One of my dogs was poorly a couple of weeks ago. With it came the stark realisation that my two dogs have played an integral part in my recovery from J’s suicide.
It started with an ingested piece of dried grass, stuck in my dog’s throat. It’s been so dry recently, the vet said they’ve seen three to four times as many grass-seed cases as normal. Larry was snorting and coughing and eventually me and the boys took him to the emergency vet. The next day he was no better so back we went. This time they sedated him and extracted the piece of grass. The vet showed it to me afterwards: it was the size of a bristle from an old-style toothbrush.
We thought that was that, but then he started having stomach problems – a reaction to the sedation or the anti-inflammatory medication. He was up multiple times in the night wanting to go out, and eventually there was blood. He continued deteriorating so we went for several follow-up visits to the vet.
This is where it inevitably links back to bereavement. He’s a small 7kg dog and I started to panic that he wasn’t going to recover. Could I cope with another loss? And not just any loss, but the loss of J’s dog? He’s been by my side through my grief for both J and then my mum, and has been a constant for the boys’ recovery. A source of laughter, affection, often frustration, but always an integral part of their home here with me. How would I tell them? I realised that while I can hand on heart say that I am happy and thriving, my life continues to precariously balance on a cliff-edge. I can all too-easily be toppled off.
Between my two dogs I can probably tick off the full spectrum of behavioural issues you wouldn’t want your dogs to have.* Opti (short for Optimus, as – let’s face it – who wants to be yelling “Oooooptimus!” across the fields) is a donkey-sized lurcher. Indoors he’s a chilled wannabe-lapdog. Outside, he has high prey drive (no surprise), selective-hearing and is very reactive to other dogs. This winning combo means I can only let him off the lead in quiet, open spaces where there are no other dogs. And in these spaces there is – you guessed it – plenty of prey for him to chase.** I regularly get heart palpitations, pointlessly blowing on the whistle while panicking that he won’t come back.
Larry is a diminutive Schnauzer/Westie cross who has ‘little dog syndrome.’ I have never had a small dog before, and while his portability is useful the yapping is not. He yaps if Opti’s food bowl is empty, even when I explain that Opti has had his allocation for the day. More yapping if I put my gardening crocs on, or pick up/put down the house keys. Or if I come down the stairs, or exit from the back door to take the recycling out. My watch regularly tells me that noise levels are too high and I will damage my hearing. Oh I know, watch, I know, but you tell me how to stop him?
Outside on his walks the yapping continues. He yaps the second we leave the front door, and as we walk down the road. In the summer if we walk early in the morning, I carry him down the first stretch of road so as not to wake the neighbours.
Unlike his giant idiot brother, Larry likes other dogs, but he is also possessive of both myself and Opti. If I pet another dog, Larry attacks it. Opti will tolerate a select few dogs in the village, but if he as much as looks at one of these dog VIPs, Larry immediately catapults himself at them. He is telling them, in no uncertain terms, that he is Opti’s one and only BFF.
Larry was J’s dog, we got him because we both naively thought it would help with J’s mental health. Having a small puppy to care for would mean he wasn’t focusing as much on himself. I think it may be similar to struggling couples who have a baby to ‘mend’ their deteriorating relationship. J adored Larry, but of course it wasn’t enough.
In the early days after J’s death the dogs saved me. In the first few days my lovely neighbours and my mum walked them for me, but after that I had to pull myself together. Walking them forced me out of the house every single day, even when it was the last thing I wanted. It’s never sociable – Opti’s reactivity makes sure of that – but I didn’t want to be sociable anyway. Trudging around the fields on auto-pilot is where I did my ugly-crying, with only the birds and insects to witness it.
Now, more than three years on from J’s suicide, I feel restless. Living in a rural location is lovely, but it is also isolating. For a lot of people walking their dogs is a way to meet new people. For me it’s the opposite, for all the reasons listed above. I’ve got friends I don’t see very often, dotted around the country. I am itching to go and visit them, to be spontaneous, to spread my wings a little. The boys are old enough now to happily come with me or stay at their dad’s, where the Xbox lives. But the dogs complicate things. I have to find someone with no other dogs to take them, or someone willing to stay at the house. I am disorganised and these sitters are in high demand, they are often booked up in advance by more ‘with-it’ pet owners.
Larry has made a full recovery from his grass-related incident. As I write this he is perfectly curled up on my lap, his little head resting against my knee. Opti is sprawled across the rest of the sofa leaning into me, his back snugly lined up against my leg.
What am I saying here anyway, would I give up the dogs? Absolutely not! But if I could turn back time (thanks, Cher) and foresee my current circumstances, would the dogs be here? I’m going to be honest: I don’t know, but probably not. Maybe I would delay it until I am ready to settle down in one place. When the restlessness is satisfied and the urge to travel the world has subsided.
In the initial chaos of my recovery, I couldn’t imagine I would ever feel ready to explore again. To travel, visit, socialise and go on adventures. Yet three years on, here I am. And my two lovely dogs are right here beside me.
*For the avoidance of doubt, while it amuses me greatly to bemoan my dogs’ shortcomings, I am fully aware that their behavioural issues are mostly my fault. I say ‘mostly’ because I didn’t ask for Opt to be bitten and then attacked on two further occasions, but my subsequent anxiety certainly didn’t help him recover.
**He never kills, just enjoys the chase. It goes without saying, if I see any animals I don’t let him off, but of course I don’t always see them.
Leave a Reply