The Dog With Nine Lives (5 page)

Another battle!

I
N
M
AY, 2007
, S
ANDRA
and Colin came to stay with us for the weekend. They'd lost their old black Labrador, Jet, the year before and they'd just got a new puppy. She was a boxer called Indy and they brought her down to show us.

Indy got on well with all our dogs and we spent the weekend going for long walks in the forest and eating out at pubs that let dogs in. Every time we called Indy, Lindy came and vice versa!

On the Saturday night I noticed that Lindy didn't eat very much of her dinner. She'd seemed a bit quiet all day, but I wasn't unduly worried. She didn't have a big appetite at the best of times and I suspected that her nose had been put out of joint by the puppy. I should have known better. Lindy got on really well with everyone, whether they were canine or human.

We headed off for a walk on Sunday morning and Lindy wasn't all that keen to come with us. Alarm bells had started to ring, but I still thought that the problem was the new puppy.

‘You don't think she's ill, do you?' Sandra asked as we walked along the shady forest paths with Lindy idling along behind us.

I shook my head. ‘Maybe – but I don't think so. If she's still off her food tomorrow I'll take her to the vet's.'

Later that afternoon, Sandra and Colin said their goodbyes and set off for home and I gave Lindy her dinner. Again she picked at it and I decided to take her to the vets the following morning.

But on Monday when I came downstairs Lindy got out of her basket and then collapsed at my feet. Horrified, I shouted for Tony and phoned the vet.

‘We can see her at 10.15 a.m.' the receptionist said.

‘I need to bring her now,' I gasped. ‘I think she's dying.' I could hardly say the words. I felt terrible. Why on earth hadn't I realised she was ill? Why had I made stupid assumptions about her being jealous? The guilt bit deep.

Lindy couldn't walk. She couldn't even stand up. Tony carried her out to the car and we raced down to the vet's.

My little dog still managed a wag as we lifted her onto the table for Kate, our vet, who is one of the nicest people I know.

‘I'm afraid this looks serious,' Kate told us, having examined Lindy carefully. ‘I need to wait for the blood test results to be sure, but I suspect she has something called haemolytic anaemia.'

Tony and I looked at her blankly.

‘It is an auto-immune condition,' she explained. ‘The white blood cells attack the red blood cells resulting in severe anaemia.' Kate lifted up Lindy's lip and showed us her gums.

‘Look how pale she is. Her gums should be a healthy pink.'

I nodded. I'd thought I'd known a lot about dogs but I hadn't known this simple check.

‘There are a number of causes,' Kate went on. ‘Sometimes it's sparked by an inoculation, but often we never find out why it's happened.'

‘Will she be OK?' There was a huge ache in my throat and I was trying not to cry. I had a feeling I already knew the answer.

‘I have to tell you that the prognosis is poor,' she said, her eyes compassionate. ‘We will start treating her straight away. I won't wait for the blood tests. I'm pretty sure she has this disease. I have actually seen four dogs with it recently.'

‘What happened to the other dogs?' Tony asked. ‘I'm afraid they all died. But that doesn't mean Lindy will die.' She stroked our dog's head and she got another sad little wag in response. ‘She is a little fighter, aren't you, my love.'

For the next few days Lindy's life hung in the balance. She was on a drip, being given steroids and fluids intravenously, but she wouldn't eat anything. It was as though she was fading before our eyes.

The animal hospital was a room lined with sturdy metal kennels, each with its own bedding and bowl of water. It was where animals recuperated after operations and where the very ill ones were kept under close observation. Lindy was the only occupant at that time, although she had plenty of company. The vet nurses knew her well and loved her, and either Tony or I went in to see her daily. We took her in treats to tempt her: fresh-cooked chicken and bits of beef or steak. I hand fed her like I'd done on the beach six years earlier. She ate very little – she wasn't touching the food the vet nurses gave her either. Although she still managed to wag her tail.

On the Friday evening Kate called me on the phone. ‘I think you should come in and see Lindy.' Her voice was grave. ‘She is quite weak and she is not responding to treatment.'

Although she didn't say it I knew what she was telling me. My beautiful little dog had all but given up the battle. I would be going in to say my goodbyes.

I took chicken as I always did, but this time Lindy didn't even raise her head to sniff it. She just lay on her side although she had managed a weak little wag when she saw me. I couldn't help myself. I kneeled in her kennel and I cried my heart out, my tears falling onto her soft coat.

I thought of her as I'd first seen her, running on the beach, I thought of all the things she'd survived in her life: fending for herself and her pups on the beach; the stampeding cows; the river; the cancer; the night in the forest.

Was this it? Had she had her last life? Was it all to end here in this sterile little kennel? I didn't want to cry. I knew she would know I was upset but I couldn't' seem to stop. For a long while I sat and stroked her, still on my knees, her head in my lap, remembering.

But I couldn't stay there for ever. Eventually I laid Lindy's head back gently on the blanket and I got stiffly to my feet. I still had the roast chicken in my hand too. Lindy had refused it.

And then, just as I got up Lindy lifted her head and sniffed the air. I hesitated. It was as if she was saying,
Hang on a sec – maybe I could just manage a piece of chicken, after all.

I went back to her side and held a piece out and she ate it. She didn't eat much, but it was a start. Suddenly I knew she had turned a corner. She had been very close to death, but she was still fighting. My little dog hadn't quite used up her stock of nine lives.

I was right. From that day on, Lindy began to improve. She started to eat again and she grew stronger. Bit by bit she fought her way back to health. A week later we took her home. She was on steroids for months and months. It was not an easy battle. The steroids made her thirsty and hungry and she put on masses of weight. We weaned her off the steroids very slowly, but every time we stopped them completely she started to go downhill again.

Slowly, slowly she recovered, and eventually she was free of steroids. She had beaten haemolytic anaemia, at least for now. Kate told us it could recur any time. She showed me how to check Lindy's gums to make sure they were the right colour; a healthy pink. She also told us that since Lindy had recovered, she had diagnosed another two dogs with the same disease.

‘Were they OK?' I asked, even though, once again, I had a feeling I already knew the answer.

‘No, they were not. Both of them subsequently died.'

I knew we were incredibly lucky that Lindy had survived. She also seemed none the worse for the experience. She still loved her walks. She still loved to chase things, although she was calming down a little bit as she grew older and she tended to spend more of her time finding dead things and eating them if she could get away with it. She frequently found bones when we were out. If ever she didn't come back when we called it was usually because she'd made some exciting new discovery.

We estimated that she must be about ten or eleven. Her muzzle was now quite grey – but life was good again.

Even though occasionally I realised she was living on borrowed time, I tried not to let it interfere with our enjoyment of now. When I'd first made the decision to bring Lindy back from Rhodes to live with us in England I'd predicted that she would bring a great deal of joy into our lives. And she had. I hoped we would have her for a few years longer.

I'm sure I shut the door

A
LTHOUGH WE'D NOW MOVED
to a village and there were lots of footpaths around us, it wasn't the best place to walk dogs because most of the footpaths ran across fields containing livestock.

Knowing Lindy's penchant for chasing things it was simpler to walk her elsewhere. So I tended to put all the dogs in the car and drive them out to Wareham Forest which wasn't too far from us.

Lindy now seemed to be fully recovered from the haemolytic anaemia. She was finally off steroids, she'd lost her excess weight and was enjoying her walks again. Even so, I was forever checking her gums. If she seemed quiet or if she lost her appetite I would worry.

If she got the slightest lump or bump I would worry too and would race her down the vets to get her checked out. Surprisingly she loved going to the vet's and they loved her.

After the haemolytic anaemia I'd had to take her for endless check-ups, most of which involved a blood test. By rights she should have hated going to the vet's and having needles stuck in her, but she didn't. When we sat in the waiting room the silence would be punctuated by the thump thump, thump of her tail against the tiled floor.

But all seemed well. I began to hope again. We were going to have her for a while longer.

One morning when I was driving back from Wareham Forest, having just been out for my walk with the dogs and no doubt dreaming of something else, I glanced in my rear view mirror and saw a dog standing in the road. I was on the A31, which is notoriously busy.

In the next heartbeat I realised that it wasn't just any dog. It was Lindy. And then I realised that my hatchback had flown open. The other dogs were still in the car – they obviously hadn't been sitting too close to the door, but Lindy had a habit of leaning against it.

Horrified, I pulled over to the side of the road and ran round to the back of the car. I was anxious to get Lindy out of the road, but I had to close the hatchback pronto, or I'd have had more dogs roaming around the busy road.

Fortunately the car behind me had also stopped and there wasn't a huge amount of traffic around at that time in the morning. The driver, a man, was heading towards Lindy, who just stood there quite patiently, albeit a bit bemused, as though she knew someone would soon be along to rescue her.

The man grabbed hold of Lindy's collar and led her to the side of the road where I gratefully checked her over. She was fine – none the worse for her experience. Luckily I hadn't been driving too fast, but it could have been a very different story.

I was shaking a little from shock and the man was not impressed at all. It must have been a shock for him too seeing a dog fly out of the car in front of him. He obviously thought I hadn't shut the door properly. And I thought that too until later when I got home and Tony checked the catch.

‘It's broken,' he said. ‘It wasn't your fault, love; don't beat yourself up about it.' Tony is the kind of person who'd have said that even if it wasn't true just to make me feel better.

But as it happened he was right. My faithful old Toyota had done over a hundred thousand miles. Its bodywork was pretty battle-scarred and its front passenger seat had all but disintegrated.

That had been Lindy's work too, as it happened. She liked her home comforts and she also liked to make a dip in things if she was lying on them. To this end she had chewed a hole in the passenger seat, pulled out most of the stuffing and made herself a nice comfy dip in the middle of the seat.

I didn't bother to get the lock repaired. Six years after I had first planned to change my car, I took the Toyota off to the great scrap yard in the sky. I was quite sad to see it go, but we replaced it with a newer estate car – one of the first things I did was to have a dog guard fitted so that Lindy wouldn't be able to wreck the seats. She was most disappointed.

It was also the kind of car which had a light come up on the dashboard to alert you if a door wasn't properly closed. That was a big comfort to me. Never again would I be able to drive off with a door still open.

In 2007 Tony and I finally decided it was time to let Jess, our collie cross go. She was 16 years old, not a bad age for a dog, and for the last year or so of her life, she had been incontinent. We had tried numerous remedies from the vet's but I don't think it was a physical problem.

I think she had lost the plot. Jess had always been a very clean dog, she wouldn't dream of wetting in the house unless she was desperate, but now quite often she would wee on the kitchen floor – even if the back door was open and she could easily have strolled another couple of feet.

She would look at me quite happily as she squatted, as though she thought it was perfectly acceptable and I realised that she didn't know where she was. Because of this, and because I knew she wasn't mortified about her inappropriate wetting – on the contrary, she didn't know she was doing it – I saw no reason to have her put to sleep.

She still had a good quality of life. She still enjoyed her food and her walks. I invested in an indoor kennel which had a plastic base, and which was where she slept at night. Every night she wet her bed and every morning I washed her bedding and dried it ready for the following night.

This was time-consuming, but it was not a big chore, I decided, for a dog who had been a loyal and faithful companion for nearly half my life. The downside, of course, was that I knew Jess wasn't going to get better. Slowly, slowly, she started to get wobbly on her legs and slowly, slowly her life began to close in.

In my heart I wished often that I would come down one morning and find that she'd died in her sleep. I knew it was cowardice because I didn't want to make the final decision. It had broken my heart having Katie put to sleep, even though she'd been terribly distressed, and suffering an incurable disease and it had been the only kind way.

But of course I knew we couldn't let Jess linger on once her quality of life had gone. We discussed it with Kate each time we took her in for a checkup. It's always hard to judge when the right time is.

But one morning Tony and I decided it was time. Jess no longer enjoyed her walks. She was too wobbly on her feet and once or twice lately I'd had to help her get up. I knew I couldn't wait any longer.

Tony and I took her for her last walk. It was a beautiful sunny day and we picked a little-used forest walk. Tony lifted her out of the car and set her down on the path. She didn't go very far, just sniffed around a bit where she could smell other dogs had been. I was doing my best not to cry – I didn't want Jess to pick up on my sadness – but it was difficult. My throat was raw with the effort of swallowing tears.

And then we drove to the vets. I waited outside in the car with Jess while Tony went in and told them I'd stay there until they were ready. I couldn't have sat in the waiting room, listening to the chatter of the other owners who would no doubt be bringing along puppies for their vaccinations and cats to have their teeth cleaned and chatting happily about their animals in the way people do in vet's waiting rooms.

Once again, Kate was wonderful. She let us spend a long time in her consulting room. We talked about Jess and how she had been and what a wonderful life she had had – she'd been a rescue dog too from a tiny little animal sanctuary in Dorset. I'd had her since she was seven months old.

And then finally Kate administered the anaesthetic and Jess slipped away from us as we held her. I knew it was the right thing to do but another little piece of my heart broke.

I once read somewhere that the difference between a person you love and a dog you love is that a person has the capacity to break your heart many times, but a dog will only ever do it once.

How true that saying is.