When I was a kid, I loved animals so much. They just didn’t seem to love me, or if they did, they had a bloody funny way of showing it. I’d be all loving and attentive and they’d piss off and leave me with no note or anything. We’d get another pet and act as if nothing happened but one disaster just seemed to follow another.
My first pet ‘Goldie’ was such a beautiful hamster. Fat and shiny with whiskers that stuck out for miles. He went to stay with mum’s best friend while we went on our caravan holiday but he was gone when we got back. Peggy said he’d committed suicide. Pulled up the bedding behind his wheel and suffocated himself. It seemed a strange thing for a hamster to do but I think if I’d had to stay a week at my mum’s friends’ house, I’d probably have done the same. We tried a different species after that. I don’t remember the name of our pet budgie. I think I must have blotted it out of my memory since this time it was my fault it left home. He used to fly around and stand on my head or balance on my pen when I wrote. He was a cracking bird but he was officially my brother’s pet. I let him out to fly one day not knowing the window was open behind the curtains, so he took his chance and went to join his feathered friends outside. Mum reminded us of the gory details of how tame birds get pecked to death by wild ones so she didn’t exactly help my brother and I with our grief. David cried so much he burst the blood vessels in his eyes and had to go to hospital. It wasn’t a great day for me either but I felt so guilty I just kept quiet. Mum did what she thought was best and bought us a replacement budgie but looking back it was an unwise move. The new bird just pecked and bit anyone who came anywhere near the cage and we were all glad when it dropped dead soon after. So mum changed tact altogether and bought me a mongrel pup which I named Dusty. She was a dear little black and white mixture and I loved her with a passion. Sadly, she got rightfully fed up of my brother for tormenting her so she decided to bite him one night when he came downstairs with hay fever. Mum never showed any panic and did the discreet thing by taking her to the vets the next day to be put down. She was incredibly efficient and organised like that. It was amazing how she never showed any emotions but I guess she was so busy controlling everything she didn’t have time to. When I arrived home from school, all the evidence that Dusty had ever existed had been totally erased and nothing further was ever discussed. Pets come and pets go I suppose. No point in crying over unimportant things. Our cat Sooty was the only one who was genuinely pleased about Dusty’s demise. He’d refused to come inside from the day the puppy arrived and now could be top pet again. He was the kind of cat who thought himself superior to humans except when he needed food and then he purred and rubbed against your legs as if he really cared and loved us. He was like my dad in that respect, always there but you never really noticed either of them they were so much in their own world. Sooty was a poor substitute to Dusty, but at least he stuck around, which given our history so far, was something worth noting. Except that Sooty didn’t survive to old age as he should have either. We moved house when he was eight or so – to Chigwell, the elite place for Essex man. Cats as you know, hate change and ours was no different. Sooty was absolutely terrified. Tail between his legs, sussing out his new surroundings and meowing profusely. I knew as kids intuitively do, that he was far too fastidious and far too scared, to pee in the house, but mum insisted on putting him outside. I begged her to wait a little while he got his bearings but the fear of cat pee on the carpet was too much for the Mrs Bouquet part of her. Once outside, he scaled a nine foot patio wall and was never seen again. And that was that. We didn’t have any more pets after that. What is fascinating to me now, is that for near on thirty years, I shut down my love of pets and lost interest altogether. There are all sorts of psychological terms for this such as repression and splitting off, but put simply, I guess it was a safety mechanism since as a family, our track record on the pet front was pretty tragic. I think in hindsight, Dusty was the only thing I had learnt to truly love and feel safe with and her sudden and unexpected death was a significant turning point in my young life. Life is magical though isn’t it, because out of the blue many years later, in a pine shop in Richmond, this funny looking dog befriended me and if there is such a thing as love at first sight, this was it. I experienced one of those rare light-bulb moments where everything became clear without question. Like a divine or cosmic message reminding me of some deeper truth I had lost touch with. It wasn’t until some months later, that I smiled, as I suddenly clocked that the dog in the shop had been called Strider. Cynics would say it was just a coincidence, but our deep connection that day, brought forth in me hope and a new found faith in the possibility that I would stride out again with my dog and start a new life. Within two weeks I had researched and found a litter of pups in Scotland with just two male dogs left and choosing the one that was apparently calmer, I sent off the cheque for him to be ours, within a matter of weeks. My husband and others thought I was deranged, but for the first time in a very long while, I had a deep inner knowing that I had to have this dog. The British Blue kitten we had already promised our daughter, duly arrived as arranged and somehow as if to sense our indifference and maybe even knowing she wasn’t really wanted, she proceeded to shit everywhere imaginable, often minutes before buyers coming to view our house which was for sale. Since we had all compromised on our choice of pet when we were most definitely dog lovers, we were immensely grateful, that we were able to return the kitten back to the breeders after only a few days. It was immediately re-housed to a delighted young child who was far more able to love it than we were. We collected Archie from Gatwick airport on the day before Christmas Eve and fell in love with him from the moment we set eyes on him. You know don’t you when things are just right. Maybe pets actually find us rather than the other way round? Coming back to my childhood, at least my pets, with the exception of Dusty all chose to leave of their own accord which is something to remember them by isn’t it? I mean my friend wasn’t that lucky. Her boyfriend, affectionately known as Pine Tree trod on her pet chinchilla and squashed it flat. Or at least, I’m told he actually crunched and mangled it and then took it in a cardboard box to the vet in the hope they’d put it back together again. My friend was away studying at college and when she returned, even though Pine Tree had cleared up the mess, she refused to cook him any meals for three months after the incident and he lost about two stone in weight. In the end though, she forgave him and married the clumsy sod anyway. And, I don’t feel as guilty about our budgie as my neighbour must have. She tumble dried her designer kitten. All 250 quid’s worth of it, the second day after she bought it. The jokes in my village that day were pretty cruel. Years on, our family has had the usual catalogue of pet disasters. Two hamsters escaping and one male one giving birth to seven babies (one deformed). One lost rabbit named Puff who literally disappeared into thin air and one traumatised one killed by our manic German Wire Haired Pointer. A neighbour, well known for his road rage, tried to shoot Archie, our dog, when we first moved to Devon because he was orgasmic about ducks or anything that flew. My kids were playing in the estuary at the same time and aiming a huge shotgun, he was screaming that he would fucking kill the bastard dog if I wasn’t quick. Given that I couldn’t hardly walk because of severe leg problems, it was a pathetic sight as I struggled to catch my beloved dog before he was blasted out of my world and possibly with my children, if the guy was a bad shot. Archie never caught the ducks but he loved to swim after them for hours ever hopeful that he might. He did once get an old seagull which was sad and to our astonishment, a neighbour even came round to complain about it. My husband let the guy know in no uncertain terms that he didn’t quite see how that was such a horrendous crime, compared to the fact that this man used to regularly blast birds out of the sky at random and call it a sport? But back to the duck incident. How were we to know that the neighbour’s wife had died of cancer, shortly after releasing some specially chosen ducks into the estuary? Even though it helped to make sense of why it all happened, it was still an awful shock in those early days of believing somewhat naively, that Devon was an idyllic haven far removed from front page headlines. My husband was pretty brave and smoothed things over. That is, once I called him back from the pub, as it was the usual lengthy Sunday lunchtime session. He walked over the mud in the estuary, with the confidence of booze speaking and told the guy that he’d have to shoot him first, before he tried to kill our dog again. We used to see him in the pub from time to time and although one of our neighbours said he had a good heart deep down, we couldn’t quite bring ourselves to believe it. Last year, bless his soul, the same man shot himself with his own shotgun because he was being ravaged by cancer and couldn’t face going on. You never quite know what goes on in people’s lives and how vulnerable they really are, do you? Anyway, things calmed down over the years, as Archie’s antics became less frequent and as age took the better of him. Gone were the days of incidents with sheep in the woods, the time where he nipped my neighbour’s bum as she rode on her bike or his frantic chasing of testosterone teenagers on skateboards as they shot past his territory. Christmas times when I accused the kids of taking too many chocolates off the Christmas tree since over 20 had disappeared in a day. Then to notice Archie triumphantly strutting around the kitchen, totally unaware of the tin foil and tassel caught in his teeth and dangling down the side of his mouth, which was clear evidence that he was the culprit. We no longer received weekly phone calls from neighbours wondering if we had lost a dog because there was one swimming way down the estuary. His favourite past time was to swim right out, often between the yachts while people would scream with delight and confusion, never quite knowing if he was a dog or an otter. He would be found and returned, suitably pretending to be apologetic for his behaviour, when we knew at the next available opportunity, he would do his Houdini escape act. Archie’s always was such a noble dog with a huge charisma. The kids were going to call him Colonel, because my son thought he resembled a Prussian General, he looked so wise and important, even as a puppy. One of my dear friends said he was a very special dog with an amazing aura and that was a pretty accurate description. Another said he was the sort of unpredictable ‘bad’ guy, most girls would always be attracted to, original and different, independent and in his own space. Except that she thought it sweet, because he turned out to actually be the good guy with a pure heart of gold. Archie was quite a rare breed and in nine years, I only ever saw two people with another and one of those was in France. He was pure Scorpio and a born healer. He had a huge personality with enormous passion yet he exuded a quietness and gentleness of spirit that gave him this sense of ‘presence’. It was almost as if he was an old soul, if that were really true for animals as well as humans. You either hated him or loved him but you never failed to notice him. The woman at the dog show was horrified and disapproving of him, when he had no respect and peed over her prized rosettes just before she was due to present them. But heh, he never cared much for those kind of formalities. Life was for living to the full. Zen like and in the moment and I learnt so much from him in this respect. He came to me when I was chronically ill, hardly able to walk and one woman in the village said with judgement, that it might be better for me to have a dog that was less in need of long walks. What she really meant to say was that I should have some ‘crocked’ dog because I was half dead, but in reality Archie shone a light of what was possible. He was amazing because he would do figures of eight running manically and wearing himself out, whilst we only travelled a short distance. Over the years with his guidance, inspiration and loyalty, I learnt to stride out again and see life with new eyes. With the daily discipline of our wonderful walks together, I was able to reconnect back to myself and to my deep love of nature. We spoke our own silent language and once a clairvoyant quite rightly said that one of my dogs talked to me. Archie knew the days I couldn’t walk in the woods and he honoured me by chasing a tennis ball I would hit, bringing it right back to my feet, so I didn’t have to move. On those days, with the woods beckoning yards away, he never once ran off and caused me distress because he simply knew I couldn’t manage. That’s when he taught me to trust again and I learnt how to really love from a place I had never dared to go to. At home often unable to move from my debilitating illness, he would jump up onto my lap and transmit his big energy through to my legs, until he knew I’d taken enough. Years later, when I was in severe panic after a marriage separation, he would jump even higher and put his bottom on my heart to stop the palpitations. He sensed energy from everyone around and would never let anyone in the house, if he felt they were unsafe for me. Sometimes, he went a bit too far with his protection of me, but I realised in his latter years, that was the unspoken script I had given him and I needed to reclaim my own ability to protect myself, without expecting him as a dog to do it for me. He taught me a lot about boundaries and helped me to become leader of the pack, in my own power again. Despite this, even when I was deeply emotional, if he felt my ex husband needed support during the end of our marriage, he would try to clamber up onto him, to help him access his feelings and honour that he deeply mattered as well. I thought I wouldn’t survive his passing it was so painful. It was my first real experience of death and as I lost him, I went into blind panic at the shock of it all. Overwhelmed by grief, I needed to share how much this incredible animal had done for me and how impossible it was to believe he was gone. I was very blessed, as the vet who I had intuitively known was right for the occasion, was so compassionate and patient at every step, as were the men who came the next morning to take his body away for cremation. I was supported by a dear friend who was just amazing in how she held me with her quiet spirituality through those hours. The next day with another dear friend, even with all the grace around me, it was agony to watch my devoted companion of all those years, be taken away in a zipped up, green plastic bag, never to be seen again. I knew it was only the body and not his spirit and soul, as they would always live on but I’m human and loss is loss. Knowing I could never hold his big strong chest close to mine, look deep into his brown, all-knowing eyes or stroke his floppy and very silky ears was and is so hard to bear. I took some locks of his hair to keep for ever and I filmed him on a new dvd camera in his last hours but it’s still the end of that irreplaceable and very special, physical closeness. The other two dogs seem strangely quiet and bereft as well which I guess is to be expected, as they were a well bonded trio. It was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life, to let him go back home, so he could leave behind his exhausted and ravaged body. I knew it was time though, from the day a Magpie came to the kitchen door and tapped with his beak as if to call my boy home. The magpie came every day for a week and as my sorrow and fears intensified, I knew he was losing his brave battle. On the full moon, two days before he died, he spent hours staring vacantly outside, as if he was preparing to separate out from his earthly existence. So, this time I made the courageous decision to help him over to the other side, because he was too noble a dog to suffer the way he was. It was especially hard because my daughter was abroad on a Gap Year and I so wanted her to see him once more before he lost the fight. It brought up terrible guilt that I was responsible for taking his life and re-triggered the loss of my first puppy by lethal injection, but my ex husband was strong and supportive, as he encouraged me to do what was best for our dog. Emma loved Archie so very much but maybe he knew on some level, that it would have devastated her to watch how he was after the stroke unable to balance and collapsing in those last weeks. He seemed to age almost overnight and couldn’t understand or grasp how suddenly his body couldn’t match his instinct to manically chase around the garden after a pheasant or passing tourist. I needed the preparation time he gave me, to come to terms with the harsh reality facing me and then to grieve and cry my heart out for as long as it took. Maybe that wasn’t what Emma needed and perhaps when she returns, I can at least be a mother to her and help her with her grief and loss. For my son, it was less of a struggle to say goodbye and that is understandable because Archie always growled at him and they never had a chance to truly bond. He was a risk as there was a testosterone battle with teenage boys which was a constant worry and restrictive for Edward. There was some magic healing though, in the fact that my son stayed in his last few days and whilst he growled on his very last morning, as he was incapable of getting up, the previous days he had greeted Edward and showed him that it was only ever to do with the pecking order and never really personal. I know that Archie paid a high price for taking on board my emotions and absorbing what was going on for me and others in my family. He was always highly strung and unpredictable and that was part of his charm but at times he would become frenetic and very unsettled, as he tuned into what was happening for us ie during our final marriage separation. Pets do this for us and so often we don’t realise what’s happening, blaming them for acting strange or depressed when it belongs to us. It doesn’t matter to me if other people don’t believe me, but I intuitively sensed that Archie came to me as my healing dog and I always had a strong almost fatalistic knowing from those early days, that he would leave when I was healed of M.E/Chronic Fatigue. Ironically in a way, I almost held back from getting well because we were like a married couple and I couldn’t face the future without him by my side. He won’t be using his new pet passport for Italy and that’s hard, but maybe I’ll take some of his ashes with me when I finally go there to settle. What I do know, is that I couldn’t have survived the 13 years of my long illness and a painful divorce without him, so now being strong in my on space, his timing to leave, as with everything else about him, was impeccable. He was my greatest teacher as he taught me the meaning of the word sacred and how to really live life to the full, instead of just achieving or surviving it. When people in their ignorance talk of animals as lesser beings, I find myself feeling desperately sad that they don’t understand and recognise a deeper wisdom. It really depends what world you inhabit, because when it comes to intuition, sensing, total acceptance and unconditional love, they are infinitely higher beings. Also, as humans, we spend a lifetime competing with others and not accepting our beauty, where Archie knew without therapy, that he was a magnificent German Wire Haired Pointer and he never ever questioned it once. Two days after his passing, instead of totally falling apart, and despite the aching grief and terrible emptiness, I found myself with a small sense of renewed zest for life and focus, as if Archie transferred these qualities to me, as a final kindness. I reached out to dear friends and received their love and support when I most needed it, instead of isolating and stoically pretending I was coping with the loss as I would have done before. This alone is reconnecting me back to life and love which is a positive by-product of his leaving. I also began to think of how people often find a way to transform their personal tragedies into something special, that helps others who follow on behind. That perhaps there is a need in all of us, to somehow find redemption and make a real difference. What I do know, is that I owe it to my beautiful boy not to feel sorry for myself for too long, but to reclaim my power and give back to the world what I can. In other words, not to hold back anymore with excuses and self sabotage but to take action regardless of feeling that I lack confidence, direction or expertise. Archie gave me so very much and the very least I can do, is to honour that amazing gift by saying yes to life, completely and utterly, as he did each and every day. This is my tribute to Archie for being my best friend, companion, protector, healer, teacher and soul-mate. You can’t ask for a lot more than that from anyone. Rest in peace darling and know that you were so very loved and missed by all of us and will remain in our hearts forever.
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