What my dog taught me about living a better life
Beloved family pet Sam was more than a companion, he modelled a quiet acceptance of life’s challenges,
SO our dear Sam is dead. On the morning of December 8, vet Amy and nurse Lesley came to the house, knelt on the floor and tenderly put our beloved Labrador/collie cross out of the pain and anxiety that had plagued his last few weeks.
Later that day, I would carry his body into the veterinary practice before it went to the crematorium.
The house and our lives were suddenly very empty, for while the past weeks had been almost engrossed with trying to find a cure for Sam, the past seven and a half years had seen him profoundly influence our lives.
Ever since we rescued him in the nick of time from Ashtown Pound in 2000, probably aged about seven, Sam’s good nature, warmth and enthusiasm for life had garnered many fans. Even small children previously frightened of dogs could not help themselves from being drawn to approach and stroke him. And we let them, in complete confidence that they had nothing to fear from him — there wasn’t an aggressive bone in his body. You almost had to lie down on the ground and see the friendly visage that Sam presented to a toddler to understand his popularity.
But Sam was more than a companion for my partner and I, he was part of the fabric of our lives. Every day after breakfast, my better half would put him in the car and take him to Phoenix Park for a walk, where even in his last weeks, he would attempt fruitlessly to catch squirrels. Over the rest of the day in his early years, he would often have up to another three walks, including his last one around 11 o’clock at night.
Every Sunday, we would put covers and towels in the car I was testing that week and take Sam for a drive into the mountains or to the sea and walk for a couple of hours. We discovered the capital’s hinterland together and found magical walks, estates and beaches that we would never have done but for his presence. My four children loved Sam — especially my daughter Rachael for whom his tail wagged so vigorously we thought he would take off like a helicopter. Even troubled Daniel, never a pet lover, warmed to him on his visits to Dublin. Perhaps they saw kindred spirits in each other, lost souls who could be rescued. And on the night I had the late telephone call I always feared would come about my son, it was Sam who stayed close and comforted me until morning when I had to share the grim news with others. And the following Sunday, it was with him that we climbed the Wicklow Hills and spotted a lake in the distance for the first time, only to discover on our return that it was Lough Dan.
Yet Sam was more than a pet, he was a working dog — in that his good nature made him a help-mate in my partner’s psychotherapy practice. Many, perhaps even most, of her clients would have him in with them in the consulting room.
They shared the couch with Sam and stroked him as they poured out their traumas and pain. In this my partner was following the great psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, who apparently also understood the therapeutic effects of having an animal in the session.
You could never stroke ears so velvety, so lovely, so giving of a feeling of serenity. Sam was the certainty of our lives. When I saw him trot behind my partner up the garden path to the garage and go off for their walk, all was good with the world. The natural order was in place. When I walked with the two of them, it was like sharing a mission and a dream. I felt that the thousands of walks they did together were very special; the therapist and the one creature who would listen and just be there for her. I was pretty useless at that.
My partner built up a whole army of acquaintances in Phoenix Park. I became a bit jealous of the soldier, sailor, the man who lit the park’s lights and the Italian dog-walker.
The last night before the fateful visit of the vet, I snuggled next to him on his bed and eventually left him sleeping there where my partner would join him a couple of hours later when the painkillers were wearing off and needed to be refreshed. I kissed his nose and fur and inhaled the real doggy essence of Sam. I wanted him to be well and chasing squirrels the next day in the park, but knew it could not be. An emergency dash and an overnight stay in the veterinary hospital in UCD earlier in the week had really confirmed that the end was nigh. I dreaded the call that must be made the next day and the visit of the vet who would rightly come and put Sam out of his misery. The opioids could not work forever, the pain, the anxiety and the trauma would return and the beautiful Sam’s life would be cursed.
As the French philosopher and novelist Roger Grenier, who himself died last month, wrote, “a dog is a protection against life’s insults, a defence against the world, the somewhat vain conviction of being truly loved, a way of being both less alone and more alone”.
Yet, as was mentioned in his obituary in this paper the Sunday before Sam died, Grenier remarked that, for a canine, too close a proximity to humans could lead to unhappiness and anxiety about being left: “Everything is a sign,” he wrote, “a cough, a glance at a watch…every minute carries its ration of anguish”.
And for poor old Sam, as he aged, that anguish became acute anxiety. He had to follow everybody around the house and could only be really at peace when my partner and I were sitting in the same room with him. As he developed health issues over the last few weeks and the visits to the vet became more frequent, you could sense the pain in his mind, through the constant panting, and whining.
In the last week it got too much for him. You could tell from the vet’s manner that it was a matter of managing death and the two vials of blue liquid that were squeezed through the needle in his leg were a blessed relief for him.
The sobbing that came from my partner was so intense that I feared her whole body would break. I hadn’t cried so much since Daniel’s death a couple of years ago. He was 38 and many of my tears were for a life cut short and what could have been.
Those for Sam were different. He was a very old man. We cried in memory of what he had given us; the companionship, the warmth, the joy, that “conviction of being truly loved”, the pure gratitude of being rescued.
Perhaps I loved him too much. He added to me and I liked that. People smiled as we walked past. Some stopped to talk and admire. I got used to smiling back.
Last week, I was still doing it when walking back from the new Luas stop which was half-way on our old latenight “pee” walk. I forgot Sam wasn’t with me.
Maybe now I look odd; with Sam I looked safe. As we gradually divest the house of Sam’s accoutrements; ramps, beds, medicines and food, he begins to ebb physically from our lives. His collar and lead are in a box to preserve their unique smell. But it is unlikely to be opened by me— just as I am reluctant to start emptying the boxes of Daniel’s books which I had sent from England 18 months ago because I don’t want the smell of him within them to escape. The thoughtful card from the vet that arrived last Wednesday with some of his fur and impressions of his paw prints was almost too emotional to take over breakfast.
I loved Sam’s eyes, clouded of late with cataracts. There was a depth of understanding in them. He, like all dogs, saw and sensed things that we humans didn’t. He was almost a bridge between this world and that which awaits us.
If only I could have a last nuzzle or smell of that beautiful dog and see him devour a slice of Avoca ham.
But most of all I want to see him bound — or, as he did in later years, pick his way carefully — up the steps from the kitchen patio through the garden to the garage and the start of another day’s adventure. Alongside him there would be a woman whose heart is not broken.
It is perhaps self-indulgent when there is so much human, pain, poverty and homeless all around us that I want to eulogise a “mere’’ dog. But Sam was so much more than that.
One of the first real signs that his sight was failing and his arthritis worsening was that he began tripping over things — a tree root along a path or the step up to a pavement. It was always a shock to see him topple over and you’d rush to help him. But he’d simply pick himself up and carry on his way unfazed, tail gently wagging. There was something inspirational about it — that despite all his infirmities, he modelled a quiet acceptance of life’s challenges, of his ageing body, and still managed to adore his walks.
So that’s what we’re doing now, Sam: we’re picking ourselves up and carrying on, as you taught us to do — reassured by the knowledge that, though we will offer a warm home to another dog when we’re ready, we couldn’t have loved you more.
Sam you made us, or perhaps really me, a better person. And I miss you dreadfully.
‘I hadn’t cried so much since Daniel’s death a couple of years ago’