Saying goodbye to man’s best friend never gets any easier

The first week back from holiday is normally notable for ploughing through the work email backlog, washing piles of laundry and vowIng to maintain your newly-heightened levels of activity while knocking off alcohol intake. This time, sadly, it was dominated by the precipitous decline of our elder dog, Datchet, who we had to put down yesterday.

As this blog has become the “newspaper of record” for my life, I couldn’t let what will inevitably be one of the most significant happenings of 2020 go by without acknowledgment.

Datchet was particularly special because he started life as my mother’s dog. Her first request after being diagnosed with terminal cancer was that we take the then 8-month-old puppy from St. Louis to England when her time came. Datchet’s unusual early years marked his life and ours. Though Mom, barely ambulatory after heavy chemotherapy treatments, couldn’t walk him and could barely care for herself, she refused to give him up. Unwavering canine adoration was as good as drugs when it came to helping her face both her medical trials and her impending death.

Lack of enough exercise, however, made Datchet a runner, and his early years were filled with panicked neighbourhood mobilisations to find him after he slipped his lead to escape at high speed. The closest I’ve ever been to a heart attack was probably a madcap sprint after him as he dashed for the main road by Mom’s house; I heard squealing breaks on my approach and broke through the trees to find a trembling, frozen pup sat in the middle of the road staring at the SUV that had managed to hit is brakes just in time.

Datchet’s first three years saw prolonged stays in kennels and with friends when Mom was in hospital, and during those good periods when she embarked on her bucket-list travel before the end. It made him more aloof and less of a snuggling lapdog than the average cavalier King Charles spaniel, and certainly wary of his new life when we brought him to England in 2011.

We joked that he was the most expensive cavalier in Hampshire, given the £2,000+ in transport fees plus other incidentals we racked up getting him here. But for me, it was like having a little piece of my Mom still around after she’d gone. And for my husband, who was never forgiven by my first cavalier Mr. Darcy for becoming the alpha male in the house, Datchet could be our dog. His presence certainly softened the blow when Darcy went to the grave just four months after my mother.

Since then, Datchet’s had an existence that outstrips the quality of life standards of 80% of the human population. The exchange, of course, is that he consistently made our lives better ... as dogs do ... whether with simple companionship, a warm snuggle on the couch or his fierce, wildly amusing, attempts to do battle with swans, sheep and wood pigeons. He even forgave us for bringing Bruno into the house, though I think his attitude would be characterised as “long suffering” rather than happy playmate.

We could have upped the price tag on Hampshire’s most expensive dog significantly. After being active and seeming healthy throughout our trip to the North, 12 1/2-year-old Datchet collapsed with exhaustion when we got home. Within 48 hours he had lost the use of his back legs. Our vet suspected a spinal injury and suggested we could consider an MRI and a canine neurologist. (Yes, they exist.) I thought about it, despite the thousands it would rack up. But within another 48 hours his front legs weren’t working either, and an enormous lump was rising beneath his rib cage. While he wasn’t in obvious pain, he was clearly exhausted and we had no doubt there were multiple, fatal things wrong.

This is the third time I’ve had to make the decision to end a beloved pet’s life, but I had no doubt it was the right and humane thing to do. It’s funny how dogs’ deaths tend to be more humane than human ones. He went to sleep gently in my arms, and was no doubt then racing at high speed towards his first owner. The greatest consolation in his loss is believing that they’re together again.