Rum Drinks and Cocker Spaniels

Rum drinks and Cocker Spaniels

In memory of “PupPup”

January 1, 1990 - June 7, 2001

By Teri Lyn Smith

I like to laze in the sun on my backyard patio. Sometimes I sip a rum drink like those little umbrella drinks served beside a cabaña at a resort. With my eyes closed behind my sunglasses and the sounds of the breeze through the trees I could be lounging on an island anywhere tropical – but for one very definite exception – my smelly black 11-year-old Cocker Spaniel we named PupPup. Both the chaise lounge and the dog share my backyard. Well, they did before 3 days ago.

There really is no end to the power of my imagination. Just give me a slather of Coppertone lotion, a big white chaise lounge and a clear blue sky with the summer sun directly overhead. No matter the Surgeon General’s warning or the recent television commercial telling me that a tan is the first sign of skin cancer, I still take myself out to my backyard paradise to roast under the blazing sun.

A few weeks back my perpetually smelly Cocker started to rudely interrupt my daydreaming with an irritatingly raspy dry cough. She has always suffered what seemed to be allergies during the summer months so this appeared to be just another of her continuing physical maladies. And as usual she would plant herself directly under my lounge chair to be as close to me as possible. Thus she constantly disrupted my semi-consciousness with a syncopation of coughs, hacks and gurgles – not to mention that rank doggy odor.

Now you should understand, I am not by nature a “dog person”. Some people are. I am not. Therefore, I am not always on top of things like someone who is truly tuned in to the psyche of their canine companions. I am especially not tuned into the needs of a high maintenance animal like this dog of mine. The ever draining ears, the muddy wet feet, the multiple summer hair cuts and baths and the constant probing and removing of always-present-in-abundance-foxtails that found hiding places between toes and deep inside ears as regularly as clockwork. It is an understatement to say that Cockers are high maintenance creatures. I certainly was completely unprepared to deal with her upkeep. Beside the normal Cocker upkeep there were the things that happened because of – yes, I have to confess this is true – my negligence.

So, on a bright summer day while I basked on my imaginary island paradise my smelly little dog regularly grounded my mental dreamboat by coughing, sputtering and stinking me into reality each time I drifted off there on my lounge under the sun. How often I wished she were anywhere else than here bugging me.

When she would come to me to see what I was up to I would often brusquely push her away. If my arm fell over the side of my chair it was fair game for her to lick it ever so lightly. I would then point my forefinger sternly commanding her to be gone from me. One particularly humid day as she lay beneath me the aroma from her rose up and encompassed me in a shroud of stink that made getting a quality tan very difficult. How I wished she would just go away.

Then a few days later I noticed an unusual and sustained quiet had fallen over the backyard. I stuck my head out the patio door and looked about to see what was up with the old girl. She was there and she saw me but did not get up and come over with her usual wiggly walk. Actually, she didn’t even try to get up. That was odd I thought so I ventured over to check her out. As I got near to her little black shape she looked up at me with very sad puppy eyes and I could smell that she was smeared with her own body waste. As she tried to get up her back end didn’t work and she fell back. It was apparent that she had suffered some sort of paralysis. As I stroked her silky soft coat I could feel that she was nothing but a skeleton even though her stomach was as bloated as a beached whale. When had she lost all this weight? She had been off her food for only a few days because it was hot – or so I thought. It seemed my dog was deteriorating and I had been too busy to notice.

In a shamefully guilty attempt to compensate for my neglect I gathered her up in my best bath towel called the veterinarian and rushed her to the office. My little dog lie in my arms the whole time like a mummy not moving, not trying to wriggle free but just watching me with her black button eyes. I could feel her heart pounding out of her skeletal chest but still she remained motionless and quiet in my arms.

After examination the doctor sadly stated that my 11-year-old black Cocker Spaniel, PupPup needed to be put to sleep. It took just 10 minutes to shave her right foreleg and insert double shunts into a vein then tape them down with red medical tape. The doctor told me the first shot would put my dog under and the second shot would stop her pounding heart.

I knelt down next to the examination table with my face close in – by now oblivious to any doggy odor – looking straight into those little black eyes I began to rub and scratch her smelly ears - the same ones that I had previously avoided touching. I got close enough to brush her muzzle with my lips and I started to whisper sweet words until I felt her begin to calm down. I nodded to the doctor who then injected the anesthesia into the first shunt. I rubbed and scratched those smelly Cocker Spaniel ears and my little dog leaned into my hand with sincere appreciation. As the medication started to take affect her head slowly sank to the table and I could hear that familiar rumbling deep snore. The doctor then began to inject the final medication into the second shunt – slowly, slowly, slowly until the snoring ceased and my little dog's pounding heart skipped then finally stopped beating.

That was 3 days ago.

Today is a very bright and warm sunny day. You might think I would be eager to mix up a rum drink, slather on the lotion and head for that paradise inside my head – the one that waits for me out there on my white chaise lounge – but something tells me the voyage won’t be the same this time, without the little black dog that used to lie beneath me snorting and coughing and smelling to high heaven. As I remember the times I wished her away from me I am reminded of the saying “Be careful what you wish for”. Sometimes wishes do come true and when they do they are not what you really wanted after all .