I had been meaning to write another entry for some time. Unfortunately my dog Shadow died last week. His death was not unexpected, but that didn’t make it any easier. For the last three years or so my mother and I would talk from time to time about his eventual death as Labrador Retrievers rarely live as long as Shadow did. It always seemed as something far off that doesn’t need to be worried about right now.
In the first week of March Shadow started eating less and less. He lost a lot of weight very quickly. For a time I was worried that he would not make it through March, but he did. He suddenly started eating again. He put on some weight and returned to normal routines. I then wondered if he might live for many months to come, perhaps past September when I leave for Ottawa. Unfortunately it was not to be. In the second week of April he started eating less again. It took him three days to finish a bowl of food (though he had no trouble eating scraps for some reason). Then one night as he was going downstairs he fell. This had happened before but he had never hurt himself doing it before. I went downstairs to see if he was ok and saw that he had a limp in one of his hind legs. He would not be able to climb the stairs alone, and never would again. I carried him upstairs and put him down in the living room on his blanket. I stayed with him for about four hours and openly wept for the first time in years. I knew then that the time had come. That was a Tuesday night.
The next morning I got up and saw that Shadow’s walk had improved considerably since the night before. His hind leg was still acting up but it gave me hope that he might last until the weekend when I would have a day off. Around 6:00 PM on Thursday while I was at work I received a text from my sister saying that Shadow had taken a turn for the worse. I immediately left and went home. By the time I got there he was in rough shape. He could barely move or walk on his own and had trouble keeping small amounts of food down. It was too late by that time to bring him to the vet that night, but I knew that within 24 hours he would be dead.
I never left his side again from the time I got home on Thursday night until he died the next day. It was a very rough night for me. By the expressions the dog had on his face I’d say my night was rougher than his. He had no trouble sleeping through most of the night. His breathing was irregular which worried me. I thought that he may die in his sleep. He pulled through though. I spent the night and following morning trying to keep him comfortable, reminiscing and wishing it was me in his place. It was arranged to take him to the vet for noon on Friday. I carried him there as he could not walk, just as I carried him home the day we got him in January of 1997. My mother came with me and took care of the formalities for me as I was in no condition to deal with them myself. She laid one of Shadows blankets on the table for him. Once I had him weighed I put him on the table. I was shocked at what the scale read, 56 pounds. The vet explained the procedure to us then gave him the first injection to calm him down. We were told it would be about fifteen minutes before the final injection would be given. He handled the first one well after the initial pinch. I went down on my knees so I could look him in the eye and try to keep him calm. After a few seconds of looking at his face I couldn’t anymore without crying. Shortly before he was due for the final injection he started to panic. He barked and tried to get off the table. Even though he was crippled and drugged it took five of us to hold him steady for the second injection. Within seconds he was dead. My mother left the room immediately, then the vet’s assistants and finally the vet herself. I went into a state of shock. Shadow is dead. It’s still strange for me to write or say those words. All of the grief, anger, anxiety and frustration of the past week immediately disappeared. I moved his body into a more pleasing position as he was lying awkwardly from the struggle. It felt strange moving his lifeless body around. Surely this is not the being I spent last night with. It wasn’t. It was an empty shell. Even so I put an arm around his neck, kissed his head then said into his ear “I’ll see you later”. It was a habit. I used to do that before leaving for work, or school, or a trip. Anytime I was going somewhere if I saw him before leaving I’d do that. The vet told me that it would be a few weeks for his ashes, so I suppose what I said to him was right. I then left.
I spent the next two hours or so with my mother at Dan’s house as I did not want to go home. I was enjoying this shocked state of denial and didn’t want to ruin it by going home. We talked about life and death. Most of you know that I don’t believe in any God or afterlife of any kind. I flat out said to my mother that I thought “It’s all a bunch of bull shit the living make up to make themselves feel better”. She admitted it might be, but if it comforts people what’s the harm? There’s no harm in it, but it bothers me. My father’s response was “He’s in a better place”, to me that is not true. I saw him lying there on the table dead, waiting his turn to go into the furnace. Fortunately the next day my father clarified that statement, “I mean he’s not suffering anymore”. True.
That night was just as hard as the night before for me though. When I went home I opened the door to the basement and called him up, but he did not come. I looked down at the floor and his collar was lying there. Then just as suddenly as all the grief and pain had left me when Shadow died, it returned and then some. I collapsed and grabbed on to his collar. I went to the spot in the living room where I had been the night before and stayed there for several hours, unable to move. I cried then as I had never cried before. I yelled out his name many times thinking if I called loud enough he just might come back home. He did not.
I was eight years old when we got Shadow. I am now twenty-two. A lot has changed since then both physically, emotionally and socially for me. He was there for all of it. He helped me through my parent’s breakup, the move to Timmins, several broken hearts as a teenager and the beginnings of adulthood. He even factored into my decision to stop eating meat. I could not eat him, or any other animal I had met, so I would eat none. He was more important to me than most people. Well, I should correct that, no person was more important to me than him, he had a few equals though. I could always count on Shadow no matter what. Over the last thirteen years I have been let down by many people, but never by Shadow. Even as he was lying on the living room floor dying he seemed more concerned for me than for himself. He was my best friend.
