It's the end of an era. In October 1999 I picked up a stray Jack Russell Terrier in my street. We notified the pound who allowed us to keep him with us until the owner was notified and came and picked him up, we had him for only a few days, but the pound told us of another young puppy they had which was mine if I wanted her. We picked her up and took her home. She was four months old, someone had abandoned her in a box at a shopping centre. There loss was our gain.
Over eleven years we grew up together. She used to steal my socks and run outside with them, she claimed my white Coca Cola Christmas teddy bear, she charged around the house at the speed of a ballistic missile, she had the run of the house making her self comfortable on any piece of furniture she could jump on. She bit me a few times when I got too rough. Everything in her field of view was hers. She barked and growled at passing dogs, babies, and little old ladies which led us to the suspicion that some young couple had her originally until a baby appeared on the scene and the old lady made them get rid of the dog.
When she was in her first few years it was like trying to hold on to a Tasmanian Devil when she saw another dog or worse - a cat. She slept in Mum's bed, but when I was away on Kangaroo Island fighting fires for 5 days Monday to Friday, I only managed to sleep for a few hours on the Thursday, turns out, so did she.
She was only little. She would jump up on the kitchen table. She would clean the cups, bowels, and plates after meals and coffee. She would bark and growl at visitors until they sat down. She thought everything was hers so she guarded the house because she wanted to, not because she was trained to.
She liked chasing the little lizards around the back yard, occasionally she managed to bring them inside. She also liked to chase bees. She gave that up after being stung a few times, once in the back of the throat. She managed to dislocate her leg running under the kitchen table, she scratched her eye on a bolt in the fence, she misjudged jumping on the couch and fell back successfully doing a back flip landing on her feet and looking around wondering what just happened. She got her fair share of bumps and bruises over the years.
A few years ago we discovered she had a collapsed trachea that would continue to collapse over time. At the same time she was struck with a bout of pneumonia, she was kept on oxygen over night and was nearly lost but she pulled through. She had a lot of fight in her. For eleven years she was a source of happiness, comfort, strength, warmth, and laughter.
Three day's ago, Monday the 31st of May 2010 she had spent several dusks and dawns coughing, wheezing, and trying to breathe, we took her to the vet who gave us some tablets to help open up her air ways and help her cough up the build up of mucus in her throat.
Tuesday the 1st of June 2010. Her eleventh birthday. She had an alright day but when it cooled down she started coughing again. She spent the night coughing.
Wednesday morning she was still coughing. The sound was awful. She was hiding under the couch, coughing and coughing but unable to bring anything up. After a while she came out, still coughing. Her throat, chest, ribs, stomach, her whole body was wracked with each cough. The pain she must have been in. How much longer before her trachea collapsed completely? How much longer before her heart gave out? How long for her to slowly choke to death? We couldn't let her suffer any more. We chose the lesser of two evils and took her to her salvation. The quick painless relief. We stayed with her as she drifted away. We wrapped her in one of her blankets and I carried her body back to the car. We wanted her cremated but I didn't want to leave her at the vet to have it done, she didn't like the vet. After changing my mind several times we agreed to take her somewhere else to be cremated. Somehow I found the strength to put her down on the alter at the crematorium and leave her there.
Two hours later we picked up her ashes... and the blanket I thought she would be burned in. She is now at rest. Her ashes lay in an urn in our living room, the room in which she spent most of her time.
It is now Thursday the 3rd of June. I keep finding another toy, brush, or little shirt or coat that was hers, and the tears flow again. This morning there was no little puppy to lick my coffee cup when I was finished. I walk in the front door and expect a puppy to be there wagging her tail trotting around the floor yapping her usual hello.
I now have to get used to driving without ever having her in the car again. I have to get used to this empty feeling house. I have to get used to not having a little puppy jumping on my lap and licking my face. I have to get used to waking up without a puppy jumping on my chest, used to going to lying in bed and not having a puppy coming in and out, used to not having a puppy charging through the flap in the back door.
You were not a pet, you were family.
Life won't be the same.
I miss you.
I love you.
Rest in peace Tammy.
