The Last Days of Banjo (Part 1)

This is the first in a 3-part series of posts. Read Part 2 here and Part 3 here.

♥

Xmas was a distraction. My sister’s visit was a distraction. Between the moments of family obligations, giving V a fun time, and laughter with my sister, the cold truth crept over me and settled on my shoulders.

Banjo is dead. And I killed him. I led my lamb to slaughter.

Like anyone whose beloved pet is in the last stages of terminal cancer, as each passing hour brought us closer to the terrible moment of my dog’s death I felt the heaviness of a heart that is slowly breaking. But Banjo didn’t have cancer. What he had—a slipped disc—wouldn’t have killed him. I can point to his rapid decline, his waning quality of life, but he would have lingered for a little while longer. Rightly or wrongly, it feels like a different choice than euthanising a creature with a terminal illness.

Banjo was not a dog we could rehome, something we looked into a year earlier. There are so many dogs needing homes, only the most well-behaved have a chance of a new life. Even if we could have found someone who would have lovingly taken him on, it would now be irresponsible to pass on the burden of a dog who had snapped. And it would have broken Banjo’s heart. It wouldn’t have been fair to him, my velcro dog, to rip him away from his family.

I am in no doubt that we made the right decision. But it hurts so much. I miss my dog so much. The anguish of putting down my dog has totally eclipsed the anger, disappointment, and sadness of a second failed FET. The morning after Banjo died, I had my beta: I am unequivocally and undeniably not pregnant.

What a shit week, in a shit month, in a shit year. I have raised many a snarky glass of booze. Because it’s the holidays and I’m not pregnant and I am unbearably sad and there is no giant dog following me from room to room.

Just a giant dog-shaped hole in our lives.

***

I always find the holidays overrated and stressful, but I was looking forward to seeing my sister for the first time in over year, and celebrating Xmas with someone from my family for the first time since 2008. Just as exciting, this was the first Xmas V would be able to actively participate in and we wanted to give her a good time. We’d bought a tree, a real tree with a pine scent and needles that fell, and decorated it with the many ornaments that my MIL has given us every year—in DH’s case, since he was born. Banjo, the nervous wreck of a dog that he was, even on Prozac, would hide behind the tree if he detected the slightest rise in stress levels. His paw would catch on the tree-lights’ wire and out the lights would go. It promised to be a chaotic time filled with love and good food. Until life changed in the blink of an eye, as life so often does.

***

Two weeks ago today, my dog snapped at my toddler’s face with an almighty snarl. As I rocked my howling daughter, I knew poor Banjo was out of options. I didn’t blame him for snapping. The level of pain he must have been in to do that would have been off-the-charts high. The pain wouldn’t have killed him, but the day was approaching when we would have had to have made the same terrible decision. His behaviour betrayed his pain, and his dying day was brought forward.

I called a vet that euthanises pets at home.  It took me an hour to pluck up the courage to make the call, and my voice finally cracked as I explained why we needed to put down our dog. They turned us down because of Banjo’s “aggression”—something I am still passively angry about—and I thought it so typical, that this marvellous and difficult dog should be causing me problems right at the end of his life.

The second vet I called was our old vet, in the same city where my in-laws live. My rationale was that it would be easy to drop off V with her grandparents and my MIL could say goodbye to Banjo, whom she loved. The person who answered the phone coldly told me that if my dog had bitten someone, he would have to be destroyed by the Humane Society. My blood began to boil. “No, I was very clear, he did not bite my daughter! He just snapped at her.” I reluctantly made an appointment, but called a third vet.

When the phone was answered, I asked to speak to Whitney, a front-desk vet tech with whom I’d shared my concerns about Banjo’s growls in the past. I wiped tears from my eyes as I explained what had happened. Whitney affirmed our decision to euthanise our dog. I said that another vet hadn’t understood, that Banjo hadn’t broken the skin, but that the line below V’s eye suggested his teeth had made contact. “Yes…” Whitney murmur confirmed my suspicion.

“All I want,” I began to sob, “is for my dog to be put down with me holding his face and hearing that I love him. I owe him that much.”

“You can bring him here,” Whitney said softly. “We can do it.”

I made the appointment. Thursday at 4.30pm. I hung up. I looked at Banjo and burst into tears all over again.

***

Looking back, I realise Banjo had become fearful of other dogs. On our last two walks, he kept warily looking over his shoulder to watch where the other off-leash dogs were. For a dog who spent the first 5 years of his life in Brooklyn, where dogs typically have excellent manners (you could do very little and end up with a well-socialised dog, there are so many on the street), I think he was perplexed by the pushiness of suburban California dogs. They’d want to sniff his rear end for minutes at a time. I’d see Banjo turn first his head, ears flattened, then his body, then take a step away. His body language was clear: That’s enough now. But California dogs are pushier than their New York City counterparts. It’s like the attitudes of dogs and humans were reversed: laid-back New York dogs; pushy, in-your-face California dogs. When they wouldn’t leave Banjo’s butt alone it was because they could smell his weakness. Banjo would whip around, snarling and snapping at the in-his-butt dog. A switch was flipped, and suddenly the dog who loved other dogs couldn’t be trusted around them. Once he did that to my child, I knew we’d passed the point of no return.

***

Banjo’s last days were, I like to think, happy. I cooked him four chicken breasts and fed them to him from my mouth. His mouth was always gentle—even in the moment he snarled at V—and I absolutely trusted him, and him me. I always loved watching him turn his head to take the chicken from between my lips, his eyes round with anticipation, but these last days of chicken I made sure to pay attention. My sadness overflowed every time I realised we were doing something for the last time.

I filmed his last yogurt pot, zooming in on the beads of yogurt that clung to his chin whiskers. I listened to the rasp of his tongue that licked and gulped, the hollow clack of the pot as he nosed it around, the sigh of contentment afterwards.

I photographed him hundreds of times. The tangle of paws on our bed that smell like a musky honey. The fuzzy pile of shedding fur on his hips. The angle of his long ears, dubbed ‘Delorean Ears’ by a friend. His elegant muzzle with its wet nose, its blackness peppered with new pink patches. Banjo outside. Banjo taking a shit. Banjo’s one good eye squinting into the distance. Banjo’s nose twitching as it caught a scent on the wind. Banjo and me, cuddling. Banjo and DH, snoozing. Banjo sleeping.

Wednesday afternoon, his last 24 hours, I was struck by the thought that if I emptied out one of his Prozac capsules, I could fill it with tiny mementos. That way, a little part of me would go with him: a few strands of my hair, a nail clipping, a clot of earth from my peace lily (because he never left my side when I was thick with miscarriage grief), a thread of the pashmina I sleep with and which he always seemed to end up lying on. And then I wrote a note, telling him I loved him. I took a needle to prick my ring finger to place a drop of blood on the note. I felt the pop of the needle piercing the upper layer of skin, but no blood appeared. I tried again, and again. On the fourth try, I pinched my fingertip first, and then sucked it furiously. Come on, you bastard, I growled at my finger. The needle was fine, but there appeared a tiny drop. I rolled up the note and put it in one end of the capsule. I placed the other DNA treasures in the other end and recapped the two ends. I left the capsule on a framed photo of my  great-grandmother.

***

On Thursday, lying in bed, I watched DH clip Banjo’s collar on. I thought about not saying something, but I had to share: That’s the last time you’ll put his collar on. It was a miserable truth. My heart began to free fall in slow motion, a sickening feeling that kept me from eating much. I was jittery all day. I swept the floors of all the dog hair. It seemed callous, to dispose of evidence of my dog while he was still alive, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to do it after he was gone. Then I headed outside and collected all of his poop. Eight bags’ worth. He watched me. Once he squeezed between my legs so I could reassuringly scratch his hips, where he hurt. I threw his teddy-ball for him and he half-heartedly bounded after it. I found his treasured red squeaky ball and bounced it for him to catch in the air. He caught it, but didn’t try again. He headed towards the patio door, asking to go back inside. I saw my dog for who he really was: an old boy in pain.

That’s it. I thought. We’ll never play again.

My MIL came over in the early afternoon to watch V and say her goodbyes to Banjo. He perked up when he heard the sound of her car horn, and pranced around her, shrieking and barking, when she came into the house. I didn’t tell him to Hush! or to Go to bed. I absorbed it, cherished the chaos.

At 3pm, an hour before we planned to leave for the vet, it started to rain and I was lying on our bed with Banjo, stroking his fur and weeping. DH came in. Together, we stroked Banjo and smelled his fur. It didn’t feel right to me, that this should be our last private hour with our dog. “Come on, let’s go to the beach,” I suggested. Right before I helped him into the car, I gave him the DNA treasure capsule. I will always be with you, I told him. I love you, buddy. Good boy, Wu.

***

We drove against the flow of rush hour traffic. The rain poured from dark grey clouds and I fancied the sky was crying. The beach was relatively empty, and I was relieved to know we wouldn’t be forced to make idle chit-chat with other dog owners. We headed towards where the San Diego River meets the Pacific Ocean, walked along its shores, and looped around to where we’d started. I took a few photos. Banjo looks happy to be at his favourite place again, but he also looks worried. Before we left the sands, I took a few last photos of the three of us. A man and a woman with sad smiles on their faces, and their beautiful dog with one eye blind and the other soulful.

Read Part 2.