Farewell to Hardy, a dog who charmed everyone
THIS week’s column is an obituary and a eulogy for one of the most remarkable dogs I have ever known: a rescued Collie called Hardy.
One of the most difficult parts of being a vet is that we so often have to say goodbye to much-loved patients. Animals have short lives compared to humans – ten to fifteen years is typical – which means in a vet’s career we witness the coming and going of thousands of pets. We meet them as youngsters and see them through till the end of their lives as geriatric animals. There is something holistic and satisfying about this, but it also means that we witness a great deal of sadness.
And when some pets die, there’s sometimes a sense that the story of their life is so significant that their tale needs to be told. Hardy was one of those animals.
Hardy had a dramatic start in life. He was rescued by Ash Animal Sanctuary in Co Wicklow after he had been found as a young adult dog with horrific injuries to his head. The right side of his face had been shorn away by what was presumed to be the blast of a shotgun. We never discovered exactly how this happened, but it seemed that someone had decided that he was “surplus to requirements” and they had tried to kill him. Hardy must have dodged away to one side at the last second, and then he ran away When he was found by his rescuers, he was alive, but he was in a very bad way, bleeding badly, with terrible injuries.
He was brought to me by Helena, of ASH, and I still clearly recall the consultation. Hardy had been so badly injured that it was obvious that there was only one possible course of action: euthanasia to put him out of his misery. He could still walk around, but his facial injuries were so severe that it was astonishing that he was still alive. It would be a service to ease him out of the world of the living. I loaded the syringe with the lethal injection, talking gently to him as I did so.
To my astonishment, despite his appalling physical condition, Hardy wagged his tail and sidled up to me, pressing the left side of his ruined face against my arm. He looked up at me with his soulful brown eyes. He had an unusual, short, stubby tail, and he was doing his best to wag it enthusiastically, in a joyful expression of his happiness and good nature. Helena and myself looked at each other. Hardy was saying something to us. I verbalised what we were both thinking. “Helena”, I said quietly, “I think this dog wants to live”.
Helena agreed with me, and we immediately changed our focus. What was the best way of treating his injuries? The main problem was that there was so much missing tissue: it was as if two inches of the right side of the dogs had had been chopped off by a guillotine. The remaining part of his jaw was broken in multiple places. The only way that he could be helped would be with complex reconstructive surgery. I decided to refer him to the UCD veterinary faculty where specialist surgeons would be able to tackle this mammoth task.
The costs were going to be high, so we put out an appeal for him on TV3’s Ireland AM, and the viewers responded magnificently. Nearly €20000 was raised to help him, allowing the surgeons to pull out all the stops to give him the best possible care.
Hardy needed multiple operations and detailed follow up treatment: he ended up staying in hospital for over four months before he was ready to go home. He had been left with long term scarring that stayed with him for his entire life. The right side of his face remained misshapen, and his tongue lolled out of the right side of his mouth in an unusual way.
He was eventually released on the Friday before the August Bank Holiday. He was collected from hospital by one of ASH’s strongest supporters, an animal enthusiast who understood the complexity of Hardy’s problems. She had planned to keep him for the weekend, returning him to ASH afterwards. The impact of Hardy’s exceptional charm changed this plan: the lady (and her other dog) decided that they could never say goodbye to him. Hardy stayed in his new home until the end of his life..
During that time he was the perfect companion, greeting visitors with a thump of that stubby little tail and the insistence that they play ball, which was his favourite game. In the house, he followed his new owner everywhere, carrying one of his many stuffed toys. He knew all his toys by name, always fetching the one asked for.
There were a number of long term effects from his injuries. His mouth was misshapen, with his tongue protruding. It was awkward for him to manipulate food into his mouth sometimes. In spite of this, he was always ready to eat, insisting that dinner was in his bowl at 6pm precisely every evening. If this didn’t happen, he’d make a nuisance of himself until dinner was served.
As he grew older, he gradually began to slow down, and when he was twelve, he started to have some difficulty going up steep stairs. Investigations showed that he had developed a type of cancer in his abdomen. It wasn’t curable, but palliative care meant that he had many months of enjoyable, tail-wagging life before the difficult decision was made to let him go.
Hardy was buried, with his favourite toy bunny, between the two dogs that ended up being his best friends, Merlin and Bozon. The world is a sadder place without him.