June and I were at the veterinary clinic this afternoon, waiting to have her stitches removed. As it usually is that time of day, the waiting room was crowded, and I’d found an area that was somewhat removed from the others to escape the noise. Junes’ ears perked up and she rose to her feet as a family of about six came around the corner into the area near us. One of the adults was carrying a large dog with a white face, wrapped in a blanket. He gently laid the dog down on the floor and arranged the blanket carefully. One of the women sat down on the floor next to the dog, and it was then that I saw her red eyes and tear-stained face and realized this was the dog’s final visit. A couple of the older children sat silently, a younger child scrambled up onto a chair and watched June with interest, and the littlest one ran from person to person, seemingly oblivious to what was happening. A second woman sat on the floor opposite the first, and both began talking in low murmurs to the dog, who glanced our way and then focused on the faces of the beloved people. I coaxed June into a lay-down position and caught the eye of the crying woman. Tears welled up in my own eyes and my breathing became shaky. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered to her, and she gave me a rueful smile and lowered her face to the dog’s head.
I turned away to give them what privacy I could, and to hide the tears that threatened to spill onto my own cheeks. I absently stroked June’s warm, smooth head and played with her ears, but in my mind’s eye I was seeing Rhody’s last moments as the vet prepared to give her the injection. She, too, had been on a blanket on the bedroom floor, and I remember so vividly her look of confusion, the final whoof of breath, and then the slow descent of her head onto my leg as she slipped away. As hard as that was, I was ever so grateful to be in the privacy of my home, and I couldn’t imagine being in the place where this family was now.
The
assistant called June’s name, snapping me out of my thoughts, and I walked her
quickly past the old dog, not wanting her to cause any further distress to
them. I gave her over to the assistant, who led her into the back, and I found
a place next to a very large German shepherd whose bellowing woofs could
probably be heard a block away. A few minutes later, June was back, and happily
trotting to the car, where she nimbly hopped in.
I remembered when Rhody was agile, leaping up on the bed to look out the window, chasing a ball in the school yard, herding the garage cats with precision cuts and turns, and taking long walks around town that she never tired of.
Someday, hopefully many, many years from today, June will also be old, and her face white. I will have to lift her into the car and clean up her accidents. She will no longer strain after squirrels, and our walks will become slow. And there will be a day when the impossible decision will have to be made. This is the price of loving an animal. We go into it with full knowledge of the heartbreak to come, but we also believe, on some level, that it will never happen. Not to us. I look at June now, sitting by my side expectantly, ever ready for a walk, or a treat, or even to practice commands, and I push such thoughts aside. We have today, and it is a gift.
