Chewy

My mobile phone rang at 5:50am on January 24th. I reached for it, blinking a few times to clear my vision. Mr B’s name lit up the screen. He’s locked himself out, I thought as I sat up. I answered with a sleepy ‘Hey.’

‘Chewy’s been attacked.’ Those were the first words out of his mouth. No time for pleasantries, just panic and anger pouring through the phone.

‘What?’ I asked a lot of questions without properly grasping any of the answers. Mr B needed me to bring the car, and if he needed me to bring the car, that meant it was serious. ‘Where are you?’

Not far, end of the street. I snatched up my keys and ran out of the house, spotting them as I reached the driveway. Instead of getting in the car like I should have, I ran down the road towards them. The tears were pouring before I saw the open wounds and blood, before I saw how hard Chewy was panting. He was struggling to stand. I pressed my head to his. ‘I’m so sorry.’

I was crying in his face when I should have been getting the car. But I couldn’t have driven, anyway. We got him to the house and bandaged him up as best we could, then hubby drove him to the emergency vet while I waited for the kids to wake up. I had to feed them, get them ready for school, reassure them that Chewy was going to be fine. I cried the whole time. Hardly reassuring.

The emergency vet triaged him, then phoned our regular vet to organise a transfer. He was admitted a few hours later and had his first surgery soon after that.

‘First surgery?’ I asked the vet when he phoned me.

There was too much bruising and swelling around his groin to close the wounds there. They needed to wait.

That afternoon, I took the kids to visit him, and I was not prepared for the state I would find him in. He was bruised and swollen all over. He couldn’t walk. The kids were crying, and I was trying so hard to be the grownup, nodding attentively while the vet said a lot of things I didn’t really understand.

The next day, Chewy was worse. They put a catheter in and said no visitors. The next day he was full of oedema. No visitors. They sent me photos instead. Saturday, his protein levels dropped.

Sunday night I got a phone call out of hours. ‘I think you should come see him.’

I felt sick the entire drive there. Then when I saw him lying there with tubes everywhere, stitches, bandages, fluid seeping through his skin, I felt more sick.

‘Is he dying?’ The way my throat completely closed up when I asked that question.

She never said no, but she said a lot of other things. ‘We’re concerned about… We’re worried that… We’d like to see… We could try a plasma infusion.’

I grabbed hold of that suggestion. ‘Okay.’

The infusion helped. The next day, he could stand up with help. I really thought he had turned a corner. His protein levels went up, but his CK levels did not come down. More tests. More words. ‘We’re worried about… There’s a risk now of.. We know a specialist who…’

On day ten, I went to visit him, and he didn’t respond to me being there. Never even glanced up. He looked unfamiliar, felt unfamiliar, smelled unfamiliar.

‘His head is cold,’ I told the vet. ‘His skin feels different.’ Despite all of his test results showing improvements that day, the progress didn’t match what I was seeing.

‘I’m concerned about his breathing,’ the vet told me. ‘We’re going to test him for pneumonia.’

I didn’t want to leave him, because my gut was telling me he would not survive the night.

‘I’ll be in early tomorrow,’ the vet said. ‘I’ll call you, and you can come back.’

I cried the entire way home. Then I called Mr B and asked him to come out to the car because I didn’t want the kids to see or hear me. ‘His head felt cold. His skin felt different. He felt like he was already dead.’

The next morning, I woke early and waited for my phone to ring. It was the longest wait. I was prepared for bad news—or I pretended I was.

‘He seems a little brighter than last night,’ the vet said when he phoned. He sounded optimistic.

It was day eleven, and Chewy was still fighting to be here. By now, the kids were desperate to see him.

‘Just yourself and one other family member,’ the vet said.

I took Mr Eleven with me.

When we arrived, the receptionist said there would be a bit of a wait. We sat. Minutes slipped by. A vet nurse came out and whispered something to the receptionist. My stomach dropped.

More minutes went by.

A woman waiting with her dog asked the receptionist how much longer the vet would be.

‘Sorry about the wait. He’s dealing with an emergency.’

My stomach was on the floor, and Mr Eleven was clueless beside me.

The vet finally emerged, looking like he had just ran a marathon. His gaze flicked to Mr Eleven before he said, ‘Can I speak to you alone?’

I gave Mr Eleven a reassuring smile, even though my insides were in pieces.

I can’t actually remember the exact the words the vet said as he took me through to the back. Something like ‘I have bad news. Chewy collapsed.’ We were still walking. ‘I’m afraid we weren’t able to resuscitate him.’

Even after he spoke that last part, I didn’t fully grasp that he was dead. Then suddenly we were in a surgery room, and I noticed a dog on the table. A big dog whose legs were so long they dangled off the edge. Even though I’d recognise those legs anywhere, I had to look at the dog’s face to be sure it was him. And even then, he wasn’t familiar. He still had a tube down his throat and a piece of string sat loosely around his mouth.

That image will forever be burned into my brain.

Everything after that was a blur. I remember the vet nurse was crying too, that she hugged me and meant it. I remember not knowing what to do next. Mr Eleven was in the waiting room. I fell apart for a minute, told Chewy how sorry I was that he didn’t get the happily ever I promised him. My good boy. The best. Our noodle dog we pieced back together and poured all of our love into.

I checked his chest for movement in case they were wrong, in case he came back to me and was simply being dramatic. He was known for that. He fainted during baths. The fact that he didn’t die directly from his injuries, but his body’s dramatic reaction to them, is so very Chewy.

They gave me a pamphlet for pet cremation. ‘Or we can dispose of the body for you,’ they said. I stared at the pamphlet. Scatter box, memorial products, photo urns, memory bears. ‘Take it with you,’ the vet said. ‘We’ll store him here for now.’

I still didn’t know what to do next, so I phoned Mr B, who thankfully answered straight away.

‘How is he?’ he asked.

‘He died.’ I told him I had a pamphlet. I told him Chewy’s paws were leaking fluid all over the floor. Fourteen kilos of oedema was now exiting his body. Why couldn’t it have left when he was alive?

I could hear the boys in the background saying, ‘What’s wrong? What happened?’

Mr B had to go break some hearts. I put the pamphlet in the bag of food I had brought in for Chewy. He had refused food that morning, and I thought I could fix that. Then I went to find Mr Eleven in the waiting room. The exact pitch of his cry is burned into my brain alongside the image of Chewy.

It’s a special kind of torture watching your kids grieve.

I’ve heard many people say that rescue dogs choose their owners, but Chewy never picked us. He had given up. He was too broken to pick anybody, so we picked him instead. We pieced him back together one touch, game, cuddle, walk at a time. We gave him space to heal, even if that space was a chaotic house full of noisy boys. We loved him until he picked us. He chose us every day after that. We were so lucky to earn his love and loyalty.

Chewy will always be remembered for his gentle nature and big expressive eyes, his toothless smile and tongue hanging out, for the little shrines he used to build at the front window whenever we left the house. There would always be a pile of clothing, shoes, and toys when we got home. Eventually, once he realised we would always come back, it became a single slipper. One of his many quirks.

We love and miss you, sweet boy.

Rest easy x