Monty

I haven’t updated the blog with photos since I came back as I’d planned due to an unexpected welcome home gift from Monty. He snapped at our toddler, caught him under the eye & cheek causing enough of a cut to require said toddler to spend the night in hospital then have a general anaesthetic in order to get cleaned up and stitched properly.

As expected, we faced the instant horror and outrage from some friends and family that Monty was still alive, since he’d done the same to me a couple of years ago. There seemed to be some misinterpretation that we were valuing our dog’s life as more important than the safety of our baby.  It was an “accident waiting to happen”.   I love both my dog and baby, but would never dream of putting E’s life at risk with a dangerous dog. I did, however, feel an obligation to Monty’s best interests as well since he was my first “baby” who’d been usurped by a new young pup 2 years ago.

In both cases, Monty had snapped, not bitten. The difference being that neither of us were mauled. Yes, there were injuries, but they weren’t those inflicted by a savage dog, just a grumpy old dog in severe pain, failing eyesight and possibly hearing loss as well. All of these also contributed to his nervousness. A toddler is too young to understand you can’t poke a dog without causing it some distress, or that suddenly appearing  next to him looking to play could be seen as a threat and cause a panicked reaction of protection. Similarly, you can’t just expect an elderly dog to deal with this unpredictability by turning the other cheek.  We’d done our best since E started toddling to keep the two apart, without resorting to caging up either of them, but it wasn’t enough.  All it took was a couple of seconds where eyes weren’t in the back of the head.

E’s eye has healed nicely, there’s a small scar but it should fade well and barely be noticeable. Believe me, I know it *could* have been so much worse and I thank the Universe that it wasn’t. I knew, however, that there was no way we could continue to keep Monty in our home any more as it was increasingly likely to happen again.

So my initial reaction was with regret that Monty should be rehomed, since he’d come to us 6 years ago on the proviso it was a child-free home. I didn’t see the point in having him killed for being in an environment that didn’t matach his needs.  A friend volunteered to look after him short term while another home was found and I thought that was everything sorted out.

As the days went on though, I thought more and more on the reason for Monty’s snappiness. It had increased of late, and so had his arthritic pains. Whether that was the cause, or the trauma he felt after the biting, Monty then started chewing his fur in a few places, the skin turned from pink to black. There were small lumps under the areas he chewed, they could have been just fatty tissue, they could have been something more. The vet’s solution was to up the doseage of tablets, but they were already causing Monty considerable nausea and discomfort, so he wasn’t eating properly. Similarly, the more pain he was in, the less he ate, catch 22.

I also had to consider the stress that rehoming would cause Monty. He’d been in kennels for over 6 months before he came to us, and Dogs Trust had said he didn’t do well in that environment, so it would have been too stressful for him to go back there.  He would possibly have been ok with my friend who offered to rehome, but last time he’d visited, she’d kept her cats away, and that wouldn’t have been fair to them for a longer period.

Deep down, I was also fairly sure Monty had some form of either cancer or organ failure going on, so I was coming round more and more to the conclusion that putting Monty to sleep would be the best option for him. Or to put it bluntly, we should have him killed to put him out of his misery.

It’s such a hard decision to take. It’s even harder when your dog masks the pain so well he still bounds round like a pup at times, but you know it must hurt as it takes longer to recover afterwards. It took me 2 days to pluck up the courage to phone the vet for an appointment, and even then, I cried my way through the phone call. I asked them to make a house call, rather than subject Monty to extra trauma of being away from his safe haven.

I had my friends Ming and Candy of Reikifurbabies send him their “Warrior” reiki on his last night as it always makes him feel more peaceful. He also had a chat with Bridget, a very reliable intuitive animal communicator, so he knew what was going to happen. (Trust me, I used to be the world’s biggest sceptic on this, but keeping an open mind is very beneficial.)

The vet’s appointment was for 11am on Thurs 18th. We arranged for E to spend the night before with his grandparents. On the weekend before, we all went to the beach for a last “family” outing, which was such fun for both E & Monty. Monty could barely move after it though, and he seemed to age every time we looked at him in the last week.

On Thursday morning, we took Monty over to the park to have a pleasurable “last” walk, but that got ruined by building work going on nearby. Loud noises = spooked dog = race back to carpark and safety. Some other person walking her dogs was dismayed that he could be so frightened by a noise she hadn’t even heard. I had to fight back the urge to say I was distraught because he would never have another chance to enjoy the park. We got back to the house and attempted to give Monty a walk in the nearby wood, but by that stage he was really edgy and just wanted us to come home with him where he felt safe.  He sat between us on the sofa trembling for a while, Bridget had another chat with him, then he fell asleep for a while. The vet was an hour late, putting me really on edge every time I heard a car come round the corner. I dare say it didn’t help, transmitting those vibes to an already scared dog.

I asked the vet if we could do The Deed out in the garden and he agreed. Monty happily wagged his tail and sniffed around the vet and the nurse, but was having none of it when it came to staying still for an injection. He’d had previous experience with the nurse that wasn’t pleasant, so instinctively wasn’t going to let her get a grip on him without a fight. Jon had to get the muzzle and both I and the nurse held Monty while the sedative was put into his thigh. The vet team then left us for 15 minutes while that took effect. Monty made a last bound to play with his ball, then leaned up against Jon and tried to fight off the sleep that was overwhelming him.  He didn’t want to lie down so we had to do that for him. It started to drizzle, having been fine weather for the last few weeks.

We both lay down on the blanket on the grass and cuddled him, told him how much we loved him & appreciated the joyful times he’d given us as he slipped into a sedative coma. The vet then came back to give the final dose, as I cuddled Monty on my lap. His heart stopped beating at 12.34, about half a minute before he took his last gasp. I was having flashbacks to my dad’s death at Christmas, but at least this was more peaceful.

The vets didn’t want us to watch while they removed Monty from the garden and ushered us inside the house, but we watched from the windows as they carefully put him into a body bag, wrapped in a red blanket. Then we cried even more.

We’re having Monty cremated, I don’t know yet what to do with the ashes. They’ll probably sit on display for days, weeks, months even. We may scatter them somewhere, I don’t know. I do know that they won’t be him, they’ll just be a few teaspoons worth of remains that may even contain bits of someone else’s dog’s body. But I can feel him around me in spirit.  We both just miss his physical presence so much, the house is too quiet without him. We cry when he isn’t there to greet us when we open the front door, wagging his tail and sprinkling biscuits from his Kong toy everywhere in his excitement to show off his possession. We miss him charging past us on the stairs to get there before us. We’ll miss him howling at the window trying to get out to scare off all the cats that now have freedom to prowl round his territory.  Jon will be quite happy to gain his share of the bed back, but only a little – we’d still rather have his ginger, furry hot-water-bottle presence and waggy tail.

E looked at the bed this morning and said “Monty” as if he could see him. He won’t remember him for much longer even though he’ll remember the name, but he’ll probably just associate it with the photo on the wall in the living room rather than the funny doggie who made him laugh when he turned in circles or sat patiently waiting for the next handfed morsel of toddler food.

It’ll be a long while yet before E is able to understand how to interact properly with any animal, he’s just a bundle of energy at the moment with no concept of the pain he can inflict with a nip, scratch or headbutt. Until he’s more aware of this, we’ll be a pet free house, but it’ll be an emptier house as a result. There’s nothing quite like the joy that comes from the unconditional love you get from a dog. My baby gives me that too, but a dog is something special to me and always will be, and I don’t think it’s something that will ever be understood by anyone who doesn’t “get” pets.

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