Ever by My Side (37 page)

But as I watched Sasha sprinting into the distance, I noticed how her path zigzagged, interrupted by a series of cuts back and forth, her target invisible or at least much smaller than the other lambs in the field.

“Sasha!”

It was the first time I had heard my father shout her name and the cry was packed with frustration.

The command went ignored and I remember feeling shocked, a phenomenon that shocked me in its own right, given the person delivering the order.

Dad was shaking his head.

“Rabbits! I’ve tried everything to stop her chasing them but she loves it.”

Sasha had reached the perimeter wall, her prey spelunking its way through a crevice in the limestone and away to freedom.

“She never chases the sheep or the lambs, but rabbits … that’s another matter.”

“She ever catch them?” I asked.

“Aye,” said Dad. “Sadly, from time to time she does.”

Sasha was trotting our way, head low to the ground, looking forlorn, almost apologetic for her guilty pleasure.

“Still, for a dog in a field full of sheep, catching the occasional rabbit actually keeps her in good graces with the farmers.”

I didn’t say anything, wondering if, like me, a farmer might see a dog charging across a sheep field and jump to the wrong conclusion. Then again, in a village of a hundred or so people, you would think this particular duo would be well known to those who watch over the livestock, especially given the frequency with which the two walked the Dale.

Over another fence and we were back on a footpath walled off from the fields. In the distance we spied a man headed in our direction and, at his feet, a small dog that turned out to be a Cairn terrier.

This time I wasn’t surprised by my father’s control and Sasha’s genteel response. He called her name, asked her to sit, and returned her to the leash before we walked forward.

“She won’t pull,” he said, as if he knew I was thinking back to the days of Patch, the nightmare exchange, the embarrassing tug-of-war, hanging on for dear life if he had to cross paths with another person, let alone another dog. “The leash is to reassure the other owner. She doesn’t really need it.”

Our parties crossed paths, the humans exchanging pleasantries, the Cairn doing the terrier thing, all brazen and potty-mouthed. Sasha ignored the taunts, glued to my father’s leg, eyes forward, as if to say, “Some dogs have no manners.”

When we were past them, I said, “Yet again, very impressive.”

“Well,” he said, flashing his graying brows, “I confess there was one encounter with another dog that got me into trouble.”

“Here we go,” I thought. “For all her training and all his hard work, that little switch, the one that turns your dog from virtuous into diabolical, a switch dangerously easy to flip in my little Jack Russell, existed even in this exemplary dog.”

Dad described an early-morning walk in which he and Sasha were accosted by a wandering Irish wolfhound, with no owner in sight.

“At the time I was training Sasha with a retractable leash and this thing the size of a donkey began to trot toward her. Now, you know how I feel about dogs, but this dog was intimidating.”

In my experience, every Irish wolfhound I have ever met has been a sweetheart, a gentle giant, blessed and cursed with a big heart and a life expectancy guaranteed to make you cry.

“Sasha instantly backed up and hid behind my leg and all the while the wolfhound kept coming.”

“And what were you doing?”

He looked at me as if I had asked him for guidance on how one responds to an attack by Cujo.

“Nothing. I just stood there, rooted to the spot, thinking this Goliath could practically swallow me whole. Then he began to chase poor Sash. I hadn’t thought to press the button to reel in the leash and so she was on a long line. Suddenly I became a human maypole, Sasha clinging to me, making tight circles as the wolfhound joined in the dance, the leash going round and around, first my legs, then my chest and arms, trussing me up like a cartoon mummy until I couldn’t move even if I tried. By the time his owner finally appeared, Connor the wolfhound just stood there looking on at this writhing, six-legged monster. I’ll say this, there are less embarrassing ways to meet a fellow dog owner.”

I laughed, imagining the scene, imagining how differently things would have played out with Patch or Whiskey. Sasha was an entirely different dog and my father was now an entirely different dog owner. When I think back to those devastated owners who are unable to move past the loss of a beloved dog, left numb and incapable of a future with a different animal for fear of falling in love again, I can now point to my father as an example of what
is possible. Every dog is unique—their quirks, their impact, the way they interact, and the emotions they draw from us exclusive and unparalleled. Admittedly, love and loss may be universal, but as my father will attest, it’s never the same, you are not being unfaithful, and, however much it hurts, it’s worth it.

We carried on along the path, strolling now, and I was conscious of breathing in the moment—the fresh air, the earthy green smells, the vistas, and the sensation of my father’s happiness at being out with his dog and his son. He told me how he was keeping busy mowing lawns for friends in the village and how he was learning Morse code and taking classes in amateur radio. For a while I took him on a detour.

“You mean you’re hiding in the basement getting all ‘Broadsword calling Danny Boy. Broadsword calling Danny Boy.’ ”

My impersonation of Richard Burton in the film
Where Eagles Dare
wasn’t very good, but instantly I had uncovered another bond, the movies of my childhood, the most influential years of his fatherhood. And suddenly we were both infused with an easy wonderful lucidity and an excitement to contribute to the conversation as we ranted on about
The Guns of Navarone, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
, and the best of the James Bond movies (only the ones with Sean Connery). When a pause in the conversation finally came I couldn’t help but think how my father was finding things to do with his time, working to fill his day with alternatives to what he really wanted to do. He wanted to be around animals, manning a front desk at a veterinary practice, playing the role of the legendary Arthur Stone, the fixer, the liaison, a man who had the ear of a veterinarian, and that veterinarian would be his son. He seemed content with what he was doing, but once again, because I had focused on
my
path, I felt as though I had deprived him of something small and simple that was
his
.

When the trail met a narrow asphalt road, we turned for home, heading steeply downhill through a series of hairpin bends that would have tested the clutch and brakes of even the best four-wheel-drive vehicle. We had been gone for about two hours, keeping a good pace, and, for the most part, walking three abreast. Now I noticed Sasha was beginning to lag behind.

I wondered if she had learned it was safer to walk single file into the occasional oncoming traffic, until it became obvious she was actually having a hard time keeping up. Dad noticed my observation.

“Yes, I’ve been meaning to ask you about that. Poor Sash has been getting really tired by the end of our walk. It always seems to be about the same spot, as we turn for the village, she begins slowing down, and as soon as we get home I can guarantee she’ll be straight to her bed and asleep for the next few hours.”

We stopped to let her catch up, and I gave her a pat and in return received a smile and a wag of the tail.

“You need a rest, sweetheart?”

I hadn’t thought to pack a stethoscope for this trip. Why would I? But as we stood there I lifted her lips and checked the color of her gums, laid my hand over her heart, and felt for the pulses in her back legs. As far as I could tell everything seemed to be fine.

“Maybe you can give her a proper once-over when we get home?”

I said I would. Would I ever stop thinking about Whiskey whenever my father said “once-over”? I didn’t think so.

Back at the cottage, I did the examination under my father’s watchful eye. Sasha did seem pooped and eager to lie down, but as I knew she would, she allowed me to squeeze and kneed her muscles, joints, and lymph nodes before digging my fingers deep into her belly, tickling for lumps or bumps or anything abnormal.

Watching me work as I look for clues, hunting for disaster, is a
difficult time for any pet owner. Sometimes the silence becomes oppressive and overwhelming. “What are you finding?”

“Was I right?”

“Is it what you thought?”

I’m not trying to be mysterious or needlessly theatrical. I’m trying to be thorough and, moreover, certain before I speak.

This time, however, the silence was different.

I kept glancing up at my father. It wasn’t that I believed there was something more special about this dog than any other dog he had owned. Yes, he had taken the opportunity to put more time into training Sasha, but he had given no less of himself to Patch, Whiskey, and Bess. Maybe it was my present state of mind, the way I felt tuned in, but the silence closed in around us, crackling with anticipation. It was a personal silence, a silence that can only exist within a family. It had a history rooted in strife and understanding. Its presence said it all. It was a silence with a past.

“Sorry, Dad, nothing’s jumping out at me. How long has this been going on?”

My father inhaled into a frown, but it was my mother who answered.

“The last few weeks, I would say. But I’d be tired if I walked as far as he does every day. Poor dog never gets a break.”

My father was beside his dog, knees cracking as he knelt down. Sasha was curled up on her bed in front of the glowing fire, and rather than stroke, my dad simply laid his hand on top of her head, as if to say, “Just relax, just sleep.”

I took them in, my parents, their dog. My mother looked on, but I sensed, beyond her affected detachment, there was a flicker of anxiety because she also feared something wasn’t right.

Here, for the first time in my professional life, I realized my
father’s dog had a problem and I had no excuses for not getting to the bottom of it. Sasha was the perfect patient. I was a fully qualified veterinarian. Finally, I could give something back. If I made the diagnosis and determined a cure, my father would have his inside track.

I gave my series of lectures in England and headed home, suggesting Dad take Sasha to his local veterinarian in order to check her temperature, listen to her heart and lungs, and obtain a sample of blood and urine for analysis. As soon as I got back to the States I hit the textbooks.

It would have been a whole lot easier if Sasha had slipped in the back door of my practice after hours, but I reckoned I had a pretty good handle on what was going on. According to my father she had never shown signs of a seizure, never had a fainting episode or complete collapse where she couldn’t get to her feet. So long as her doctor failed to discover anything unusual about Sasha’s heart with the aid of a stethoscope, I felt confident that I could rule out a cardiac reason for her weakness.

Based on her healthy and steady body weight I thought cancer highly unlikely. Sasha wasn’t on any medications that might cause her to be lethargic as an adverse reaction, and I felt sure the pending blood and urine tests would pick up any kind of metabolic or hormonal upset if it existed. My examination discovered no underlying muscle or joint disorder. So where did that leave me? Truth be told, I knew exactly where: a place, sadly, I often liked to find myself—trying to uncover diseases of a weird and wonderful nature.

Somewhere, way back in my memory, I remembered a case, or a lecture, concerning an animal that showed periodic weakness due to an insulin-secreting tumor of the pancreas. Insulin is one of those magical hormones essential in regulating the amount of glucose in our blood. Produce too much of it at the wrong time and
your glucose levels plummet, leaving you exhausted and ready for a nap.

Obviously I didn’t want to be right about this—no one wants to give a pet a diagnosis of an insulin-secreting tumor—but that said, I did want to give my father an answer. Sasha’s problem was subtle and tricky, the kind of niggling health issue you might be tempted to ignore or overlook. If I had uncovered the cause of her exercise-induced weakness, there would be heartache ahead, but wasn’t it better to know sooner rather than later, to maximize our options, to avoid those critical second guesses that convince you you could have acted earlier?

I found the appropriate page in the gold-standard textbook of veterinary internal medicine.

“The potential for hypoglycaemia (low blood glucose) is great, and this fact is supported by the number of owners who associate symptoms in their pets with jogging, play or long walks.”

Long walks!

Suddenly, there it was. It all seemed to fit. By the end of her long walk Sasha was demonstrating all the signs of low blood glucose. With luck, her blood work would confirm this finding. In the meantime, from three thousand miles away, I believed I could wow my father with a little veterinary magic that would have made James Herriot proud.

“Is everything all right, son?”

I was calling on a weekday morning because I couldn’t wait until the weekend.

“Oh yeah, sorry, I just needed to ask you a few more things about Sasha.”

“Be my guest. Ask away! She’s with me right now, lying down at my feet. You know I’m always happy to talk about our Sash.”

It’s funny, living in America has made me notice how much the
English, and I am sure I am included in this generalization, never answer with a simple yes or no when there’s an opportunity to ramble.

“Her weakness after the morning walks, does it happen all the time?”

There was a pause on the line and I imagined a thumb and forefinger working a stubbly chin.

“No. Not always.”

I smiled. This was the answer I was looking for.

“And when she gets up after her walk, does she get something to eat?”

“More often than not I’ll give her a treat.”

“And she’ll be fine, yeah?”