Rosie…

or as we know her Coola Boola Girl – her pedigree name*. After twelve years and two litters (she was tattooed but never raced) our rescue greyhound female succumbed to an unknown problem the only way out of which was euthanasia. [Her kennel background gave her behaviour issues which meant she didn’t get on with other dogs or humans – but she bonded with George in the Irish kennels and they became inseparable so we had to have two adoptions!] Yes, we could have subjected her to endless probing, x-rays, interventions, maybe we should have, only to find out that whatever the problem was, was a problem too far for her to cope with.

Typical of herd or pack animals, she never let on that she wasn’t the normally bright dog that we knew her to be, eager to walk, ravenously hungry, forever investigating that smell, and chasing that aroma – but we knew that she wasn’t and that she was hiding or masking her weakness, as they do.

The problem of course is when and how do we assume the role of God? She didn’t seem to be in pain, but she was in distress over her self-respect and pride when she couldn’t keep food down and was diminishing in stature both physically and psychologically.

After two months of looking after her, watching her diminish, we decided to give her one more weekend and arranged for the vet to visit on Tuesday 20th, so she was less stressed and she could be laid to rest in her kennel with George, and of course he could get some recognition that she had died, or at least she wasn’t going to run with him any more. On the Monday she wasn’t well so we rang the vet to try to get an earlier appointment to be told that the vet was visiting her today – a fortuitous cock-up on their behalf for which we were grateful.

She saw the vet and was instantly on best behaviour proving beyond the shadow of a doubt that she was healthy and not at all ill – except that we all knew, really. She was compliant, loving and seeking the attention of the vet shaving her for the cannula until – her back end gave way and in that moment she realised the inevitable, I would like to think happily as we stroked her and cried, whilst the vet did the technical bits. Thank you Sarah Jane…

* Google – Irish slang word effectively an extension of the English word ”cool”.