Saying Good-By to Mr. Scot

His name was Mr. Scot. He was a very small, black Scottish terrier who found us 6 months ago. Yesterday, I held him close, his tiny little body all wrapped up in a soft blanket while our veterinarian injected him with the lethal solution that would bring his fragile life to a close. I miss him. I really miss him. He was only with us a short time and I feel his loss, keep looking for him and finding yet again another layer of tears falling down my cheeks. I expect to feel this deeply, and have, at the death of a dog I’ve lived with for years--this has caught me by surprise.

It was back in early May. Our neighbor, a rat magnet, had once again informed us that he was seeing signs of the nasties. Rats seem to follow this guy around. He moved to the house next to us having left one where the rats literally drove him out . . . and, now . . . they’ve found him here. We didn’t have any problems with rats before he moved in and still don’t, even though, a few literal feet away they seem bent on frequenting his place. Two years ago rats entered the attic of his house through small openings under the eaves that had never been properly screened to keep that very thing from happening. As a result of that attack he has placed big rat poison feeding stations all around the base of his home. These stations look like dark, ominous gargoyles protecting him from the evil spirits that pursue him. I have a theory about this . . .

Roger (name changed to protect the disturbed) has an inordinate hate for rats. I admit that I don’t want to co-exist with them intimately, but hey, they’re doing their rat thing. We’re the ones with the frontal lobe and should know how to keep proper hygiene to avoid summoning them with our food supplies, and garbage. And, having said that, Roger most likely does all the right things, including giving us his high tech classy composter for fear the rats were going after that. We’ve been using it delightedly for years, only a few feet away from one of his enormous traps without any evidence of those clever little robbers. At the same time, they continue to make their way next door. They find him anyway . . . one has to ask why?

I’m a believer in animal allies, a shamanic and mysterious relationship with creatures. I believe in it for the simple reason that I have experienced this very potent relationship with many throughout my life. It’s quite a thrill to own a multi-talented and gorgeous hummingbird or loyal sturdy canine as an ally . . . Not so much with the lowly and mostly detested rat. But wait . . . rat? We are talking survivors, big time adaptors, cunning as hell, and, well, cute. They’ve gotten a deserved and not so deserved bad rap . . . Back to Mr. Scot and the rat.

This Spring when Roger informed us that the rats were back, we dutifully put out our Hav-a-Heart trap. After all, we feel the need to support this harried man while saving one little critter from his evil traps. Low and behold, we caught one and Dan drove it miles away to the country where he turned the frightened little guy loose. The next night at 3 AM we were awakened by a dog barking. Roger has a little nervous dog that tends to be a barker when left outside. It was a logical assumption this dog was out, trying to get Rogers attention to be let in. Groggy and not wanting to get out of a warm bed I kept willing myself back to sleep. After a good 45 minutes Dan got up and went to the phone, “Roger, how about letting your dog in?” “It’s not MY dog.” What? Dan went out on the deck with a flashlight to investigate. Right under our bedroom window two stories down, was a frantic little black hairy mess of a dog tossing and tumbling our Hav-a-Heart trap around wildly and barking non-stop. What was it? Mr. Scot.

Mr. Scot was a mass of matted, dirty black hair that hung over his eyes and touched the ground. I fed the little guy and made him a place to sleep in the garage while Dan drove the terrified rat to his liberation into the county. Once inside and away from fresh air I got a noseful of this unkempt mess of a dog. I’ll never forget exactly how badly he smelled.

The next day we discovered he had no collar, no microchip, nothing posted online or locally . . . a homeless, filthy dog. Dan wanted me to take him to the animal shelter that very day. I agreed, and added that no matter what--he needed to get cleaned up. He was too matted and dirty for me to do any good--he needed professional services. A groomer in town could take him that very day. When I dropped him off she said, “I’ll make him look like a Scottish Terrier again.” I had no idea what that meant, having never had anything other than a Labrador Retriever , an Aussie, German Shepherd cross, Blue Heeler, and now, my marvelous Border Collie. Never had a terrier before.

Hours later when I picked him up I was stunned. There was a dog under all that mess and a very little dog at that . . . but, the hair! Dan said he looked like a parade float! He did . . . and he pranced like one too! He was close shaved on his back and wiry hair hung down from his sides like a Scottish skirt/kilt. He had an impressive mustache and perky little ears that shot up from the top of a very long nose. All he lacked was a tartan splashed across his shoulders and a pipe. He smelled good and had a little blue ribbon on the collar he was borrowing from Billy, our Blue Heeler who had passed just months before. The groomer had to wash him 4 times along with a conditioning bath to get him clean . . . it was an act of mercy and generosity. I got him home and showed him around the house, introducing him to Callie the Border Collie. Dan took him for a little walk around the neighborhood to see if anyone recognized him, or if he showed any signs of finding home. None. By the end of day one I still had not called the shelter . . . I just hadn’t gotten to it!

By day two I was doubtful I’d ever call the shelter. I had the sense that Mr. Scot was here to stay . . . as long as he had left, that is. He was clearly very old, with a lot of hard miles on him. I didn’t want to see him sitting in a cage waiting for someone to come and give him a home. Added to that, I watched Dan walk this little Scottish terrier around and saw a fit. It was as if they belonged to each other. I had the strong feeling that he had come to us to make his passage out of this life, and added to that, he was borrowing Billy’s collar . . .

Dan had never had the chance to say good-by to Billy. He was away on business for the week Billy had massive seizures that left him disoriented, incontinent and immobile. Billy had been Dan’s dog before we got married and it was challenging for both of us when it fell to me to make the call for euthanasia. No matter how hard he tried, Dan couldn’t get home in time, and Billy was suffering. Prohibited by work, and a freak snow-storm shutting down a major airport, the best we could do was have him present by speakerphone. On a cold and rainy night in February my best friend, and my son Jeff sat with me while I held Billy and loved him into the next stage of his journey. This time, Dan would be there and perhaps bring closure to the missing pieces with Billy.

Almost from the very moment I picked him up at the groomer’s I knew this dog would be with us, and he had to have a name . . . This dog could be nothing other than, Mr. Scot. It was as though his name was written in the air around him, and it didn’t hurt that I’d just seen the new Star Trek movie! He had the stature of royalty when he pranced and a sweet disposition. He seemed to be at home wherever he was. He loved car rides, sitting in your lap, or curled up in front of a fire--he oozed personality. It was also evident from the very beginning that he had serious health concerns.

Mr. Scot suffered from an obvious mouth irritation, digestive, skin and eye problems. I felt as though he were a leaky dam and I the maintenance caretaker. Over the months he had shots, teeth extracted, anti-fungal treatments, antibiotics, and many dietary regimes. Through all the bathing, eye drops, face washes, pills, vomiting and retching he was a champ, never mean--a true sweetie glad to be rewarded with a bowl of food at the end of it all. We did all that we could for his health without the benefit of history or invasive extraordinary measures. I knew I wasn’t going to construct a new dam, but perhaps I could patch the obvious holes. That’s exactly what happened and for a few months it looked as though maybe he’d be around for a while . . .

It was in those few months that we had a chance to really get to know the little spark plug of a dog Mr. Scot was. He was feisty and sweet with a will to match the legacy of his heritage. Whenever I hear a Scotsman talking from here on out, there he will be in my memory, prancing up in his royal, “By God I’m here, I’m hot and I know it,” way! Even at the last when cancer was eating up all the calories we could get down him and he was hardly more than skin over bones, he never lost that attitude. It was subdued, and it was there.

In his final day, bleeding broke through the upper palette of that tortured mouth of his. The dam burst and with heavy hearts we knew it was time. As I said at the beginning, it had only been 6 months and yet my mind is full of images of this little character I had the privilege to love into the next part of his journey . . . His yellow and gray striped turtleneck sweater . . . His dancing and prancing for dinner with one front leg stretched out to the side I affectionately called his Jolson . . . The royal gait he assumed while under leash as he and Dan took their nightly walk to the pond . . . His love of riding in the front seat and looking out the window . . . His trusting insistence at lying in the very middle of the floor of the kitchen at any gathering of people . . . Walking down to the water’s edge at the beach looking as though he was on a mission to swim to his homeland . . . The way he melted in my arms and curled up in front of the fire when it was providing heat or not! So many memories in such a short time.

What a fortuitous day, that day in May when a rat in a trap summoned a stray little Scottie in our yard hoping for dinner. He took a lot of care and attention in end. We had gotten into a routine of meds, meals, cleanings and potty pauses throughout the day. I spent a lot of time and attention on him and now I find that I keep looking for him, thinking about the time and what he would be needing when, etc. He’s not here, and I am still here with him. There were moments I got impatient with him toward the end, moments I wasn’t as considerate as I could have been, and I did my best. One time I looked at him and said matter of factly, “Look, when you die, I want you to just do it, no more of this lingering.” Now the memory of those words feel like sanding sticking in my throat. Looking back I see that the last 4 weeks he began to implode, loose health and his sparkle at an accelerated pace. It was hard for me to see how much loss there was while immersed in the day to day reality of his care. The bleeding oozing from his mouth was the resounding finality.

This has been a year of losses for me. There have been so many that I would have to be blind not to see something is going on in and beyond me. What remains beyond the losses is yet to be discovered. Life is all about letting go from the moment we draw our first breath, we live and die simultaneously. I think we tend to forget that while our limbs are moving effortlessly and our brains are functioning at their peak . . . and then something happens, and the shocking reality comes into focus. We are fragile. We are fragile beings on a course to death and we never know how or when that will happen.

If we’re one of the ‘lucky’ ones we might just have our awareness awakened. We might get a sense of our fragility, live with death as our closest companion informing us that every moment in this extraordinary experience of being human is something to be treasured. Some of us are here for a long time in the metrics of our experience . . . some of us only a brief visitation . . . In the main, we don’t get to choose how long we are here, and all of our choices do effect that very outcome. We do have complete choice over our experience of being while we are here.

Even in the end of his long life, Mr. Scot was open to starting all over. He was looking for food and found a family, a soft place to land on his way out. He never resisted me once, while at the same time making sure I was quite aware of all of his needs and wishes with that unforgettably determined bark of his. It was like he was always saying . . “OK, so I’m going to be part of your family now, I can dig it. I’ll sparkle and dance for my dinner and plop myself right in the middle . . . because look at me--I’m hot and well endowed, and by god I’m a Scot!”

I bought a beautiful bouquet of flowers at our local Trader Joe’s yesterday. Bright red roses, deep orange Gerber Daisies, rust colored mums, and yellowy star flowers. I got them for me, in memory of the bright, warm and cheery character that was Mr. Scot. I’ll remember you always . . .

That’s what this artist is thinking about today . . .