My dog Barney

Barney was a black mixed breed dog combining labrador and some form of terrier with, possibly, monkey and skunk thrown in for good measure too. Oh, and pig, but then I think when man created the domestic dog they accidentally mixed that in right from the start. He was a handsome dog with less of a square face than labs tend to have. It was always an interesting experience to walk him, as the people who stopped to chat would always comment on what a good-looking dog he was. His coat always gleamed, he'd fix people with an interested stare and paid as much attention to passersby of the human variety as he did canine. My absolute favourite dog on the planet.

I first saw Barney in, of all places, Metrotown in Burnaby, BC. There used to be a pet-store near the central atrium by the Customer Service desk on the first floor. He was in a cage with his little sister, a smaller, cuter version of himself. Originally, we were supposed to buy one - I wanted a black lab mix female- but once we saw them together neither Justin nor I had the heart to separate them. So, we asked minimal questions - you could see later that this was a mistake but then even after realising that we wouldn't have made a different decision looking back- and bought the pair "as is". I know now the "as is" should have made us suspicious but THEN, we had no clue, not a one.

Barney gave us his first relatable story that very first day. When the employees got the two puppies out we were immediately mobbed by people all wanting to touch, stroke, handle and, for whatever reason, the puppies were passed to strange hands instead of ours and above the crowd I saw Barney passed to an Asian woman, possibly in her early twenties, who, I will never forget, once done with her canine moment, placed Barney down on the floor so that she could continue looking about unhindered. Unbelievable. It took me some moments to manhandle my way through the cooing crowd but once through I was just in time to see Barns wander out of the store then between wondering legs into the middle of the mall. Thankfully, he was so overwhelmed by the unsuspected size of the place outside of his cage that he took a moment to pause, which was all I needed to sneak my hands around his middle and hold tight. Fortunately for the Asian woman she had left before I had the opportunity to do the same to her.

We really hadn't thought any of it through, having acting on pure impulse. Justin and I were still staying in a hotel after moving from the UK to Canada, had no home arranged as yet and were now the proud owners of two puppies with nowhere to put them. We had come to an arrangement with a friendly employee of the store, that he would look after the puppies at his home until we had made other arrangements, but it turned out that he wasn't actually able to. The day after. But he did make his sale ! :-P . So we got in a taxi, picked the two up from the store where it turned out they'd stayed overnight, and found a great animal hospital on Granville, the Anderson A.H, which was just perfect for the two. In more ways than we realised.

It turned out that Laurel ( Barney's sister ) wasn't actually as well as she'd first appeared and she needed immediate treatment. It also turned out that her paperwork wasn't filled in properly and she hadn't completed all of her puppy shots. So, she went into a vet cage whilst Barney was shoved straight into the main boarding area to a room full of oversized, loud dogs. Whereupon he wrapped himself around my leg and tried to climb me, claw by claw. By the time I went in to see him a day later he was wandering under the bigger dogs, happily licking them and playing. That was the base for his super-friendly canine social ability, a never regretted trait. The two puppies also met a large number of warm and friendly staff at Anderson, becoming extremely confident and alert around people, another never regretted trait. Sadly, Laurel only lived with us for a couple of months before she succombed to parvo, a probable consequence of the terrible lack of treatment she'd suffered at the pet shop, as well as her not completing her shots until we bought her. This den of Hades was already closed by this time and good riddance or I might have been tempted to go in there armed with more than just angry words.

Barney, on the other hand, only gained from her death. Sad but true. From the day the ambulance took her he was just happy. He was too young to understand her absence, plus we spoiled him rotten by taking him to all forms of canine heaven in and around Vancouver for months afterwards. Possibly all of this helped in later life as he showed an amazing adaptability to change. A good thing as our lives were filled with nothing but huge changes as we moved him between countries five times during his lifetime. He even endured six months in UK quarantine. Not our favourite choice as we did have other options in that a number of people offered to have him once we realised we had to leave Canada. But we, perhaps selfishly, decided to keep him despite the quarantine. So we had him with us for another seven years and I hope he agreed that it was worth it.

Barney was our first "baby". Our friends who had children kept saying we treated him more like our child than a dog. In some ways I agree with that, now that we have Jamie as our first human "baby". But we didn't baby him, he was always treated as a dog. We just included him in our lives more than a dog normally is included. He came to our friends' houses, we arranged days out for him and piles of presents at Christmas. The positive to that was that he became a part of more people's lives than just our own. Every single one of our friends knew Barney, he was more of a character to them than their own pets in some ways. Or perhaps that's just my perspective.

He quickly established himself in our home, chewing anything made of wood, including: the dining table legs,a potentially suicidal choice given that his bed was underneath it at the time; a wooden statue my Mum had brought back from the Pennsylvania Dutch; and, on an infamous occasion, an entire plastic pot of Body Shop olive body butter, plastic pot and all. That had a devastating effect on his digestive system, very bad timing on his part too as we headed off for a camping weekend that day. His stomach started to make a disturbing, rumbling sound, which initially took us some time to locate. My friend and I practically threw him towards a clearing in the bushes as nothing making a noise like that as a pre-cursor bodes well. All I can liken it to is a tap of green mud pouring out of his bumhole. We both looked on in horror at this sight, even Barney looked over his shoulder at it with a similarly horrified expression. At five minute intervals, over the course of an hour, his tum gave warning rumbles of imminent release. By the third time Barney was starting to stare at it in miserable resignation, which should have been sad to see but was actually increasingly funny. Being self-inflicted and of non-life-threatening proportion.

On another occasion he consumed a string bag of neon plastic 'jacks', all in differing colours of day-glo orange, yellow and green. I think that night made an impression on more than just ourselves as one family after another spotted his "glowing" poop in the gathering dark. Thankfully, no-one got close enough to see who we were as we scuttled off into the night after scooping up our radio-active bag of fun. But at least one person made a loud comment, and who could blame them.

A few weeks after that event we had another, this time during the day. Barney seemed to be straining to pass something, Justin squatted down to see what the problem was and saw something was protruding from his anus ( Barney's, not his own ). He picked up a stick, gave it a gentle poke and realised it was some form of soft plastic. So he hooked the stick through it and began to gently pull. Our eyes widened as the object became longer, then longer and was a good ten inch wonder when the first family rounded the corner to see this miracle. We must have been quite the sight, a black dog, straining his butt a few inches above the ground, and a man bent over behind him, holding a stick to a dog's bum with what turned out to be an entire plastic carrier bag connected between them. Heaven only knows when he'd eaten it, or why, or even how it had managed to travel his entire digestive tract whole. I'm sure we're not the only people who relate that story in disbelief. We'll never know as the father swiftly turned his fascinated children around with just a few words, and a helpful hand back in the direction they'd just come from.

And all this before he was even a year old. In the ensuing years Barney gave us more and more stories, although none with the impact of those from his first year. He travelled to England with us and endeared himself to our families. Then back to Canada but this time to Vancouver Island. He almost didn't make it out there as the day before he was due to travel Justin's company had a financial scare and we were forced to postpone his trip by a week or so. After the Island we all moved to Albany in New York State where Barney enjoyed the harsh winters. His paws suffered a little as it really was shockingly cold there. We bought him some little shoes but, being the unknowing suspicious dog that he is, he refused to believe we were doing it for his own benefit, probably suspecting it to be for our own amusement. So, he kicked them off in the first good dump of snow he could find. You couldn't blame him his paranoia, given that we made him wear a Santa suit his first year, and a blouse, AND took photos. Poor dog. One thing he didn't enjoy out there in NY were the ticks. Horrible little things. He had one on top of his head and a few other places before we invested in monthly medication for them. Justin caved over the expense on the day he found one on his inner thigh, which explained the numbness he'd been feeling for the last twelve hours. The bathroom air was entirely blue that day :-)

Then we moved back to the place of his birth just two years ago. I missed out a story so I'll tell it now. When Barney was finally able to fly over to the Island I picked him up at cargo at Vancouver Airport. It was strange as when I arrived there, I was shown through to a huge warehouse where you're only permitted to stand in a small corner of it, within a yellow painted square on the floor. There was no-one there initially so Jamie and I stood looking about, wondering how Barney's trip had been. There was a wooden crate about twenty feet away which I assumed was empty as there was no movement within and no reaction to our voices when we were speaking. But it turned out to be Barney's travel crate and there he was, just quietly and patiently lying there, as he waited to find out what fresh strangeness was coming. Later, as we drove over Lions Gate Bridge, with Barney upright in the front seat with the belt clipped to a harness, he suddenly caught the scent of one of his favourite walks through the open window. He inhaled so deeply I thought he was going to pass out, and that was when I realised we HAD to take him there instead of straight to the ferry. So Barney spent his first afternoon back in Canada, happily diving into the surf of Burrard Inlet, and lying in the sand with his nose covered in a fine dusting of brown on damp. I always loved watching him enjoy himself like that.

Now here we are again. Only this time Barney was over eight years old, still acting like a puppy in a lot of ways, and still the biggest canine fan of winter I've ever seen. The second that Barney gets outside and realises that there's white on the ground he just runs into it nose first, whether it's four feet deep or four centimetres. But not this year, even though we've only had one snowfall so far and barely an inch at that.

This year Barney started to get sick. We'd noticed him having on and off diarhhoea at the end of last year but didn't consider it, him being notorious for eating grass which gives him a bad tummy from time to time. But when Justin was laid off in February we took him in to the vet for a check-up, to see if he was well enough for his age for a flight to the UK, if necessary. They found that his protein levels weren't normal, which along with his other symptoms meant one of three probably incurable problems. The vets offered a few expensive diagnostic treatments which we decided against for two reasons. The first, which we hated having as a reason, was a lack of finances with Justin out of work. And the second, his age. The best hope, diagnostically, lay in opening him up and spending a couple of hours looking at his intestines where the problem lay. But at his age it was a risk, even with his strong heart. Plus, the last operation Barney had, on his anatomy formerly known as his testicles, when they put the cone on him he kept having panic attacks so we ended up taking it off and just taking turns watching him instead. It would be much harder to stop him attacking his stitches on such an easy to access area even if he did pull through it. Worse, getting a diagnosis did not mean treatment would follow as all three potential diagnoses were terminal and usually untreatable. We looked into our options, researched on the internet, and decided his best chance was changing his diet. And it worked.

During his last eight months Barney steadily lost weight, gradually at first, but in his last month quite a bit faster. But he recovered from the diarrhoea and was happy and energetic again, which was all we could ask for. We went camping at Alouette Lake, which he loved, all of us sleeping in the tent together, and we snuck him down to the Lake for a swim. A big No No, but, come on, we're were in his natural territory here. I took him to North Vancouver to his old walk along Lynn Canyon, both of us keeping fit as I strode along and he ran alongside. We went to Starbucks together, he loved finishing off my coffees, he'd put his nose into the cup and lift it skywards to get the final remnants, hilarious to see and sadly I have no photo now to help me remember. But mostly we kept him company at home and he lay on my feet and breathed in and out whilst I wrote on here, or watched a film.

For years I've laid next to Barney on the floor, occasionally crying about something or other but never as frequently as I did once we realised that he was on his final decline. I've cried over him having to go through quarantine even before we put him on the plane. I've cried over moving away from family and not knowing anyone in Canada I've cried as I watched him get fatter in quarantine, when he had a huge abscess in his head which needed painful draining. It's funny because Barney isn't one of those dogs who comes and comforts you as a rule. Sometimes he comes, wagging his tail tentatively at the end, other times he lies in a different part of the room as though you weren't even present. But he has always been there in some form or another and always appreciated.

I wish there had been some way of explaining to him just how much he meant to us. I hope that he knew but I wish there were a way to be sure. I wish he could understand why, this time, I couldn't help to make him more comfortable, why I couldn't do some "magical" thing that fixed all his woes, in the same way that I could spot a painful stone in his paw, or a cut in his pad, or an abscess that needed draining. Every procedure he ever needed doing I was there to stroke him and calm him down. Vets all over the world have marvelled at his passiveness during sometimes painful treatments, but then he trusted us to know what we were doing. Which is why this last time it was so heart-breaking to see him look at us in confusion as he gradually starved to death, as his body failed to absorb the food that we gave him four times daily or more.
Twice in his last month he stole food, left in a place we thought he couldn't reach. Once it was grapes and he needed his stomach pumped, an expensive and invasive treatment but life-restoring so that we could have him around for as long as possible. Then another day he stole my son's "gingerbread" ( actually crackers ) house which was covered in cereal, sweets and icing. He suffered for that one with more than twelve hours of explosive diarrhoea which left him drained, stiff and tender.

We didn't know how much longer we would have together. We kept thinking it would be so easy to take him to the vet to be put to sleep in peace and comfort, after all, he wasn't comfortable on his walk anymore and we couldn't make him better, we could only give him a certain level of "comfort". But then I'd see him lift his head alertly, and eat his dinner with enthusiasm, how he reacted with pleasure when I pretended to creep up to "get him" and how he could walk about inside the house at least without seeming stiff or ill. So I'd put it off for another day, thinking the vet wouldn't believe us if we took him in. But he got thinner and when I petted him all I could feel were his bones under his coat and you could see them as he moved, and I just wanted to cry and stop it once and for all.

So who knew what would happen or what was the best thing to do. A selfish part of me wanted him to be here for Christmas, to see him open his last presents and to enjoy the day, even as another part of me knew that the vet's would be closed soon and that if he took a rapid downturn it would be more time and money both he and we couldn't spare. But I loved him with all of my heart and wished he could just get better miraculously because his heart was still strong, and his brain still alert, and his coat so soft that he couldn't be going already. I wished that could happen. If that could be my only Christmas present I'd have taken it without a second thought.

But as it turned out the gingerbread house was the finishing of him. Only a day later I noticed blood in his stool, called Justin at work and he made arrangements to come home early and take Barney to the vets. We weren't sure what would happen but needed to do something, to ask someone else advice as to when the best time was for him to be put to sleep. Once Justin was home we opened Barney's Christmas presents with him, it was two days early but we wanted to do something, just in case. He was so excited. He ripped the paper off and took his presents, one at a time, behind the couch where he chewed at the squeaking bone with enthusiasm, tossing it to one side from his mouth and then pulling it back with the claws of his paw.

Once we took him down to the garage in the lift he ran excitedly to the car, finding energy from goodness only where, he was so thin it was always extraordinary how he kept going so energetically. We arrived at the vets, booked in and sat, petting him gently, feeling a little absurd bringing this apparently healthy, alert-looking dog for an emergency appointment. The vet welcomed us into a consulting room, we explained the situation to her, asking for advice as to what to do. Initially she talked of keeping a journal on how he was doing, what he was eating, what his stools were like. I started to feel a little overcome, after sharing the last weeks with her and excused myself, needing some fresh air. The second I opened the door Barney tried to follow me, he'd always point himself at the door, ready to leave, never a big fan of the vets but tolerating every trip. I literally had to push him back in, he was so determined to come with me. Which of course only upset me more.

I stood outside, wondering how much longer we could do this when Justin came out with Jamie to tell me they'd decided to have him put to sleep. Right then. The vet had already gone into the back to prepare the medicine. I was shocked. I'd half expected it, had almost hoped for it in one sense, as it was truly terrible to watch Barney go through this experience. But it was still too soon, I wasn't ready. But the vet agreed, once Justin had said we were ready if she felt it were his time, that he was in grave danger of sudden collapse. Which would have been an awful experience for him to go through, especially if it happened whilst he was alone. Justin had said he would stay with him whilst it happened, that they'd bring him outside for me to say Goodbye to beforehand. But I knew it had to be me that stayed with him. I'd been there to keep him calm through every upset, every procedure and, no matter how hard, I had to be there for this last time.

I'll never forget it. I went back in, with red-rimmed eyes, as Barney looked at me worriedly. The vet came in with a red blanket which Barney laid on as soon as she placed it on the floor. I kneeled next to him, stroking his head as she injected his last ever dose of medicine, and told him it was all going to be alright, keeping him calm as it took effect. I felt like the worst parent on the planet as he began to struggle against the effects, still stroking his head and telling him it was going to be alright when I knew everything was going to be very much the opposite of alright. His head began to grow heavy so I lowered it gently onto the floor as his breathing grew suddenly laboured in his effort to reverse what was happening. Which he couldn't and I hated those few seconds whilst that went on. It was soon over. The vet placed a stethoscope next to his chest, his heartbeat had stopped.

I know we had to do it. I know it would have been worse for him to experience the pain of his illness, which would have been unbearable, not to mention frightening for him to go through. But I still feel pain in my chest at the thought that we robbed him of who knows how many days or possibly weeks that he had left before that happened. Perhaps it was only hours away, we'll never know. It's a decision most pet owners have to make at some point, whether to wait for the pain or prevent it ever being experienced. All I know is that I had to put my beautiful, loving, playful, alert dog to sleep before his time and it hurts. It hurt to see his presents lying on the floor where he'd left them only an hour before when we returned home. It hurt all night as I looked on here through all the many photos we had of him. And it hurt for weeks after and still hurts a month and a half later.

In his last years Barney used to take himself quietly away into another room, lying in a patch of sun, or just sniffing about through our things. Sometimes it used to be hours before I'd realise that I hadn't seen him, being busy myself doing a hundred and one things whilst Jamie was at school. The times we really noticed him were when walking through the door, he'd come rushing at us, happy we were all together again, or when we were camping and he'd be at peace the entire time, enjoying our lack of distractions and how much attention we gave him.

So now, it can be a few hours before I remember him and I feel the pain freshen as I recall that he's not here, not even in a distant room. I can't go and find him, stroke his silky head and get him excited over heading out for a walk. I open the front door, no-one comes rushing to greet me, there's only the echoing emptiness of the house before me, no heartbeat but my own anywhere within it. When I'm out and about there's no-one to come back for within an hour or so, to let out, I can picture the emptiness of the house, almost feel it from however far away I am. When we go camping this summer it will be the first time without him and it will be awful, because he was King of those times, I don't know how we'll bear it, not having him there. Even Jamie says it won't be the same without him, that it will be all wrong to go with no Barney in the car, or the tent, or swimming in the lake.

That first night was one of the few times I've ever seen Justin cry. My eyes were permanently swollen for a week. Christmas, just two days after, was a quiet, thoughtful affair. Our thoughts kept returning to Barney all day, but it made it a special day even if we did spend parts of it crying that he wasn't there to share it. But then he'd have been smelling food cooking all day that he wouldn't have been able to share for the first time ever and that would have been upsetting in itself. When the Christmas decorations came down I left his stocking up, with his toys inside. I think they'll be up for a long time to come.

We had Barney cremated and bought an urn for his ashes, which now sits on top of a large chest in the lounge. I talk to it, even place my hand on it, hoping he can hear me somewhere. Sometimes when I come back I announce to the emptiness that I'm home, longing to hear the sound of him getting up somewhere inside, and I usually say Goodbye when I go out. We have lots of ideas for places where we can scatter his ashes, they won't all go in one place, there were too many much loved spots: Lynn Canyon, Ambleside, Heritage Mountain, Rocky Point Park, Golden Ears campsite, Buntzen Lake, the local boardwalk. He loved them all. But we're not ready yet, there's no urgency, we need him here with us for a time to come.

I don't want anyone reading this to feel guilty about having their sick pet put to sleep. It's a hard decision but I am relieved we made it when we did. I wish Barney could have been with us for Christmas but it was too big a risk and his health was not something I wanted to gamble with. I can't help feeling bad for having to do it but it wasn't my fault that it happened. The blame lies entirely on whatever disease he had, eating away at his insides, destroying his ability to absorb food whilst leaving his heart and brain as healthy as ever. The vet said his energy came from his instinct to hide his sickness from the pack. That his one wish was always to make us happy by being there, as usual, for us. But that it was costing him something to achieve, and we could see that cost every time he tried to keep up with us on a walk. I used to tell him to walk slow, that I'd slow to his pace but he'd keep trying to trot along faster, always wanting to be in front to prepare the path. It was heart-breaking to see.

I still take a walk without him. I actually do the walk he didn't get to do for over a year, as he didn't have the stamina for it any more. I always hope he's there with me in some form or other. I meet people out and about with their dogs. That's a hard one. We can't get another dog as we rent and need to move this year. Renting with a dog around here is next to impossible. I think , even if we could get another, we wouldn't. Barney wasn't just our pet. He was family. He was a huge personality in our lives, completely unique, his reactions to each of us were particular to him and replacing him with another dog would be wrong. Another dog would be exactly that, just a dog. I'm sure in time another dog would be as close to us as Barney. Perhaps. But Barney was his own "person" and none of us is ready to eclipse that. His mourning time will be a long one, perhaps forever in some form or other. I hope to never forget him. I hope I never suffer from dementia and lose the special meaning that was his presence in my life. He was my heart and my soul, as are Justin and Jamie, and I feel ripped apart by his loss. I will never be complete again in the way that I was when he was here.

Love you, Barns, always and forever.