“You made a good choice here today, a compassionate choice”.
These words from the vet were unexpected, but more unexpected was the comfort they brought.
An hour ago, when he’d come to check on me, I’d still been in the torturous agony of trying to decide whether to put Poppy, my four year old Shar Pei, through the trauma of a general anaesthetic and CT scan to see if we could determine what was causing her almost complete left body paralysis, or just let her go.
‘I just want to know what’s wrong so I know if letting her go is the right decision!’ I’d said this to my mum 2am that morning when we’d left Poppy in emergency care. I’d said it to my Dad in the morning when I asked if I could borrow the money for the CT. I’d said it to my brother, who came to drive Poppy & I to the specialist in Brisbane.
And I’d said it to the vet when we arrived, who now just moments before, had put my baby to sleep.
—
Poppy came into my life a blinky, limpy and stinky ball of fur snuffling me in an airport demountable as I picked her up for transfer to the vet who would give her surgery to correct a luxating patella, and entropion correction surgery - commonly known as the ‘doggy eyelift’ in the Shar Pei community.
I had been volunteering with Shar Pei Rescue (SPR) since 2016, after I adopted my first dog, Winston through them. I mostly ran the social media, but it sometimes meant doing behavioural assessments on dogs who were being surrendered for rescue, and transport of dogs in foster care for vet appointments or to new carers.
Poppy’s pickup was a Hail Mary call from Amanda, the president of Shar Pei Rescue, two Saturdays before Christmas.
‘I know you’re going to a Christmas Party today … but is there any chance you could pick up a dog from the airport and take her to Scot (the SPR vet). He was supposed to be picking her up but he’s had an emergency surgery come in, and it’ll save us a couple of hundred bucks in transport fees.’
‘Of course, no worries,’ I said, beginning to mentally rearrange my plans. ‘How is she with other dogs? Winston will be in the car with me?’
‘She’s great,’ Amanda replied, ‘She grew up with her litter mate, and I’ve had her at the doggy daycare with me and she’s been perfect. She is an absolute little sweetheart, she’s going to make someone very happy.’
That was Amanda all over, planting the seeds. I’d been looking for another dog for around a year, but the search was on hold because I was about to take a road trip from Melbourne to Queensland to visit my family for Christmas and have some time off. But Auntie A, as we called her, had her own ideas, and so on a rainy Saturday afternoon Winston and I headed out to Tullamarine to pick up Poppy.
The airport staff member led her out on a lead and even though she could barely see, and was limping very heavily, her curly tail was wagging a million miles a minute. She was just so happy to meet new people. I could almost imagine her saying ‘Hello, I am Poppy. Love me please!’
She snuffled around me and explored the environment, and was so patient as we dealt with some paperwork issues. When it was time to go she came with me without so much as a backward glance, and happily allowed me to pick her up to put her into the back of my SUV.
Separated by the back seat, Winston gave her a couple of sniffs before whining to tell me off for taking so long, and settling himself in for the drive.
Poppy though, wanted nothing but to get to know him. After a few minutes sitting with her and settling her in, I got in the driver’s seat and took off for Clayton.
The memory is so vivid - every now and then looking in the rear view mirror to see her little black face popping up to see what was going on in the front, trying to get Winston’s attention. It must have hurt, jumping up on her hind legs like that, one of which severely disabled by the patella issue. But that was who she was - always wanting to be part of the crew.
I think I knew it the moment I saw her that she would eventually come home with me, but this road trip and her recovery just meant the timing didn’t align, so in the days after surgery when I went to visit her it was ‘just to take some photos for the social media’ and ‘just to help the girls at the surgery’ and ‘just to give her some company’.
Three days later, it was all settled, and she was mine.
—
According to 2019 research, there are almost 29 million pets in Australia. Sixty-one percent of Australian households have a pet, and 90% have had a pet at some time. These statistics put Australia well ahead of the field of pet ownership, with 57% of homes in the United States having pets, and just 40% in the United Kingdom.1
Over 60% of dog and cat owners refer to their pet as a member of the family, or ‘fur baby’ if you will, and around half allow their pets to share their beds.2
When I brought Winston home it was with a considered decision not to refer to him as my ‘fur baby’, but rather my companion animal. I adopted Winston at a time where I was suffering quite badly from the effects of complex post-traumatic stress disorder, and the world was feeling pretty dark. I wanted companionship that didn’t require conversation, someone to get me out of the house and into the fresh air, and somewhere to put all the love I didn’t quite how to express in any other way.
‘Pet’ couldn’t possibly encompass what he was (and still is) to me, but fur-baby wasn’t it either. Two and a half, he was more ‘young man’ than ‘baby boy’, and recovering from his own trauma meant that we have always been like two souls crossing the same stretch of barren desert.
With Poppy it was different. Poppy had just turned one when she came into rescue, so she still had Big Puppy Energy. Plus, her previous home had been with her littermate, and it was obvious that she was used to being the centre of attention, the life of the party and the spoiled baby princess all in one. In my mind, Winston always referred to me as ‘hoomin’, but Poppy called me ‘Mama’ from the start.
In the months after I brought Poppy home, there were big changes in my life, including the decision (not entirely of my own making) that I would not have children of my own. And so even more Poppy became the baby I would never have, the toddler I would never tell off, and the child who would make me laugh with her naughty antics.
Shar Pei are said to be a dominant breed, so you can’t let them boss you around. Strong boundaries at all times are important, and they should never tell you what to do.
No-one had told Poppy this though, so whenever I would come back from being out too long (in her opinion), or wasn’t moving fast enough with her dinner, she would stand in front in front of me, firmly plant her feet and grumble at me. It was 100% the wrong thing to do but it made me laugh every single time, the way she thought she was the boss of everyone.
—
I told people I was looking for a second dog as company for Winston when I was at work, but in my heart of hearts I knew I was getting a younger dog to prepare myself for the inevitability of losing Winston. Winston had become my whole world - to an almost unhealthy degree - and I knew that I would be bereft when it was his time to go.
"Dogs die so soon," writes Mary Oliver writes, in her breathtakingly beautiful poetry collection, ‘Dog Songs’. When you bring a dog home, you know you will eventually lose them, and yet nothing truly prepares you for such a loss. But I was determined to try.
Even if I didn’t have the same connection with the new dog as I did with Winston, I knew that having someone else to look after would get me through the loss. Another dog would get me up in the morning to go for a walk and put food in their bowl, and maybe that would inspire me to put food in my bowl too. Washing and grooming another dog would remind me that washing and grooming myself was good practice too. And another little warm body to press against me now and then would help, even if they didn’t really understand why it was I needed them to.
I never expected to fall in love with Poppy the way I did. And it was never the plan to lose her first.
—
The day before I lost Poppy was a regular day. Summer is tough on Shar Pei, so we went for a walk early in the morning, while the sun was low in the sky, and came home to settle in for the day. It was a Saturday, so I worked a little but spent most of the day painting and reading, while she hung out in the courtyard chasing lizards, and coming in whenever she heard someone making food. We had a nap in the air-con in the late afternoon, and after dinner I took the dogs for a walk a little earlier than usual, hoping to get an hour or so more painting in before it got too late.
As we walked in the front door I noticed her starting to limp. Within minutes, she was stumbling. ‘Shit,’ I thought. ‘She’s mouthed a toad.’ I sat her down and started wiping out her mouth with a wet cloth. We gave her a few minutes but there was no foaming. I tried calling our regular vet, but there was no answer, so I called the emergency vet. ‘Is she up to date on tick prevention?’ they asked. “Sounds like it might be a paralysis tick.’ We were about three weeks overdue on tick prevention, but in any event we took her in.
At that stage it was just her front paw, and she could still walk, although the left side of her face was a little droopy. The emergency vet checked her out and said the presentation was very unusual, but that the most likely cause was a bulging disc. She said that because Poppy didn’t seem to be in any pain, we could hold off on getting a CT scan until Monday. They wanted to keep her in over the weekend, but not wanting to run up a big bill before having to have an expensive CT scan, I persuaded the vet to let her take me home, with a promise to check her every hour to see if the paralysis was worsening.
Mum & Dad gave her big cuddles when we brought her home, and we settled her into a gated off corner of my room on her bed with some water. Every hour I woke up and tested her reflexes, and by 2am it was clear the paralysis was worse - her back left side had gone, and she now couldn’t stand.
Mum & I bundled her into the back seat of the car, putting Winston in the front as it was storming badly. Separation from me stresses him at the best of time, but leaving with Poppy in the middle of the night during a storm would be too much, so he came with us and waited in the car as I took Poppy in.
All through the first trip, I was asking my gut, god, the universe, whether it was going to be okay. Whether Poppy would be okay. Whether I needed to worry. And I kept getting the answer ‘No. It will be okay.’
On the second trip I knew that I was going to lose my sweet girl that day. She was still very much present, but I could feel her getting ready to let go. And I cried and cried and knew that I couldn’t make that decision without more information, even though I knew it was the decision I would have to make, even knowing that it would be hours of confusion, stress, fear and possibly pain for Poppy.
—
When I was about twenty-four, the grandfather of a friend of mine passed away. He had been unwell for a long time, but it was still very sad.
He had been a longstanding and well-regarded member of our church, and many, many people attended his funeral.
The service was moving, as they usually are, but it was watching his sons and grandsons carry his coffin out of the church that undid me.
One of the boys was about twelve or thirteen, and he sobbed and sobbed as he literally carried the weight of his sadness on his shoulders. His grief was palpable.
'This is why you shouldn't love anyone,' I said to my friends afterwards, as we milled around outside. 'That grief. That suffering. Nothing can be worth that pain. "Better to have loved and lost" my ass. I don't want to love anyone if it means feeling like that.'
I felt like that for a long, long time. Even going into adopting Winston I was so conscious that making the choice to love him was also making the choice to suffer at some point in the future, and it terrified me.
I wish I could tell those past versions of myself what I know now - that grief is love in transition.
It's not the end of love. It's not the absence of love. It's not suffering because love has left you.
It's the exquisite pain of love in transition, of moving from a love that is expressed between two physical beings, to one that is carried now by only one soul, at least on this side of the veil.
My love for Poppy hasn't left. Her love for me hasn't disappeared. It is just becoming something different, something new, something unquantifiable, something inexplicable. And grief is the body's way of processing that.
If there was a way to make this grief go away, I wouldn't choose it.
—
On the Sunday morning my brother came to pick me up, and we went to get Poppy and take her to the specialist. The vet nurses had her partially sitting up, and her tail gave a little wag and she was so happy to see me. A little hope sparked in my heart - she looked so much better than when I had left her the night before. Maybe it was something simple that could be fixed.
But as I sat with her, stroking her beautiful silky black coat on our way to Brisbane, I could feel her flagging again. ‘It’s okay to let me go Mama, I’m ready to go,’ her spirit said to mine.
But I still wanted the imaging. I still wanted something external to tell me that the choice to end her life was the right one. It couldn’t just be all on me.
She was admitted to the specialist centre and examined. Again, the vet that saw her couldn’t give me an indication of what it might be. Imaging was the only way to know. An MRI would give the best results, but might be another 24 or even 48 hours away. A CT could be done immediately, ‘but’, he warned, ‘she’s almost completely paralysed on her left side. A CT scan requires a general anaesthetic, and will be a stressful and traumatic experience for her’. Unspoken was the knowledge that she might not make it through the procedure, and even if she did, it might be just to discover that it was time to let her go.
‘I just want to know what it is so I can know I’m making the right decision!’
‘I totally understand,’ he said. ‘I’ll leave you to think about it.’
Three vets had seen her and said things like ’a presentation like nothing else I’ve ever seen’, ‘almost certainly neurological but we can’t be sure’, and ‘it really could be anything’. What they actively seemed to be avoiding saying was ‘brain tumour’.
Eventually after what felt like hours and hours of deliberation, but was perhaps 45 minutes, I asked the vet ‘What are we really looking at? Is there a good outcome here? What could possibly come up on this CT scan that would be good news?’
He shrugged. ‘We really don’t know. It’s like nothing I’ve seen. I’ve called a consultant neurological specialist and he has no idea. But the likelihood of it being something that is easily fixed is very low. My gut says it’s a brain tumour. There’s lots of reasons to think it wouldn’t be - she’s four, there’s been no other symptoms, her current presentation isn’t typical of a brain tumour. But my guess is we’ll do the CT and discover it’s a brain tumour. And for things to have progressed this quickly, it’s not one we could treat.’
He left us again. Still all I wanted was the imaging - something to take this terrible decision out of my hands.
As I spoke my thoughts and feelings out loud to my brother, it settled on me. Why would I put her through the experience of a stressful and traumatic CT, only to have to let her go once I had the results.
I wanted the imaging for me, to make me feel better. To know I had made the right choice. But there is no objectively ‘right’ choice when it comes to deciding to end the life of a companion animal. There is only a good choice, a compassionate choice. A choice that doesn’t prolong needless suffering.
An hour later, she was gone.
—
I had spent a lot of time imagining losing Winston. Fearing his death so much made me want to prepare myself for it as much as I could. So when those flashes of fear came up I would allow myself to journey through them, imagine losing him in a car accident, or to cancer, or him getting lost. I pre-emptively cried so many tears for him, hoping that it might mean I didn’t have to cry as many when that time eventually came.
Nothing prepared me for losing Poppy. She was four years old! Even though her medical situation meant that I knew she was probably here for a good time, not a long time, there was nothing to suggest I wouldn’t have her for years more.
And to lose her the way that I did … well I’m not sure anything can prepare you for that. One minute she was vital, present, alive … and seventeen hours later, she was gone.
I have been fortunate not to have lost many loved ones in the course of my life. Family pets, of course, when I was young. My beloved Nan when I was about twenty.
But this was different. Losing someone I loved, who I spent almost every minute of every day with. Who I fed, bathed, cared for, looked after. Who I loved with every ounce of my being. Who was so young! Who had been with me for just three years.
In my heart of hearts I knew I’d made the right decision. At 2am that morning I’d known that I was going to have to say goodbye. The course of Poppy’s last day was the journey of me realising that it was my job to make the decision, and not allow Poppy to continue to suffer in order to allow the decision to be taken out of my hands. As I made the decision I knew it was the right one. As I watched her fall asleep for the last time, I knew it was the right one.
And still, the question kept creeping in: ‘Did I make the right decision? What if?’
As the waves of grief washed over me in frequent and increasingly more violent waves, the rock I held onto was the knowledge that I could not have loved her more. She loved every minute of her life with me, and she loved me and Winston, and my folks, so much. She could not have been loved more.
I processed the experience of my grief like I process every emotional experience - out loud and in public, often sharing how I was feeling on social media.
This short verse I wrote in the days after losing Poppy summarises my experience:
standing on the shore I meet my grief
it is an ocean
vast and unending
and then I remember
I know how to swim.
————
1 Pets In Australia: A national survey of pets and people, Animal Medicines Australia, Newgate Research, 2019, page 6
2 Pets In Australia: A national survey of pets and people, Animal Medicines Australia, Newgate Research, 2019, page 6
