The Green Mountain Flyer, a creeper train that putts from St. Johnsbury Vermont into Newport, and back, once a week, was off in the distance about a mile or so. I couldn’t see it yet, but it fired its whistle a few times and, although not really close, it was certainly headed our way. A few minutes more, and it’d be on its way past.
We sat on the edge of the field, Brooke and me and the girls, alongside our dog Shaka. She sat on a blanket in the sun with heavy, sparkless eyes. She had been diagnosed with a long-sounding disease that wasn’t going anywhere and the pain meds to make her moderately more comfortable were darkening the bit of light she had left. So she sat there in the sun while we touched her and did what we could to say things we thought might make her feel better. You’re a good girl Shaka. You’re a good girl.
The relationship I had with my first dog didn’t come easy. At times I was too permissive and other times I was overly aggressive with reprimanding her. Louder than I should have been when she did wrong, and much too quiet when she did right. And she mostly did right.
Still, sitting in the sun with my two daughters, my wife and my dog, I felt sad. My 2-year-old wasn’t conscious, really, of what was happening but my 8 year old was. She alternated crying with soft strokes to Shaka’s back. Good girl Shaka. ‘Saying her name makes me feel better Dad’, Dehlia said. Dehlia and her sister were headed up to spend time with relatives while my wife and I got down to the business of putting things in motion with the Vet. My father-in-law Brendan showed up just about the time we could actually see the Flyer off in the distance. Still moving slow, still headed our way.
I asked Dehlia to say goodbye to Shaka and give her a hug and she did. She walked away holding her sister and Mother’s hand then disappeared behind the barn. Shaka turned her head and tried to stand and follow them but she was too weak and sat back down in a groan. Good girl Shaka. Good girl.
My wife came back after seeing the girls off. ‘I’m not sure I can do this Steven.’ She said, knowing she could. Our Vet, an empathetic woman,as vets seem to be, assured us that it was the right thing to do and that, “Deciding what’s best for your pet at the end of its life is the most difficult and important part of owning them.” This isn’t a sentence I expect to soon forget.
So we laid there on Shaka’s favorite blanket in the sun. My wife and I would take turns lying next to her telling her things we thought specific to our own relationship with her. “Remember that time I tried to teach you to swim”? I said, “You would have done much better if I stayed with it, that’s my fault Shaka, I’m sorry I gave up so soon.” I said. “Remember laying in the sand traps back on the golf course. You loved that didn’t you?” Good girl Shaka. Yes, you’re a good girl.
Brooke was sobbing when they came with the needle. A lethal dose of barbiturates that would put our dog to sleep before the chamber was empty. The train was almost on us now and the allegory, however maudlin, wasn’t lost on me. Its whistle fired again, came within sight and then kept on rolling. Our Vet administered the shot. You were always a good girl Shaka, always a good girl. We held her close even after she left. She was warm and smelled like our dog and I started missing her immediately.