The Love of an Old Dog

The words said so carefully and precisely.

I was fighting my body to wake up on this New Years Day. I was heavy, my body tired from a late night, but in this moment, total comfort wrapped in pristine white  hotel sheets.

 I could sense that there was something not right, but I was too comfortable, didn’t want to acknowledge morning or open my eyes just a little. I could sense him moving around beside me, he was awake. He slid out of bed silently trying not to wake me and went to the bathroom. Something is off.

I waited for him to come back to bed, and I rolled over and put my arm out over his chest, willing him to go back to sleep. I felt and sensed his tenseness.

“Are you ok?’  I mumble, my eyes still closed. No response. I feel his tense body and his breathing chest. The no response is a response.

My eyes fly open, and I lift up on to my elbow looking at his solemn face. He is lying flat on the bed, swallowed up in a mountainous pillow.

He is staring at my me quietly. Still. Breathing.

“What, what is it?”  I barely whisper. I look to his eyes and face for the answer that is not coming. There is no noise, the world is weirdly silent. My heart is pounding in my chest.

“Jess is gone” he says to me, so carefully and precisely. “She didn’t wake up this morning.”

Words, realisation!

My whole heart exploded in my chest,  my brain snaps awake, and I blink. In that very second, I am trying to put together what I have just been told. He is talking, but I am not hearing. Deep from within my body I wail

“Noooooo…… Ohhh Jessie noooo” and I rollover onto my back, in total despair. Crying a thousand tears for this little dog that came into our life a short 18 months ago.  I hear more words in my shock

“I got a call from the Dog Hotel at 6.30am, they were doing their rounds they said little Jess went to sleep last night and she didn’t wake up this morning. They found her curled up with Ruby and the other little dog, I’m sorry – I have been awake not knowing how to tell you”. His voice so sad and quiet and heartbroken.

“No, not Jess, not Jess” I am inaudibly screaming. Choking words in my throat. My heart is just broken, unbelieving. He reaches over and holds my hand.

“I was supposed to be there, I promised her I would be there on her last day”, I sob from deep within my soul.

“I know, he says quietly. “But they said to me that this is not uncommon, and she chose to go on her terms so that you didn’t have to make the decision that she knew you could not make”, he turns to face me

“She was so happy, she was in her best place, she loved it there with all the smells and all the other dogs” he pauses to allow this information to sink into my understanding.

I lie there in the pristine white sheets of my sadness, trying to process the grief and heaviness and guilt that is doing somersaults in my head.

In the end I was not there like I promised her many times over the last 18 months. I would look into her wise dark eyes and tell her,

“I will be there with you it will be you and me” I would whisper to her and press my face into her black wool coat. And we would look at each other with a deep knowing that that day was coming.

“I can’t believe it “I say over and over staring at the ceiling of this strange room that is not my home.

“And we are not even home” I turn to look at him with eyes full of tears that can’t see anyway.

“I know” he whispers. Staring at the same strange ceiling.

“I didn’t get to say good-bye” I barely breathe.

“I know” he says quietly.

And there we laid next to each other for what felt like forever, crying in our sadness, recounting the life of this little dog Jess that came into our life for a short time, and forever changed us, a little rescue dog called Jess.

*****

“I found something – I sent it to you on text”, I say casually just like I am talking about buying a toaster, looking back at the ad full well knowing that this is not a discussion. I was sold on her the minute I looked at her face.  I sit and read the ad again, waiting for him to read what I had sent to him.

“We already have a dog?” he looks over to me from the kitchen. “And a cat”.

“I know,” I say

“But look at her” I say without lifting my eyes from her photo.

“I am, she doesn’t look very good, she is old” he continues on putting away dishes in the kitchen.

He is right, she is old she is a 13-year-old poodle, with the worst groom she looked like a patch work quilt in the photo, to be honest she was an absolute mess. But her eyes. She had me.

“I’m going to contact the owner about her” I say after a minute or so looking in his direction.

He stares at me, with that look of, what the hell is she doing now.

I contact the lady on the ad and we communicate back and forth, someone has contacted her telling her they want to come and get this little dog and use her for crab bait. The human race never ceases to amaze me. It sealed the deal and we had arranged a pickup time to come collect Jess in the morning.

We were apprehensive driving over to collect Jess, buying a dog sight unseen, could this be a huge mistake...probably.

We pull up outside the house and I walk up the 3 stairs. The lady I contacted walks out to greet me and we sit on the couch on the veranda, where I had to bargain for room from her resident greyhound. We chat for few minutes and agree that Jess would be going to a good home and then on que out waddles this sad, depressed horrendously groomed little dog. She waddles with an old lady gait with her head down and is wandering over to the water bowl.

“Oh, this is Jess” she says. “Sorry, she looks terrible at the moment, I tried to groom her”

I heard nothing she said after that, I wanted this little dog. I walked over to her and patted her head. She lifted up her little poodle face and we both fell in love. She was worse than the photo, her skin was white and flaking in the worst dandruff you could imagine. She was a dog lamington, she had short hair here, and long hair matted hair there

And her smell. The smell was the worst mix of rotten teeth and rotting skin. But her eyes, her little eye’s shone, bright and clear. And we connected in that very moment.

Scooping her up we said our goodbyes and got in the car.

“She going to live?” he questions looking at my face, totally appalled at her appearance and smell.

“I don’t know”, I say with sadness “I couldn’t leave her there though”

Then astonishingly, with each passing kilometre home this little black dog started to come to life. Could she herself even believe that she was headed for a new home and a new start. Maybe she knew.

We were nervous getting her home. How would she be? Would our resident dog be ok with her? How was all this going to go. She was so tiny and so skinny. I really didn’t know if she would last a week. But I made a promise to her there and then, if you are her a week a month, a year, I will be here with you until you last day Jessie-girl, whatever it is, it’s you and me now.

We put her down on the ground in our patio area to tentatively start the introduction of Jess and Ruby. A sniff here and there and, in a moment, Jess is accepted!

Lifting her head she proceeds to waddle her old lady waddle around the house with the biggest little dog smile you have ever seen. In that moment she claimed us all as her own and her happiness evident in her dog smile and bright brown eyes.

She waddled around smelling everything, investigating all that there was to investigate in this new home of hers, moving around in this funny bounce style trot that she had. Ears flopping bouncing from side to side, her trademark move that over the year endeared her to everyone she met.

First order of business was a visit to our vet. We braced ourselves for bad news, in a very short week, we had all become very attached to each other. She slotted right into our little family like your favourite slippers. We both commented it was like she had always been there.

The bad news we were waiting for from the vet did not eventuate. Her heart is good, no heartworm and for her age she is pretty good. Her teeth were terrible and needed dentistry work – stat. Her little off beat funny gait that made her the goofball we adored was arthritis. Her little bones were quite seized so we started medication for this to try and help with the pain she must be feeling.

Over the next 6 months, we took care of her dentistry work, started her on arthritis medication and had her coat groomed and medicated to see if we could bring back this little old lady's beautiful black woolly coat. And it did!

And didn’t she thrive.

Her little black coat came back, and she resembled a little black sheep with a grey beard. She filled out, her skin was perfect and she above all else was as happy as she could possibly be.

Her little brown wise eyes shone with love and affection, she would play as much as she could with her arthritic bones, and she would eagerly tell us when it was walk time in the late afternoons. A resounding bark that was so big and loud, she would belt out one or two, and that was it, always surprised us from this funny old lady. She brought so much happiness to us, she was the total package, funny and forever the comedian in our house. We treasured her.

Another glorious 6 months had gone by, and we noticed that her arthritis was worse, she was still her happy self, but her movements slow and it was getting hard for her to get up. We visited the vet many times over the next few months trying different medications, sadly nothing really gave her any long-time relief, her walks were becoming shorter now. Her sleeps getting longer now.

At night she would sleep by my side on the couch, this little woolly lamb, happy and content snoring next to her favourite humans and the dog Ruby that she ignored most of the time, but still accepted as her own. This woolly old lady that slid right into our home and hearts. I would stare at her and just smile at her goofiness, and very much surprised at how much we loved this little dog.

We started to see our little old lady becoming frailer, she was on more medication now to help her live a happy and comfortable life. I would sit and cuddle her and tell her how much I loved her and that I knew her time would come soon, and to let me know when she was ready. She would stare at me, the knowing we had, one old lady to another.

I can still feel her woolly coat, see her funny gait waddling down the hallway, and her one loud bark on occasion she would sound off. This sassy little old lady that she was.

And here we are now on the other side of loving this little black dog, this little dog that changed our lives forever. In the despair of missing her every day, I am forever grateful that the universe sent this little woolly gift to us to love and cherish in her last days.

*****

Lying in the white sheets of a foreign hotel room remembering this little black ball of fluff that shared her life with us.

We smile in the grief and the sadness. The shock of loosing this little old lady. We laid there replaying our memories. The time we had with her will never be lost, they are embedded in our heart and soul, this little soul dog that found us.

Adopted us.

And just loved us.

We should all approach life as Jess did, embrace every day, walk like you own it, and bring love to all those you meet along the way. 

And lastly, the oldest dogs are sometimes the biggest surprise. Don’t give up on the old dogs, they have the biggest love to give.