We knew it would one day come to this

THE old dog was lost out under a moonless sky one dark night this week, having never been lost before – anywhere, at any time, ever – during his 15 long years of life in the fresh, breeze-blown, energising, ozone-rich slopes of the Atlantic hills.

Totally lost, out there beyond the garden where the wild field comes down from the ridge, full of badgers and bracken and summer snakes sleeping this black, cold winter night.

What is a man to do when he sees that his old friend is truly coming to the end? With no moon to guide him the old lurcher turns this way and that, scared and alone out there among the skerries and sandbanks of his mind.

The man in the house watches and wonders, before getting out the big torch and putting on his boots to collect his lost dog for the very first time since the animal was an excitable puppy beating his own crazy canine bounds.

You always knew it would come to this, thinks the man as he struggles up the hill in the rain calling the dog’s name, softly, amid the startling hoots of owls. If you are not ancient yourself, and you bring a dog into your life, then you know it is likely you will see the poor devil out.

Those words ‘knew it would come to this’. You’ve heard them before. It was a couple of years ago when you flew back from Switzerland where you’d been having jolly times in the mountains with some lovely people, and your wife said: “You need to speak with your father. He has something to tell you.”

So you phoned him and he laughed and told you some improbable tale about what the doctors had said. But being a hunter of truth you had the bane of a journalist’s mind and you saw the snake in the grass and so you replied: “But that is the worst news you could possibly have had. It means you are dying.”

The old man chuckled down the phone and said: “Yes, I thought you’d see through that. But we all knew it would come to this. Always. Even when you were a little boy, you knew it would come to this. Sons lose their fathers.”

And dog owners lose their dogs. Except it’s different. Because the man or woman who has a pet usually has to decide about that ending bit. And show me the human who is comfortable with that.

I brought old Monty down from the wild field where the summer snakes were sleeping last night and had to guide him this way and that – which he did not like at all. My ohso-gentle guiding touches made him whimper. In 15 long years, I have never before alarmed my good friend, the gentle lurcher, let alone made the poor old boy howl with anguish.

But out there in the dark he didn’t know where he was, so I guided him to his little bed located above the hot pipes near the airing cupboard and knelt there for an age settling him down. Kneeling like some pilgrim in hopeless obeisance.

You could feel the tension in his wiry frame ebb away with each stroke and soothing word. You knew he was coming back from some dark place to which he’d probably soon return.

It was almost as if he were some passenger who’d been aboard a sinking coaster upon which the crew had long since abandoned ship. Up in the field – like so many times in recent weeks – Monty had been on the bridge of that doomed vessel listening to ocean combers hit some terrible reef, while not a soul was there to wrestle with the wheel.

Later, back in the house, long after you’ve taken to your bed, he is at it again – and this time it’s a disaster for the fitted carpet down the stairs.

For most pet owners there comes a time when a decision has to be made. The big one. And it’s not easy because they don’t teach this stuff at school or anywhere else. There are, as far as I know, no evening classes entitled ‘How to know when your dog is ready to meet his maker’.

It is the big one. The moment when you begin to consider a oneway trip to the vet’s in town.

Now? Or hold off until next week? Or more likely next month? Or perhaps we’ll see if the heat of summer helps…

Because the old boy does have good days. How could anyone possibly ignore that fact? In those few moments when he’s not sleeping and not being confused, he is out there with the young dog and, just occasionally, looking quite the chap in form.

Except, he isn’t. He is thinner than ever and he can hardly see or hear. The poor old blighter is nearly 100 years old in human terms.

But what if it was me? That is what most pet owners think as they ponder life over death. What if my one chance at this sliver of life was in someone else’s hands?

Would it be a case of ‘rage, rage against the dying of the light’? Or would you think ‘I’ve had enough of this. Beam me up Scottie’?

I used to think I’d always know the answer. Then I had a bout in hospital which was very unpleasant indeed, and I found another answer. So who knows? Not me. Not right now in Monty’s case, at any rate.

For most pet owners

there comes a time when a decision has to

be made