Unlucky 13

My wife Linda and I stretched out on the floor, our dog Brady between us,  in a  treatment room of the emergency veterinary hospital last weekend. I stroked his head, his useless back legs splayed behind him. 

I started to get up. “I think he’d want you to stay,” Linda said. I shook my head. 

How the hell can I know what he wants? How can he know the difference between last week’s visit to the vet and this one-way trip? Besides, Brady was the most inscrutable of our dogs.

Linda had made the arrangements with the hospital while I slept in that Sunday. We both knew it was inevitable, probably overdue. But I  made it clear I didn’t want to witness the final act this time.

I went downstairs to begin my morning routine. Linda appeared a short time later. “I’ll take him alone,” she offered.

“No, that’s okay” I said, “I’ll carry him into the car and into the hospital. But I’m not staying.”

Linda had gone alone when we put down Yaz (1978 – 1991), our first dog, a black standard poodle. Mercy killings were/are beyond my ken.

Our second black standard poodle, Jasper (1991 – 2004), was the best dog in the history of dogs. He too was thirteen when his infirmities became insufferable for all concerned. I hugged him until the end. And broke down for the second time ever – the first was when our son died – as soon as we left the vet.

Brady, a white standard poodle, was four months old when we got him as a Christmas surprise in 2010. 

He was never easy – always skittish, an irrepressible nuisance when the kids and grandkids were around. But when Brady and I were alone, he was a wonderful companion. Crazy dog, crazy old man. Love.

For months after he turned unlucky 13 last summer, I was amazed at his vitality.  He was still chasing our grandson around the house and tearing up and down the stairs. (Yaz and Jasper had a slow but steady decline over years.)

Linda traces the beginning of the end for Brady to around Valentine’s Day. After that, it was fast. A trip to the vet proved a waste of time and money. 

Brady could barely walk. I had to carry him up the stairs in our three-storey house and fed him by hand when he could no longer stand at his dish. He cried out, helpless, whenever his humans were out of sight. 

He required attention around the clock. The drugs we got from the vet to make him comfortable didn’t.

There’s no way of knowing whether it was too much for him, but it became too much for us. It’s not as though a dog initiates and consents to assisted suicide. It never seems to be the right time. 

Crouched down beside him on the death room floor, I kissed his head, said goodbye and left, went outside in the cold afternoon sunshine and paced around the parking lot. Linda eventually emerged, $400 lighter, in tears. We hugged and went home.

Now, I keep walking into rooms, looking for him. When I came downstairs the other day, and Linda wasn’t there, I figured, for a moment, she was out walking Brady.

When Linda gathered all of his things and left some on a kitchen counter, I asked her to put them out of sight. “I don’t want to be reminded of him.”

Later, as I transported a tub of dog food and other pet supplies to our daughter’s house, I thought: Do I really want to erase all traces of him?  

Linda swears we’ll never get another dog. She’s not wrong. Old man, young pup. Dumb idea.   

In the next life, I’ll get a giant tortoise for a pet.