September 6, 2002

• Endings.

  
  

  Our dog left us today. She's gone to live on a farm in the country, where she can chase cows, swim in the river and run all day long.

  
  

  It's been a while coming, but for me, it was inevitable.

  
  

  She is a good dog, but our relationship had deteroriated since the birth of my child over 2 years ago.

  
  

  She digs holes in my yard that span a foot across. She ring barks trees, so they don't recover. She kills birds and possums and bats and leaves their mutiliated carcasses in the middle of the lawn as a trophy. She shits and poops everywhere, and it's fallen to me to clean it up. She's boisterous and knocks my child over with enthusiasm, resulting in a terrified toddler who won't go into the yard unless the dog is out of sight. She escapes daily over our 6 foot fence to roam the neighbourhood in search of interesting smells and sights.

  
  

  In short, she takes up a lot of attention and time. Both of which are in short supply, and scraping the bottom of my capacity.

  
  

  I can be patient and kind when I am tired and ill, to a child. My dog just became the recipient of too many lost tempers as I spent valuable time searching for her, or filling in holes in the lawn, or scraping shit off my shoe.

  
  

  It wasn't fair. Not to her and not to me.

  
  

  I got her when I returned from my first trip home to Canada, and had a miscarriage. She was a black little bundle of joy and I forgave her all the accidents on the carpet and the chewed shoes and the cheekiness of her breed.

  
  

  She was a part of my life before marriage, before mortgage, before child. She was warm and solid and loved me. Her intensity, her insistence on being included in every part of my life was what I needed.

  
  

  But I don't have the energy or the inclination anymore. And my husband thinks I am unfeeling because I am not sad she is gone. I am just relieved. Relieved not to feel guilty because my dog is bored and stir crazy. Relieved not to be angry enough to kill her because I am putting on my coat in the rain to trudge door to door looking for her. Relieved not to be swearing a blue streak at a cowering dog while I am nailing down chicken wire over the lawn to protect it, and relieved not to be crying with disgust at picking up dead little baby possums from the garden beds.

  
  

  Have a good life Katie. I let you down terribly, and I am sorry. No animal deserves to live a life of benign neglect. To live for meals and the occasional kind pat on your head or scratch behind your soft ears. To have faces hurriedly scrubbed where you licked them, and to have to endure endless berating tirades on your latest transgression.

  
  

  I have not been what you expected.

  
  

  But believe me, I hope that the life you will have from here on in, will more than make up for my neglect. I loved you. Have a life full of green fields, no cars, cool rivers and little boys who think you hang the moon. You're a good dog. You deserve it.

  • 9:29 pm
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