Tag Archives: dog

Paw prints on my Heart

by . Posted on
18 Jun

For five weeks I have been in denial, braving the world and keeping going by just putting one foot in front of the other.  We all have.  All avoiding the elephant in the room, too locked in our own pain to speak to the others, too scared of speaking of Phoenix in case we upset the others.  But Ben’s behaviour has deteriorated rapidly at school and we have been forced to each talk about our own guilt – Ben blames himself because he didn’t call out (but there was no time), Ged blames himself because he was driving, and I blame myself because I didn’t give Phee enough time, love, attention, play, appreciation and I had kept shouting at him to ‘stop licking’.  Poor little Ben was the only one of us who actually saw the whole thing.  I can’t begin to imagine how that memory must be seared into his mind and soul, and how scarred he is from that experience.

We have all been in shock.  That day I had been cleaning the house, and made a new step stool for him to enable him to get on the bed which had become hard for him.  I showed it to him, explaining jump here and then here, he looked at me with such love in his eyes because I was bent down and talking to him, wagging his tail and his whole body with joy.  Later, I planted a kiss on him as I passed him watching out over his world from the comfort of the cane sofa on the verandah.  Later still, I came home from my walk in the dark and as always he launched himself off his bed and then the verandah to give me, or anyone, his joyful wagging welcome.  And then, when he wanted to come into the house, I wouldn’t let him.  If I had, I wouldn’t be penning this now.

It doesn’t seem possible that my friend, who has been my faithful shadow, my stalwart companion for over 12 years, is gone.  How can it be that someone so full of life and love can have left.  Where is he?  The farm is so still without his busy body as he ran to welcome us all at the gate, took himself off to swim in the river, ran up to the Tree House if there were raised voices or a row, licked the noses of each and every one of the animals he loved and looked after.  He was the shepherd for us all.  He was our anchor and our light.  I don’t know who I am without him.

Of course I took him for granted.  I knew intellectually that we would not have him for much longer.  He has had a lump on his head for a long time (that the vet said was fine) but we had found a much bigger mass along one side and I was procrastinating going to the vet about that – well, waiting for the cooler weather when he could have a day with me in the car and office.  He would have been 13 next week.  He was very deaf and his arthritis was getting worse.  It is over a year since he stopped walking with me every day and a long time since I let him come with me for a walk.  He begged to come only a few days before he died, and I denied him.  I so wish now that I had let him come for that last walk over the farm he loved so much.

He loved it here.  He loved the river, he loved his freedom to roam, he loved his favourite spots on the verandah.  He loved us all.  But most of all he loved me.  He made room in his huge heart for Ged and Ben when they came along, and I’m afraid to say that he was sidelined in so many ways once I was busy with Ben.  But we always had our runs and then walks when we could share time and space together.  He hated that he couldn’t come anymore (because of his arthritis) and it took me a long time to get used to walking on my own.

Now I have to get used to being on my own, without my little black shadow following me wherever I went.  So do Ben and Ged.  We all loved him so much.  He was the fourth member of our family.  He was the brother Ben didn’t have.  And now he is gone.  I still can’t believe it.  I can’t wrap my head around it.  My heart can’t accept it and keeps screaming ‘No!’

The house is very clean. No more muddy paw prints, no more farm dirt on the bed, no more muddy paw prints on the bath mat.  No more Phee foraging in the pig bin, or eating chook and duck food with them, or licking timber in the Giraffe shed (I will never know why!) or mousing in the feed shed.  Just paw prints across all of our hearts.

An indescribable loss of my friend, comforter, angel, shadow and anchor.  Beautiful boy, best dog in the world. Phoenix McGoenix, Phee McGee we love you so much.  Wherever you are, be happy, watch over us, help us through this time of pain xx

When fear is a missing friend . . .

by . Posted on
27 Dec

Ged left the farm at about 3pm to meet Ben on 10th December and I for Ben’s final preschool presentation.  All was well.  Phoenix had been in the office with him and following him around all day – situation absolutely normal.  After the event, we went into town for supper and then I stayed to do the shopping.  Ben and Ged were home by about 7 – no Phee.  So after getting Ben to sleep Ged went out calling and searching, but didn’t tell me he was gone.  I didn’t get home til 9, exhausted, and was then told that Phoenix wasn’t home.  I was pretty hysterical.  Didn’t sleep a wink.  Terrified that I was never going to see his sweet face, brown eyes and waggling tail again.  He’s getting old, my friend.  All of a sudden.  Lame and slower.  Time has suddenly stolen his essential puppy-ness.

They say that about spaniels.  They say that they are eternally young until just before the end.  I don’t want to lose Phoenix.  I don’t want him to ever leave me.  Especially not so soon after Baby – I can’t bear the thought of another two years of grief.  I have been worrying about him going and realising that our time together is limited.  But not so soon, please.

At first light we were up and searching.  Nothing.  We hit the phones and rang all the neighbours.  When he was much younger he would occasionally go walkabout – but not for more than 5 years.  I went driving – it was a foul day, chucking it down.  I saw George and told him and he gave me phone numbers of other occasional neighbours to call. Eventually we all had to get on with our day.  I had to clean The Tree House for the visitors arriving later.  Ged took Ben to preschool & went off to work.  Phoenix didn’t have a collar or a tag on.  His collar had just broken & a new one on the shopping list.

I was scrubbing & polishing when Ged rang and said that our lovely neighbour Pat had just rung him to say Phee had been spotted – over 5 klms away and heading for the highway.  I got in the car and drove through the river and cross country over her land.  She met me at the house gate and told me that the fencers had come in and seen him on Wallis Road, heading out to the highway – looking exhausted, apparently.  A big storm was hot on my heels and Phee hates thunder and lightning now he is old.  Apparently all dogs do.

So I drove as if the hounds of hell themselves were yapping at my tailgate.  Trying to get to him before the storm made visibility impossible.  Thunder was rumbling and booming.  Lightning streaking the sky. My poor boy was out there somewhere, terrified.  Pat said that her neighbour, Barb, had heard a dog barking outside her house all night – it must have been Phee.  She had rung Pat to ask if it was one of hers.  If only we had rung her the night before.

Oh well . . . hindsight is a wonderful thing.  And wouldn’t find my friend.  I drove all the way out to the highway.  There was a tree down across the road – I just drove over it such was my haste to find him before he got run over on the busy Oxley Highway.  He wasn’t there.

I turned round and retraced my route.  Stopping at the few isolated farms to ask if they had seen a small black spaniel with a white front.  No sign.  I drove slowly on the return trip, scanning the surrounding countryside.  The rain was lashing the windscreen.  I met the fencers as they drove back home ‘any sign?’ I asked them.  ‘Nothing’ they said.  They had chopped up and moved the fallen tree.  I was despairing.  And then there he was on the road in front of me.  Wild eyed, soaked, bedraggled.  Thank God.

I grabbed the rug from out of the boot and wrapped him up in it, sitting him on the passenger seat and hugging him over and over again.  He was wet to the bone, violently shivering, and he barely recognised me, such was his terror.  My poor, beautiful boy.

We got back to Pat’s and told her the glad tidings.  And then I took him home before yet another storm hit.  Dosed him up with Emergency Essence and Arnica for his poor tired muscles and bones.  He must have run over 20 kilometres.  But why?

When he was safely home and in recovery there was the time and space to ask that question.  Ged spoke to Pat and asked whether there had been a big storm after he left that day.  Sure enough, she said there had been.  He must have been scared and just started running.  Why he ran that way and not home we will never know.  He must have become disoriented and just kept running.  Maybe he thought Barb’s house was our house and that’s why he barked all night.  Why didn’t he stop at Pat’s house?  She would have recognised him . . .

What a wake up call.  That every moment is precious with my dearest friend.  That we can’t take our time together for granted.  That one day, inevitably, everyone we love has to leave us.  That I have to make time, carve time, to spend just being with the ones I love.  There’s no point taking them for granted and then mourning them when they are gone.  Take the time to love them when they are here on planet earth.  Take time to PLAY, to connect, to have fun, to stop treating them all like annoyances.  So what if Phee traipses mud all over the floor – he’s here with his loving energy, his unconditional love for me whatever I do or say.  The last words I spoke to him before he ran away the following day were to yell at him for making a mess.  That’ll learn me – or will it?