The long goodbye to a loved pet

You know how some people can name car brands at a distance, in passing: that’s a BMW Blah-Blah, that’s the new Mercedes Whatnot?

Well, I’m the same with dogs. Hungarian Vizsla, I’ll announce to my friend on walks. Malamute, Weimaraner, Australian cattle dog, whippet, lurcher, greyhound, and, oh, that’s a “champagne mongrel” – a Labradoodle, cockerpoo, golden doodle, or whatever pricey mix is hot this year.

“How do you know?” she says. “I still can’t tell between a golden retriever and a golden Labrador.” “Yellow Labrador,” I correct. I’ve always been dog mad. I named our family’s first dog when I was five, before we even got him, which is why there was once a black Labrador called Chops, aka Best Dog Ever.

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No, really. He was a sea-swimming, long-walking, tear-soaking, dressing-up sort of dog who presumed he was human.

I still feel a twinge in my chest when I remember the day he was put to sleep when he was 16. It was the only time I ever saw my dad cry. Now I’m looking at another darling old dog, my Sasha – English pointer, age 14 – and breaking inside about what to do.

She totters about, rattling with old age and medication, smelling of wee, and yet she remains the most enthusiastic, happiest doggo in the world. And possibly the most beloved.

We’ve taken up the carpets because of her poo-cidents. She wears a harness with a handle so we can help her walk. Every night, I put human bed-wetting mats on her cushion, yet still every morning I must clean, and regularly give her a sponge-down in the garden too.

It’s difficult because she wants to play; we’re outside after all, outside where there are stones and pine cones, sticks and balls, and there’s the smell of the morning and soon it will be breakfast, and isn’t life great? Then she falls over. Again. And gets back up again.

At night we sit together and I stroke her ears and the soft spot on the back of her ankle, and sometimes I whisper that if she needs to go, I understand.

But that big old doggy heart beats strong and sure even as her body gives up on her. Soon a decision will have to be made. Just not today.

Please, not tomorrow either.

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