Duchess

Duchess

By Donald C. Brown




Duchess was a beautiful female Great Dane. She was considered to be a Harlequin Great Dane, although she was entirely black except for a white blaze on her chest and a couple of white spots on her shoulders. Someone had lost her or dumped her on the interstate about ten miles from our house. My son brought her to me and asked me to keep her for a few weeks while her searched the veterinarians to locate her owner. She had a severe problem with separation anxiety and could not be left alone in the house, or she would hide dog food everywhere. I tried to break her from being an inside-the-house dog to being a backyard dog. She jumped the fence and roamed the neighborhood, looking for me. A car hit her and ran over her right front paw. She suffered three split cuts, each one being about six inches long and clear to the bone. The vet said there were no broken bones or cut ligaments or cartilage. It was only soft tissue. The total bill would be about $600. I bit my tongue and gave permission to start the treatment.

For two months, I took her in to the veterinary hospital to have the dressings changed. At first, it was every day, then every third day, and at last once a week. She would not allow anyone but me to touch that leg. I had to change the dressings and clean the wound while the vet supervised. Between visits I had to watch her constantly to keep her from tearing the dressings off. By the time her leg was healed, she had bonded to me so closely that she was my dog for life, even if we had found her previous owner. She became my companion and could not be separated from me.

For five years, she has been by my side. If I stood up to go to another room, she had her nose in my back pocket to make sure I did not go away without her knowing about it. In the winter, I had to go out on the patio with her or she would be so anxious she could not answer nature’s call. She slept on the floor beside my bed. If she woke up during the night and had to go outside, I had to go with her. She had to go for a one-mile walk every day, even on blustery December days with the moisture in the air stinging your face and hands. If I went out to work in the woodshop, she had to be there, curled up on a pile of sawdust, watching me work. If the lawn needed mowing, she was on her chain in the driveway, making sure I didn’t miss any spots.

About a year ago, she suddenly had a large lump on her right front knee, the same leg she had injured when we first got her. By that time, she was about eight years old and the vet had said she would probably not live more than another couple of years. The lump kept growing. Being a cancer survivor and having watched at least three dogs die from cancer as I was growing up, I already had suspicions. My own medical bills were so high, I had no money for surgery for her. Over the course of the last year, I could tell that the pain was increasing. She would come to me and try to climb up into my lap. If she was able to get her front legs on one side of me and her back legs on the other side, she considered herself to be in my lap. Once last spring, a sudden unexpected lightning bolt hit a tree in our back yard. She had been lying in the floor at my feet; before the sound died away, she was actually in my lap with all four feet curled up under her and the newspaper I had been reading crumpled up underneath her. I laughed so hard I could not get mad at her. I just comforted her until she was brave enough to get down.

Yesterday, February 8 2007, that lump burst open. It was a bloody mess and I had to clean it up and keep her from licking her leg constantly. She had no appetite and would not even drink water. Today I took her to the vet again. At 11:50 am, I gave the vet permission to end her pain. I held her in my arms, making eye contact with her until the life went out of her eyes. In only about five seconds, she moved that huge pain in the neck that she had been about twelve inches lower. She left a huge hole in my heart. Goodbye, Duchess. No one ever had a more loving companion.