When I was so certain that my dog was going to die, I didn't have the heart to take a look. Like any other tragedy, this one also happened rather too suddenly.
No, I don't particularly label myself as a fervent dog lover. When both of my dogs were still alive, mother and son, I wouldn't lavish them with the same attention and affection which I would witness from others I know who would truly qualify as extraordinarily caring pet owners. However, I wouldn't call myself a neglectful pet owner, either. I might not have taken them to daily walks around the neighborhood, but I did feed them regularly, and provided them shelter from the rains. Or I would delegate feeding and cleaning duties to any one of my close relatives ( specifically my younger cousins or my aunt ). And I would take the time to pet them and play with them, even if it wasn't every day. For their part, that mother-and-puppy pair was pretty much very affectionate with all of us, and were able to dutifully follow proper house rules all the time. The mother, surprisingly enough, was even able to toilet-train her own puppy herself, and both of them maintained a strict habit of always using their own designated doggy-toilet area in the house. They were also very dependable guard dogs, even if they hadn't the temperament enough to assault any living person, or possibly even any intruder. Yet, their barks were loud and long, and would easily grab your attention. In short, they were prim and proper, meek and adorable members of the family.
And so we were harmoniously living together, six humans and two dogs, for the better part of a year. Those two never failed to perk up the household everyday, most especially that large 6-month-old puppy, which would never tire of playing catch with you, and always licked you and wanted you to pet him. They were great company when you were sick and tired of the working day. And then, things simply happened.
The mother was netted by the roaming dog catcher one morning. As of that time, I was working on a film project that would often see me arrive home at 7am or thereabouts. When I groggily pushed open the front door to the house that early morning, my cousin promptly told me that the mother dog was gone. Taken by the city government to the dog pound.
I was disheartened. The mother dog had been with us for the better part of 2 years, and her 6-month-old puppy was lonely without her, missing a playmate. At the same time I was infuriated with the mother, since she brought this upon herself. She wasn't the type to roam around the streets, she often stayed indoors because she was usually scared of people and vehicles and other dogs. This time, however, mating season probably got the better of her, which any dog might not be able to resist. It was such a stroke of bad luck to have to lose her to the dog pound.
I wasn't able to retrieve her until five days later, mostly because of difficulties at work. At the same time, I have to admit that I was pooling together the necessary claim money.
One sweltering day, I was able to go to the dog pound. It was an enclosed facility right behind a fire station, and was a sort of lamentably decrepit prison house for dogs--dirty, unkempt, and a generally unsuitable place for maintaining any sort of animal's health. I found the mother in a rather lethargic state, having had to put up with three other female dogs in the same cage. From my vantage point outside the cage, I judged she was frightened of her situation and highly-strung, which would explain her expressionless, almost blank stare when she finally approached me after I urged her towards me with my hand. She had recognized me well enough, but she would not wag her tail.
When the mother dog finally got home, some sort of satisfaction washed over me because of having done something right. After all, this dog was a member of the family, and to bring her back home from what was in all practical opinion something very close to imprisonment was only very proper. Mother and puppy had a very emotional reunion.
I began to notice as the days went by, however, that the mother dog seemed to be having difficulty eating, and still appeared to be lethargic. She would respond to our calls, and would still bark at strangers. And yet...she was weaker, in a way. Her puppy would try to wrestle her and play games, but she wouldn't respond in the same way she used to. I began to wonder if this was the equivalent of prison trauma in dogs. She did spend five days in probably the most inhospitable kennel in the city, in the company of three or four inmates who were, in all probability, unbearably dominant. Was this some kind of stress the mother continued to feel?
The truth behind the matter revealed itself not in the mother dog, but in her puppy. One sunny morning, the household woke up and found the poor puppy uninterested in eating anything, staring out through a haze of torpor, his body refusing to move. He was still alive, we could see that, but he stayed in place, eyes sad, as if suddenly depressed. Staring into his eyes, one could not help but think of human eyes which had just witnessed some startling calamity. My puppy's eyes were distant, but they were pleading, somehow. Except that, he simply did not have the capability to tell us what was wrong.
We all felt the tug inside ourselves. We tried all sorts of things to bring him back to his former vibrant self, and yet nothing worked. His stupor and the state of his eyes continued for three days. He would not eat. He would not play with us no matter how much we urged him. Finally, I thought of looking up his symptoms on the Internet, and what I found there brought home the painful reality that my dog was going to die.
All of the puppy's recent afflictions were classic symptoms of parvovirus infection. Much like being infected with cholera in the case of a person, parvovirus in dogs instantly sentence them to a 50-50 chance of living. How could something as nefarious as this have infected my dog? Then, I remembered the puppy's mother, and how she had been exposed to all sorts of illnesses in the stifling atmosphere of the dog pound. The puppy had acquired the virus from his mother ( out of all possible routes ), who had, in turn, probably caught it from one of the other dogs in the pound. The realization hit me like a brick squarely in the middle of the eyes. I further read, through a haze of denial and incredulity, that parvovirus, if left untreated for more than a day, had a higher fatality rate in puppies compared to older dogs infected with it. The puppy had been harboring the virus inside itself for more than 3 days and two nights.
I finally knew that we were going to lose our treasured puppy. The pet which would always make your mornings more delightful. The dog which was unfalteringly loyal, obedient, and often far better to be around with than some other humans.
And as if in affirmation that fate could very well be cruel whenever it wanted to be, during those moments while I was reading the Internet entries, my puppy reached the lowest ebb of its struggle with the disease, and excreted her bowels to the earth. The final sign of a parvovirus fatality. I wasn't there to see it. I couldn't bear to see it. The smell of necrotic tissue wafted up and spiralled outward all throughout the house. The other members of the household beckoned me to take one look at the puppy, and asked of me what we could do about him. The puppy is outside, they told me. His smell is terrible. They did not know yet about parvovirus. I simply told them that the dog is infected with a virus, and its terrible smelling excreta is a sure sign that he will shortly be dead. It was already night, and I resigned myself to the certainty that when the morning came, our prized dog would be nothing but a carcass.
The next day's grief was palpable. It wasn't entirely the same feeling one would experience if the death in the house was that of a human, and yet, there was a deep sense of loss, all the same. Mornings would be different from now on. A mother had lost her child. The other members of the household handled the situation rather calmly, but tears were shed.
My cousins and my aunt had seen the last dying moments of the dog. They were the ones who, after sunrise, carefully wrapped the body up and buried it in our neighbor's backyard. I couldn't bear taking part in any of it.
I had to ask many excruciating questions of myself. Was I partly responsible? The virus infection was a direct consequence of my bringing home the puppy's mother. I never once thought that it was the mother's fault. I was delayed in claiming the mother back from the dog pound because I didn't have enough resources. To be more specific, I lacked financial resources. Could anything like this have been averted were I, well, richer? It might be a stupid question to some, but it was a question I couldn't avoid asking myself. Was it the dog pound's fault? That they couldn't maintain a clean enough and virus-free facility? When the puppy was already showing visible signs of a serious affliction, we couldn't bring the poor animal to any veterinarian because of, again, financial constraints. The services of a vet would simply require too steep a price. According to the helpful entries on the Internet, a puppy's chances of surviving parvovirus increases if it were brought to a veterinarian at the earliest onset of symptoms. We were discussing the possibility of bringing our puppy to the vet as early as the first day we noticed something amiss about him. However, we simply didn't have enough money to be able to do that. Even if we did manage to scrimp some token amount for the veterinarian's fees, we were certain that the medicine required for our dog would be too expensive, all the same. Any attempt at trying to get a diagnosis for the dog would be fruitless if the medicines could not be obtained.
I very much loved that puppy. I had the sincerest of intentions to reunite him with his mother. But, sometimes, even the best of intentions, and the most caring of actions, could lead to disaster, all the same. Could money have helped? Were its owner a bit richer, would my puppy have been saved? It is a question that still lingers in my mind.
Then again, there are simply so many things in our lives which are simply taken away. You invest so much time, effort, and concern for them, and yet events beyond our control are suddenly the ones in control. My grief may have been for this pet that I wasn't able to save because of my financial situation, but the future might see me torn apart by the same situation concerning a human.
It's a hard life, this life. But hope and faith do have their places here. I must go on.
No comments:
Post a Comment