Cherished (17 page)

It was during a routine vaccination visit to the vet — she'd been with me for about a month — that I expressed a concern that Sal was “depressed.”

“She plays now, and loves to run with the ball. But sometimes I look at her, and it's as if she's really down, you know, like someone who can't forget a bad experience. I take her to the park to cheer her up, but, well …”

Dr. Rob Erteman, Sally's vet in San Anselmo, nodded, looking into her eyes, and stroking her head. “Jackie, though animals don't remember in the same way that you and I remember, there are things that have happened to them — especially rescue dogs — that have caused them pain. And just like our bad experiences don't just go away, neither do a dog's.” He paused; Sally leaned in toward him. “Now, if one of your friends comes over to tell you about something bad that's happened, you don't say, ‘Let's go play!' Instead you put your arm around her, you reassure her, and you tell her you're there for her. And that's what you have to do with Sal. Every day, in a quiet time, tell her that you love her — and tell her she's safe. She'll understand.”

So, that evening, after our walk and dinner, I sat on the floor, my back against the sofa, and held out my hand for Sally
to come to me. She snuggled into the crook of my arm, her head resting against my chest.

“You're safe now, Sally,” I said. “I will never leave you. You're mine. I will always love you, and I'll take care of you forever.”

Within a week, another, more vibrant Sally emerged. Even the light in her eyes seemed brighter. And she proved that she really knew how to play!

S
ALLY ALSO KNEW HOW TO HAVE ACCIDENTS.
Rob Erteman commented on one occasion that he could even set his watch by her forays into emergency veterinary medicine — they always seemed to happen late on a Friday afternoon, just at the point when he thought there was only one more patient to see before the weekend. These accidents varied, from a run-in with barbed wire, to an overindulgence in swimming that left her with too much water in her gut; there was the fall down a twenty-five-foot wall, and the day she had her side ripped open by the big black dog whose owner never seemed to be around at the park. On that occasion I raced her down to the animal hospital in the car, then ran into the packed waiting room only to find I could not speak. Dr. Erteman's receptionist, Tink, looked at me and realized I was in shock.

“It's Sally?” she prompted.

I nodded.

“She's hurt — badly?”

I nodded.

“Bring her in right away — I'll tell Dr. Erteman. Do you need help?”

I shook my head and ran out to the car, helping Sal to walk in under her own steam while dripping blood across the waiting room floor on her way to the examination room. I turned around to nod my thanks to everyone in the waiting
room — they'd be there for a while now. Rob Erteman lifted Sally straight up onto the metal table. Jill, the veterinary nurse, helped to hold her while Rob inspected the wound. A boy from the local high school on work experience stood next to me as I watched the vet's expression; I was looking for a sign that everything would be all right.

“OK, if anyone's going to faint — ” He looked at me, then the teenager. “You'd better leave now.”

“I'll be fine,” I said.

The boy nodded. I think we both felt a bit queasy.

I hugged Sally's head to my chest as Rob set to work.

“It's OK, Sal,” I whispered. “You're safe — I won't leave you.”

W
HEN
I
FIRST MET
J
OHN,
we talked about our dogs. He had joint custody of his dog, Spike, with his former wife, and I told him all about my Sal, who was now five years old. I always said that John fell in love with Sally long before he fell for me; when he walked into the house and called out, “Where's my girl?” I knew I wasn't the girl in question.

We moved to Ojai when Sally was eight, and soon afterward my travel schedule increased. My first two books had been published, and long book tours demanded weeks away from home. I was also trying to get back to the United Kingdom several times each year to visit my now-elderly
parents. During that time John and Sally grew closer and kept each other company, joined by Delderfield, the cat who adopted us as soon as we moved into our new home. Sally and Deldy had become inseparable; where one went, the other followed.

A routine dental exam when Sally was eleven years old led to the discovery of an aggressive mouth cancer. I received the news on the evening before I was due to fly back to England to see my parents — my mother had suffered a minor stroke earlier in the year, so those visits had taken on a greater significance. I was going to cancel the trip, but John insisted that everything would be fine. While I was in the air, Dr. Scott Smith, our vet in Carpinteria, would be operating on Sally — neither the trip nor the surgery could wait. I remember sitting on that plane, looking out at the black night sky. I prayed.
Give me one more year with her, just one more year.

J
OHN SAID IT WAS JUST AS WELL
I was in England when Sally came out of the hospital; she was so very ill. He turned his attention to being her full-time caregiver for the following week, until I could stand the distance no longer and flew home early. He was hand-feeding Sally at this stage and had designed a special drinking fountain because she was unable to lap her water. Soon she was able to eat wet food from a plate on her own — the ideal plate was a faux silver platter I'd found at a garage sale for seventy-five cents — and we both cherished our special time in the evening when she would sit in the crook of my arm while I told her she was safe and loved. With her recovery in progress, we decided that every day had to be a banner day for Sally, and if the banner days became few and far between, then we would do what was best for her. Above all, she would not be allowed to suffer.

Those banner days became good days for us too. We met new friends at the local park; we'd finish work early to take Sal to the beach; or perhaps we'd just go for a coffee downtown, sit outside, and watch the world go by. Sally became a grande dame of doghood, those many accidents of her earlier years coming home to roost and slowing her down — but I had asked for a year and had been given three.

S
ALLY
—
AKA
S
ALLY
W
AGSTER,
Wagerooni, Wagatha Labsy, Sally-Sue — lay on the ground between us as we sat in the garden and talked about her life, remembering her speed at the dog park, her love of the water —
what about when she tried to swim to Japan from Montara Beach
— those accidents. And the fact that she would have sold her soul for roast chicken —
hey, remember when she chased that hen? And remember when we found her — all of her — foraging in the trash can?

Oh, remember when … remember when … remember when …

And then it was four-fifteen. Time to leave.

“We'd better get going,” said John.

We helped her into the car, leaving Deldy on the porch to await our return.

As if she knew this was her final journey, Sal's breathing
became labored on the way to the animal hospital. I held her close. “I'm with you, my love, I'm here.”

We lifted her out of the car, and though she was still breathing with difficulty, she stumbled over to the grass and relieved herself as if she were determined not to cause embarrassment inside the hospital. Her dignity maintained, she could walk no further, so John and Scott Smith carried her inside and laid her on the examining table.

“Not a second too soon, or a moment too late — she's crashing, and probably wouldn't last the night,” said Dr. Smith.

The veterinary nurse, Regina, pressed a small silver angel dog into my hand, and tears filled her eyes. Yes, everyone loved Sal.

I turned away as Dr. Smith prepared the syringe, then leaned forward and rested my head next to Sally's while John rubbed her back. Dr. Smith explained what would happen, that after he'd administered the injection, Sally would just pass away as if falling into a deep sleep.

“I'll leave you alone with her, then come back later to make sure.”

I held Sally closer. “I'm here, Sal. I love you, girl. You're safe now; I won't leave you…”

Scott Smith slipped the needle into her foreleg and lowered the lights. Within seconds her breathing calmed, the heavy rasping stopped. And I whispered the words “I love you, my Sal” one last time.

W
hen Chintzy, our male cat, died at age nineteen, Fraidy, the white cat, settled down to be our only pet. She had always been a dour cat, used to being a second banana all her life, and she seemed surprised at the attention she had never experienced before. She was enjoying her new status and would now jump up on our laps when we watched TV and even dared sleep on our bed at night, a privilege that Chintzy had made exclusively his.

My husband, too, made adjustments to our new pet situation. “That's it! Just one cat, no more.” He knew more about cats than I did. I had grown up with German shepherds for pets; our cats had been relegated to catching rats and lizards outside. He was the one who had wanted cats, not dogs. “Cats,” he said, “are more independent and don't need as much care and attention as dogs do. For one thing, they know when to stop eating, unlike dogs, who'll finish all the food you give them.” It was true that we could go away on weekends and leave food and water for our cats and they'd be just fine. But overall, I found our cats to be aloof, demanding, somewhat arrogant creatures, unlike the exuberant dogs of my youth who had pounced on me when I returned home from school, and who had followed me around, begging for attention.

Soon after my husband's decision to have only one cat, our eldest son, Chris, showed up holding a kitten just six weeks old. “Can she stay here for a little while?” he asked us. He had broken up with his girlfriend and was moving soon. The kitten was a long-haired tuxedo cat, with black fur down her back and white on her belly; part of her face was white; she had a crooked black mustache and was scrawny and a female to boot.

“We've decided we want only one cat,” my husband told Chris, “and you know we prefer male cats with short hair. Female cats are bitchy — remember Grandma Dinah's Siamese that would piss on her clothes when she got mad? And long-haired cats shed, and they have fleas…”

Chris handed the black-and-white kitten to his father; it was so small it fit the palm of his hand.

“We just got rid of one cat; we don't want another one.” The kitten crawled up his arm and made her way up to his neck. “And look at this long black fur.” She started to lick his cheek. “Well,” he said in a softer voice, “just until you get settled, and then you can pick her up.”

That never happened, of course. Kiki (a name given by the girlfriend) entered our lives when my husband and I were in our middle age and Chris was leaving for law school, our middle son was in college, and the youngest was in high school. It was a busy household with a very upset white cat who probably had hoped she would be the only cat, and who now looked at the black-and-white kitten as an unwelcome interloper.

Kiki, on the other hand, perked up when she saw Fraidy and quickly headed for her belly, wanting to suckle. Fraidy, a virgin cat without an ounce of maternal instinct in her, hissed and swiped her with a paw. Kiki tried again and again, and the white cat became hysterical, growling and carrying on until finally the kitten got the message and left her alone. For a couple of days the two cats avoided each other. But later on I saw Kiki sneak up on Fraidy, who was sunning herself on the fourth step of the spiral staircase. Kiki reached up and grabbed her tail, setting off another cat fight. Kiki took to waiting behind doors and pouncing on Fraidy, which left her even more frazzled, more nervous.

Kiki learned to be the perfect pet. When you picked her up, she purred loudly and snuggled up against you, thoroughly content. She would even bat your face with her paw, a friendly tap, as if to say, “Hi, there.”

She slept on our bed and, on cold nights, would crawl under the blanket to lie right next to me. She never resisted when I held her tight, and I did this often because I hated cold
nights and Kiki was warm like a furry hot-water bag. She would wait a few minutes until she thought I was asleep, and then she would carefully disentangle herself and return to the exact spot I had picked her up from.

In the early morning, she would jump off our bed and run downstairs and out the cat door to do her business. Then her day began. She had breakfast; outside she would sit in the sun and groom herself — on what used to be Fraidy's favorite sunning spot, the fourth step of the spiral staircase. In the spring, when there were many sparrows about, she'd catch birds and drag them into the house. She never killed them, and despite my hysterics over the flapping birds, she would continue to do this until the last spring of her life. In the afternoon, she moved back into the house to nap on the couch in the den or on our bed. In between all these activities, she'd search out Fraidy to bat her tail or whack her behind. In the evening, when we were watching TV in the den, she would climb up on my husband's lap to sleep or play. They could sit quietly on the chair for hours, my husband doing the crossword puzzle or Sudoku and Kiki napping. “She loves you,” I would tell him. He'd shrug and say, “She's a cat, she uses people.”