA as a 10 week old pup in 1994 and she'd been my friend and companion through many of life's trials and tribulations.
But she had severe muscle wastage in her hind legs, arthritis, cataracts, kidney problems, and was fading away to skin and bone before our eyes. The vet had been dropping hints for a while and I knew what had to be done.
So when I felt I'd steeled myself against what must happen, I took Coco to the vet for the last time and held her and loved her through that final part of the process.
I was heart broken.
In my non-dog life I am a published short story writer, and when I felt up to it, I wrote a short story about the experience of having a dog put down because I couldn't find a story like that out there to read.
The story IS a work of fiction, but much of the detail and emotions within the story are inspired by my 'real world' experiences with Coco.
Like the narrator in the story I am also a cancer survivor, but I am not a brickie's labourer. I am married, but I have two sons, not daughters. My wife's name is Lynette, not Michelle.
The story has recently been published in a literary anthology, but I'd like to share it here, because it was written for animal lovers everywhere.
I was invited to read the story at the launch of the anthology and there were a lot of wet eyes in the house when I'd finished. A few of them came up to thank me afterward.
Anyway, the story is below, but it comes with a warning. It has made many people cry.
I've attached a photo of Coco, taken when she was around 6 years old (well before her health began to fail). Even though she wasn't a Koolie, it was Coco who "chose" Precious - our first Koolie - to be our second dog. Precious was adopted from the Burwood RSPCA in 1999 as a 12 month old "pup." Coco was a sort of mother figure to Precious. They were the best of mates - and inseparable - until Coco went to the Rainbow Bridge.
Coco is buried in our yard. We can see her grave from the kitchen window. I still go out and talk to her from time to time.
Michael
The squeaker ball
(dedicated to Coco 1994-2007)
I remember the day the end began.
Why do I feel I have to justify my part in what must happen? The blokes at the building site shake their heads because they can’t understand. We’ve been through so much together it feels like I’m betraying you.
There was a time when, in your own way, you looked after me. After my cancer diagnosis, before Michelle and the kids, in the weeks between each course of chemo, I was home with my thoughts and fears, sick and scared with only you for company.
Now it’s time for me to look after you.
*
‘Hey, Trev, ’ Darren yells. ‘Wakey, wakey.’
He’s standing by the wall we’re building, trowel in one hand, brick in the other. ‘What are you waiting for?’
I turn the hose on and squirt it over the mortar in the mixer.
‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘Nothing.’
The sha-KUNG of Ken’s nail gun cuts the air as he whacks a nail into another wooden beam. Wood that becomes a frame that becomes a house that becomes a home.
‘Well, mate,’ Darren yells. ‘Get a move on.’
*
In the morning I make you slices of toast. Together we sit in the quiet house while everyone sleeps. You groan as you gingerly lower your old bones onto your cushion, then rest, open eyed and quietly hopeful while I drink my coffee; waiting for the moment when I’ll rise and fetch your lead.
Michelle and the girls are up and dressed by the time we get back. They’re ready to leave to drop Lucy at childcare and Ella at before school care. Ella says good-bye and pats your head, your tail slapping against her legs.
‘You okay?’ Michelle asks.
I nod and say nothing.
*
Darren and I work in a steady rhythm. I keep the mortar up while he lays bricks. It’s heavy work and we’re fighting the weather. Grey clouds roll across the sky and we’re happy for the wind that keeps the rain up where it is.
*
I spread your blanket on the front passenger seat of the ute and for once you jump up without needing me to lift you, as if to challenge me to rethink the morning.
You sit beside me without making a sound. You who have chattered and yowled away with excitement on every road trip we’ve ever had, head out the window and tongue flapping in the wind, barking at the other cars and trucks along the drive. I touch your back with my hand and leave it there, feeling the bones of your spine and ribs beneath your skin. You look straight ahead, through the windscreen, as if you know what I’m thinking.
*
Slowly, walls rise from out of the mud. After twenty years it’s still a wonder. There’s a satisfaction in this that’s hard to describe. The creation of something that wasn’t there before. Ken moves through the inside, balancing on joists, whacking a nail in here and there. The roof is already on and there’s not much for him to do right now until we get these walls up. I don’t know why he’s hanging around this morning and not off on another job. Mario, the sparky, will be here on Thursday to do the wiring and Pete needs to come back and finish the plumbing before the floor can go in.
*
Your eyes are smoked over with cataracts but still you find your way around our yard, easily manoeuvring the obstacles mapped out in youth. Building sites are a different country, a strange and ever changing badlands in which you carefully measure each step, bumping into walls that weren’t there the day before. Falling between joists, running into concrete stumps. Giving the boys a laugh.
*
‘Hey Dream Boat,’ Darren yells. ‘Smoko. It’s your turn for the shop.’
*
I can no longer dwell in right or wrong. I blind myself to what is happening and force my head to empty itself. My hands hold the wheel and steer the ute along the road, working through each careful step of a process that keeps me in the now.
I remember the day the end began.
*
On the drive to the shop I force myself not to look at your body, wrapped in a blanket on the passenger seat. I pick up the usual order. Pies, pasties, sausage rolls and donuts, cartons of chocolate and strawberry milk and cans of Coke and a salad roll for Ken. It’s only after I’m back in the ute that I realise I’ve bought too much. There’s two extra sausage rolls in the box.
*
You were nine and you jumped down a twelve foot embankment at the front of a house we were building at Emerald. We were fetching the ball I’d thrown , your squeaker ball, the one Michelle bought you for Christmas, made of green plastic and decorated with a pattern of red and white candy canes. How the boys laughed as you walked around the site chewing that ball and making it squeak. You landed hard and I saw the way you winced and slowly walked back up the drive, dropping the ball at my feet. How guilty I felt.
Now there is no strength left in your hind legs; no muscle to talk of. The crests of your pelvis rise on either side of the range of peaks that is your spine. And then there’s the cataracts. You bite me at times and draw blood, not out of malice, but because you can’t see where your food ends and my hand begins.
*
We sit on a stack of floorboards, eating and watching the clouds roll over. I offer the extra sausage rolls to Darren and Ken.
*
The waiting room is empty but for you and me. While I sit on the bench, you whine and walk an arc at the end of your lead, sniffing at the floor and packets of dried cat food.
The nurse says the vet is running late but he’s on his way. You strain toward the glass front door.
Together we walk to the end of the drive, out to the nature strip where you sniff at the trees and shrubs that border the entrance. Across the road is the primary school. The first of the mothers drop their children off to before school care, moving in an out of the gate, not stopping because they have jobs to get to. The lollipop lady manning the nearby crossing looks at us then looks away. Children’s voices cross the road to us from the school yard.
Life.
You piss on the grass and together we walk back inside.
*
‘No Keely today?’ Ken says.
I shake my head.
He pulls the processed cheese out of his salad roll and tosses it to one side.
I stand and brush the pastry crumbs off my overalls and get back to mixing mortar.
*
I lift you onto the stainless steel table. You groan and whine, but wag your tail when the vet pats you. The needle rests on the edge of his desk. A 10ml syringe of lime cordial coloured fluid that reminds me of the long gone summers of my childhood. Even now we could turn around and go back home.
‘It’s taken me a long time to make the decision,’ I say.
‘It’s the right thing to do for her now.’ The vet’s voice is calm and soft.
I hold you in a standing position on the table with my arms around your torso, your neck nuzzled under my chin. The vet shaves your right hind leg to find a vein.
‘The muscle wastage on her legs is severe,’ he says.
I nod, trying to remain inside myself, detached from the process of your dying. I will hold you gently and love you until this thing is done.
*
We work through the afternoon. I throw myself into the mixing because it’s something I can do with what I’m feeling.
‘Steady on, Trev,’ Darren says. ‘Take a break.’
I stand and lean backward to counter the ache in my back, then wipe sweat off by forehead. The first sounds of thunder start to roIl toward us.
*
The vet nurse comes into the room with a cup of dried liver treats. You don’t even notice the needle as you wolf them down. I watch the green fluid slowly enter your vein. It doesn’t seem real until I feel the weight of you as your legs give way, the effect of the drug more sudden that I’d expected.
The nurse and I gently lower your body to the table and the vet checks for a heart beat with a stethoscope.
‘She’s gone.’
Suddenly Im crying, full tears, the sort I hadn’t shed since I was a kid.
‘She wouldn’t have felt a thing,’ the nurse says.
I can’t do anything but stroke your body and weep. I’d thought, foolishly, that this part of the process would be so straight forward, that making the actual decision had been the hard bit.
‘It’s always harder on us than it is on them,’ the nurse says. ‘She’s obviously been loved.’
My companion of fourteen years whom I’ve loved more than I could ever admit, even to myself. I nod and struggle to speak through my tears. ‘She is.’
Your tail curls slowly between your legs.
‘That’s just her muscles releasing,’ the vet says. She’ll twitch a bit for a few minutes, but she’s gone.’
He listens again with his stethoscope for what he’s already certain of.
We wrap you in a blanket and I lay you on the passenger seat. ‘I’m sorry, girl,’ is all I can say through my tears. ‘I’m so sorry. Forgive me.’
*
Suddenly the walls are up and it’s clean up time. The thunder has come and gone but there’s been no rain.
‘Why don’t you go home?’ Darren says. ‘I can finish up here.’
‘You sure?’
‘Sure,’ he says. ‘See you tomorrow.’
At home I remove the tarp covering the hole I dug on the weekend. I step into the hole and place you, still wrapped in your blanket, gently at the bottom and kiss your cheek before I cover your head again with the blanket.
I put some of your old bones in the grave and begin to cover you with the dirt I’ve kept dry under the tarp. The fine dirt springs back when it hits the blanket. Slowly and carefully I shovel it in, until your blanket disappears and eventually the grave is filled.
*
Before Michelle, before the cancer, before the kids, there was you. Where have you gone? In that moment just beyond life, that mystery that makes me so afraid, where did you go? It terrifies me to think that you no longer exist, that I may never see you again.
*
Michelle comes outside.
‘I found this behind the couch,’ she says and places your squeaker ball in my hand.
‘You okay?’
‘No,’ I shake my head and cry. ‘I’m not okay.’
She puts her arms around me and we stand there holding onto each other without saying anything.
I place the ball on your grave.
*
I thought I’d steeled myself against this. But that final moment of your journey beyond life overwhelms me with gratitude and grief. It makes a fool of me. How can I find words for this? How can I explain this even to myself? The loss of a love that was its own language, that overcame the boundaries that exist between kind and kind, between animal and man. To realise its depth only in that moment when you’d gone and I may never be with you again. To have known you and cared for you. To have loved and been loved by you. To take for granted the way you allowed yourself to live along side me for fourteen years. To never doubt that I would love you and feed you and give you shelter. To trust so strongly and believe so fully in me.
*
‘Good-bye, Keely. Good-bye, my friend.’