Books by Ian Rogers
Books by Ian Rogers
Jilly, the dog about whom I blogged before, was taken to the vet during lockdown in march 2020 and, sadly, put to sleep.
I used to phone her owner, Jane, each week to make sure it would be convenient to walk her (the dog, that is, not Jane). Jilly knew my voice, even over the telephone. She would become very excited, moan, whimper and dance in circles and then wait on high alert inside the front door until I arrived. She knew the tone of my car’s engine as I approached.
Once lockdown was imposed during the Coronavirus pandemic, my wife and I adopted the ‘shielded’ routine because of D’s health - that is, we made no unnecessary contact with others. Jane was well looked after by her family who visited her at least twice a day so I didn’t phoned Jane for 10 weeks. There was no point in chatting to Jane and over-exciting the dog, only for her to be disappointed because I didn’t turn up.
Two days ago, after ten weeks of lockdown, Jane’s granddaughter, Anna, walked past my house while I was tidying the front garden. She stopped, we chatted and she told me the sad news. It was a bit of a shock but not a complete surprise.
I knew that Jilly’s stamina had been waning for months and that she had osteophytes (bony outgrowths from vertebrae) in her back. These had been diagnosed after an event a few years ago. Jilly had been on a walk with Heather (Jane’s daughter) and her own dogs. They were all running around happily when Jilly suddenly collapsed and couldn’t get up. Jilly was too heavy for Heather to carry so she phoned some friends who brought a wheelbarrow in which Jilly was taken home. She recovered after vetinary treatment and aquatherapy. On her first aquatherapy visit with Jane and Heather, Jilly refused to go to the showering area and got quite snappy with them. I was flattered to be asked to go along next time to see if I could calm her. We all trooped in and I suddenly found all the others had stood back and were looking at me expectantly.
“Ready?” I asked Jilly. “Over there then,” I said and pointed. She trotted across the room, stopped about two feet from the shower, and stood, sideways on, looking at me. I heard gasps from the audience!
“Can you get her a bit closer,” asked the therapist, who was holding the flexible shower head.
I walked up to Jilly saying “Go on, a bit further, go on” with no effect - so I nudged her with my knees. She went a foot sideways.
“A little more,” said the therapist so I said it again and knee-nudged Jilly a bit more.
“That’s it, hold her there.” The therapist began to spray Jilly’s back end. With my hand on her ruff I walked round to her head and squatted down in front of her. After establishing that the water was warm, not cold, I talked to Jilly. She looked into my eyes as I said: “You’re a silly old fool, aren’t you. That’s lovely warm water and you should be enjoying it.” She trotted to the ‘walk-in-water-on-a-treadmill’ therapy tank as if she had done it for years.
“Did you realise that every time you say ‘Ready?’ she looks at you?’ the therapist asked. I hadn’t realised. It was something I’d done when first walking her, to get her attention before giving a command and it had become an unconscious part of my routine. I am sure it helped to calm her because she not only knew I was about to give her an order but it usually had a fun outcome. To her it meant “Look at me, I am about to throw something.” Like a good shepherding collie, she kept an eye on her shepherd and also responded to voice and hand signals. My habits dovetailed with her instincts.
I wasn’t asked to aquatherapy again but I think all the other sessions went well. What she had needed was a bit of confidence in a strange place with strange equipment.
Heather and I walked Jilly very carefully for some weeks afterward treatment because her back would always be weak. Gradually, we reintroduced gentle ball throwing. I soon realised that, if a ball bounced away from her, she would still twist and jump after it. I bought soft ball in the centre of a knotted rope which didn’t bounce or run along the ground. She only had to do a little run before scooping it up. As she aged more, I limited the length of each throw and eventually we only walked round the meadow - though she still looked back to see if I would produce the rope and throw it! I had to hold up both hands, palm out, to convince her I wasn’t going to do so. When, last year, we walked around the simple agility course at our local carnival, she ambled gently through and over everything - but for some reason, she shot through the tunnel, wagging her tail, as if it was the best thing since sliced bread.
Jilly wasn’t a dog that liked being messed with - she had snarled and got quite nasty with the dog trimmers a year or so back - but her fine, dense fur often matted in large, dirty lumps. Just before lockdown, she had some big clods round her rear end. Sometimes in the past she had let me snip clods off but there were now so many that I didn’t feel up to determinedly persuading her to be tidied up, clod by clod. I was worn out, it was a responsibility and, although she would submit, it wasn’t willingly. I was always worried I would hurt her by pulling too hard (she was a real wimp about the gentlest tug) and, particularly, I didn’t want to nip her skin with the scissors. I’d seen it happen before. My Dad used to snip tangles from behind the ears of our old dog, Judy, and he accidentally cut her ear. Forever afterwards, whenever scissors appeared, she would run away and snarl if you tried to take them near her. I didn’t want to wreck any chance of anyone ever trimming Jilly. The dog herself never seemed bothered by her clods, even in winter when they got soaked and muddy but Jane, Heather and I did all worry about these smelly, unhygienic, dangling lumps. That’s why, in the photo of Jilly on one of her favourite walks, her tail has been shaved against her bum.
The last time I saw Jilly was on a beautiful, warm sunny day in March when we did her usual short walk round a local field. On the way home she panted hoarsely, deep in her throat, as she had been doing after walks for some time. Coronavirus lockdown due imminent so I really wanted to remove a particularly big clod that must have flapped against her bum as she trotted. Jilly obediently came and lay by me on her lawn. I told firmly to stay and while she did so I snipped small tangles away here and there. When I sat back she would leap up and rush away so I tossed her rope as a reward for her forbearance. Then I’d call her back and she’d come and lie down about three feet away to show me she didn’t want any more snipping. I’d move up to her and snip a bit more. Jane, who was watching, laughed at us as we slowly moved, bit by bit, across the lawn! Eventually Jane managed to keep her in one place by providing a steady flow of treats at one end while I got on with sipping clods away at the other. After all the initial snipping had got her settled I tackled the big one. With team work and patience we got it off - hurray! To reward her some more, and because I liked doing it, I gave her a good, firm massage from her tail to her neck. She stretched out and enjoyed it.
By trimming her ourselves rather than taking her to the professionals, which might have gone wrong, or the vet (which was what I tried to persuade Jane to do) we probably gave her ten more weeks of life. I went home happy after that visit because we’d made her more comfortable and I’d enjoyed working with Jane to do so. It is a good last memory to hold on to of a dog to whom I really bonded.
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