We have five dogs on our farm, two livestock guardians, two working dogs (in-training) and my daughter has one of those live-wire small dogs hat have no job other than to wiggle around and look stupid cute! She really is a cutie and everyone likes to hold her, much to my daughter’s dismay.
This past week, my favorite of the working dogs, Jack, fell ill. I tried tempting him to eat with rice and burger but when that was refused – off to the vet he went on a Monday and he wasn’t able to come home until Friday. As I type this, it is Saturday night and I’m coming to terms with the fact that Jack is likely not going to make it. He refused food again Friday night only hours after we brought him home. All day today I’ve been giving him water and mixed up dog food by syringe after calling our vet tech. She reached out to the vet and told us he thinks this rapid decline so soon is indicative of permanent organ damage.
I’m sad,
I’m mad,
and I’m not handling this well.
What really surprises me is that my kids take it in stride. They know he’s likely dying – I interrupted someone’s Fortnite game to make sure they understood. A year ago when we decided to move to this farm, I wondered how the kids would handle animals dying. We’ve lost plenty of animals, two goats, ten chicks, and about 25 chickens and a couple of baby birds fallen from their nests. This might be a good time to mention, that I agreed to move to a farm on one condition; I will not kill anything except for flies and bugs in the house.
One day while we were still in the planning stages to buy a farm, I reminded everyone of my ‘no-kill’ position.
Chuck: So you won’t kill even a chicken?
Me: Nope.
Chuck: I guess pigs and cows would be a ‘no’?
Me: Yup.
Charlie: But when you made dinner the other night with mussels, you killed them.
Me: Right, but I didn’t know I was killing them until Daddy told me. I thought they were already dead when he bought them.
Charlie: Oh yeah.
Christian: Remember, when she found out she killed ‘em, she cried?
Charlie: You did?!
Me: Just a tiny bit.
Charlie: OK Dad, we’re gonna have to work her up to it. Hmm, what is bigger than a mussel and smaller than a chicken?
Fast forward to when we actually had the chickens and we found a chicken hurt by one of our guardian dogs {another story}I would talk Chuck out of killing the chickens EVERY single time (ok only twice but still, both times it happened). One time the chicken died the next day, but the other time Chuck thought the injuries were much worse than they really were and the chicken lived and was fine.
I so badly want this to be one of those times for Jack, the living and being fine. What just makes me so sad, is how trusting our companion pets are – he was dying, he couldn’t have been feeling well. But every time I walked by him, or said his name, he looked at me and thumped his tail. My sweet Jack.
Update: Jack died early Sunday morning – we miss you buddy!
