Devaclis
Tue Jul 14th, 2009, 03:35 PM
You won't. Not if you have a heart
Saying Good-By To An Old Friend (http://willemlange.com/Yankee_Notebook/1397.html)
Saying Good-By To An Old Friend
EAST MONTPELIER
I guess I figured that if I didn’t build it, she’d never die. And I always thought we’d go off into the sunset together, side by side. They were nocturnal fantasies, doomed to wither in the noonday sun of reality. It’s amazing to me how our minds sometimes can operate in defiance of unpleasant truths and never more so than when faced with the prospect of a death.
She came to me and Mother on Thanksgiving weekend of 1991 in the arms of our younger daughter, who’d rescued her from an abused infancy in a college fraternity house. I didn’t want her, or any dog. To me, dogs were simply bundles of appetites on four feet; whichever appetite was uppermost at the moment was the one they pursued. She was saved by the desperateness of her homeless situation, by Mother’s reflexive maternal instinct, and by her eyes. They were the first thing I noticed, and they looked up at me as if to say, “Please don’t let him hurt me!”
I don’t think I ever did. There was in those eyes both an obvious desire to be pleasing to the two dominant members of her new pack, and what an old hymn calls “the light of science.” God, she was bright! Mother carried her for a month in a frontside baby harness and spoke softly to her whenever a loud noise or a sudden movement made her cringe. I slapped the side of my leg and said, “Come on!” when I went down for the paper or out back into the woods for a walk. Very soon, Mother became the one to be with, and I the one to do with.
It came to me one day there were sheep dogs in her ancestry, and that they respond to hand signals far off. So once she’d learned up close to sit down when I pointed at the ground, I tried it from a hundred yards away, and it worked! She learned to heel in just a few minutes, without words, just an index finger pointed at my left foot while I walked. I tried dropping something as I tramped through the woods a glove or my tuque stopping after a few seconds, looking around, and patting my pockets. I don’t know how she knew, but right away she took my back track and returned with whatever it was. I did it once with my wallet. Only once, because she often gave the retrieved object a vigorous shake. I had credit cards and licenses scattered all through the snow.
Mother put her skills to more domestic uses, and taught her to take the bank deposit into the bank, jump up onto the chair, and wait to be served. It was harder to train the poor tellers than the dog. On signal, she retrieved Mother’s glasses and, in recent years, her cell phone.
When my truck rumbled up the driveway after work, she ran into the yard, tail waving, barking at the driver’s side door. I opened it very slowly, threateningly, stepped out, and went into my Quasimodo routine, while she danced around just out of reach. As soon as I straightened up, her head nestled against my knee. I’d give anything to have that moment just once more.
She could sense our anxiety, always knew when discretion had to outweigh enthusiasm (as when in hotels), and didn’t need a leash. She and I had to cross the grand drawing room and lounge of the Manoir Richelieu in Québec one evening. “Now,” I said, pointing at my foot. “Right there. Let’s go.” We walked past the guests and waiters as if we were glued together.
Over time, she gradually lost her high leaps. The vet dosed her arthritis and thyroid deficiency, and bought us a couple of years. Then, about a year ago, as she seemed to be losing interest, Maggie moved in: a big, pushy, clueless, sweet chocolate Lab with inoperable cancer. I think they revived each other. But suddenly one day a few weeks ago, Maggie’s cancer grabbed her, and the next day she left us. That night the old girl walked around the house for hours looking for her, and the next day she started to go down. Her kidneys were failing. She stood looking into corners, and fell when she went into the yard. She was soiling herself, and finally didn’t even seem to be embarrassed. It was time to build the box. She was leaving whether I did it or not.
Ghoullike, I measured her as she slept: 22 by 32 by 8. I carried her out to my truck, and we drove together to the lumber yard to get some lovely clear pine. I’ve built a lot of boxes in over four decades as a carpenter, but that was the best I’ve ever made. I placed an interesting-looking knotty pattern inside, right where she could look at it for as many years as she has to wait for us. Every so often (as right now) a wave of I-can’t-do-this clouded my eyes and grabbed my throat.
Todd came and worried a hole down through almost impenetrable soil in the front yard. The vet showed up. We took some last pictures. Our daughter arrived, red-eyed and resigned.
A sedative shot she jerked awake as she felt it and then she fell asleep. The vet carried her to the edge of the hole, and we laid her on a favorite mat on top of the box lid. Rubber band, courtesy of the United States Postal Service, around her leg to raise a vein. A few snips with scissors to cut away the long hair. “Now, she may lift her head when the chemical reaches her brain, and she may vocalize” Oh, God, no! I thought “but she isn’t feeling a thing.” And finally the lethal needle, into a little creature who’d never in her life hurt anything.
Her breathing stopped. Her heart stopped. We put her into the box, facing the house, with a few toys, her plastic bowl, and Maggie’s ashes in an urn between her feet. I nailed the box shut, clumsily bending over one finish nail (Damn! Nothing I do is ever perfect.), and we covered her up. We’ll never forget her. She gave Mother another child, coaxed me irresistibly into the human race, and left me with a mantra I’ll always cherish: Try to be the person your dog thinks you are.
Saying Good-By To An Old Friend (http://willemlange.com/Yankee_Notebook/1397.html)
Saying Good-By To An Old Friend
EAST MONTPELIER
I guess I figured that if I didn’t build it, she’d never die. And I always thought we’d go off into the sunset together, side by side. They were nocturnal fantasies, doomed to wither in the noonday sun of reality. It’s amazing to me how our minds sometimes can operate in defiance of unpleasant truths and never more so than when faced with the prospect of a death.
She came to me and Mother on Thanksgiving weekend of 1991 in the arms of our younger daughter, who’d rescued her from an abused infancy in a college fraternity house. I didn’t want her, or any dog. To me, dogs were simply bundles of appetites on four feet; whichever appetite was uppermost at the moment was the one they pursued. She was saved by the desperateness of her homeless situation, by Mother’s reflexive maternal instinct, and by her eyes. They were the first thing I noticed, and they looked up at me as if to say, “Please don’t let him hurt me!”
I don’t think I ever did. There was in those eyes both an obvious desire to be pleasing to the two dominant members of her new pack, and what an old hymn calls “the light of science.” God, she was bright! Mother carried her for a month in a frontside baby harness and spoke softly to her whenever a loud noise or a sudden movement made her cringe. I slapped the side of my leg and said, “Come on!” when I went down for the paper or out back into the woods for a walk. Very soon, Mother became the one to be with, and I the one to do with.
It came to me one day there were sheep dogs in her ancestry, and that they respond to hand signals far off. So once she’d learned up close to sit down when I pointed at the ground, I tried it from a hundred yards away, and it worked! She learned to heel in just a few minutes, without words, just an index finger pointed at my left foot while I walked. I tried dropping something as I tramped through the woods a glove or my tuque stopping after a few seconds, looking around, and patting my pockets. I don’t know how she knew, but right away she took my back track and returned with whatever it was. I did it once with my wallet. Only once, because she often gave the retrieved object a vigorous shake. I had credit cards and licenses scattered all through the snow.
Mother put her skills to more domestic uses, and taught her to take the bank deposit into the bank, jump up onto the chair, and wait to be served. It was harder to train the poor tellers than the dog. On signal, she retrieved Mother’s glasses and, in recent years, her cell phone.
When my truck rumbled up the driveway after work, she ran into the yard, tail waving, barking at the driver’s side door. I opened it very slowly, threateningly, stepped out, and went into my Quasimodo routine, while she danced around just out of reach. As soon as I straightened up, her head nestled against my knee. I’d give anything to have that moment just once more.
She could sense our anxiety, always knew when discretion had to outweigh enthusiasm (as when in hotels), and didn’t need a leash. She and I had to cross the grand drawing room and lounge of the Manoir Richelieu in Québec one evening. “Now,” I said, pointing at my foot. “Right there. Let’s go.” We walked past the guests and waiters as if we were glued together.
Over time, she gradually lost her high leaps. The vet dosed her arthritis and thyroid deficiency, and bought us a couple of years. Then, about a year ago, as she seemed to be losing interest, Maggie moved in: a big, pushy, clueless, sweet chocolate Lab with inoperable cancer. I think they revived each other. But suddenly one day a few weeks ago, Maggie’s cancer grabbed her, and the next day she left us. That night the old girl walked around the house for hours looking for her, and the next day she started to go down. Her kidneys were failing. She stood looking into corners, and fell when she went into the yard. She was soiling herself, and finally didn’t even seem to be embarrassed. It was time to build the box. She was leaving whether I did it or not.
Ghoullike, I measured her as she slept: 22 by 32 by 8. I carried her out to my truck, and we drove together to the lumber yard to get some lovely clear pine. I’ve built a lot of boxes in over four decades as a carpenter, but that was the best I’ve ever made. I placed an interesting-looking knotty pattern inside, right where she could look at it for as many years as she has to wait for us. Every so often (as right now) a wave of I-can’t-do-this clouded my eyes and grabbed my throat.
Todd came and worried a hole down through almost impenetrable soil in the front yard. The vet showed up. We took some last pictures. Our daughter arrived, red-eyed and resigned.
A sedative shot she jerked awake as she felt it and then she fell asleep. The vet carried her to the edge of the hole, and we laid her on a favorite mat on top of the box lid. Rubber band, courtesy of the United States Postal Service, around her leg to raise a vein. A few snips with scissors to cut away the long hair. “Now, she may lift her head when the chemical reaches her brain, and she may vocalize” Oh, God, no! I thought “but she isn’t feeling a thing.” And finally the lethal needle, into a little creature who’d never in her life hurt anything.
Her breathing stopped. Her heart stopped. We put her into the box, facing the house, with a few toys, her plastic bowl, and Maggie’s ashes in an urn between her feet. I nailed the box shut, clumsily bending over one finish nail (Damn! Nothing I do is ever perfect.), and we covered her up. We’ll never forget her. She gave Mother another child, coaxed me irresistibly into the human race, and left me with a mantra I’ll always cherish: Try to be the person your dog thinks you are.