Laddie

Without Prejudice He wasn't the best looking dog in the World. He wasn't the smartest, the most loyal, the Best in Show. He had greying fur ( more salt and pepper, really,} a portly body and a smallish head. His eyes were milky with cataracts ( apparently he could see straight ahead, but little periphereally. He seemed to shuffle when he walked, until he saw a cat or a stranger and instantly he would transform into an Alsatian or Rottweiler, arthritis gone, shuffling gait gone and he would launch, bounding wacross the concrete, stiff legged, his ridge fur standing, his bark loud and strident. Laddie was our protector. When he would be going off outside I asked Alena, my daughter, what he was doing. " Protecting" she'd say, laughing with delight and running outside to chide him or pick him up and bound up the stairs. The wooden stairs he found it so hard to navigate with his arthritis and all. nights were starting to get cool then and many an evening we spent tiptoe on the porch, calling him. to no avail.You would have to go fetch him, everytime, every single time. i'd be trepadacious of fetching him as he would always act startled and when Laddie was startled he would bite. I said to Alena " Is he deaf as well?" She always maintained he wasn't but I was convinced he was, deaf, just a little. He could really nip you too. I had to go to a wedding in Ballarat, (back in mid Feb 2020; just before CORONA) with a bite mark on my wrist that looked like an egg with a smilie face on it. My gaggle of nephs urged me to grab a pen and join the dots of Laddies sharp teeth marks. We were all pretty much totalled by then, shitfaced,( free bar ) An Aussies favourite two words, apart from Fuck You. We had taken Laddie to the wedding.He slept in the back of the car the whole way But he disgraced himself by not getting along with the people we were staying withs huge Staffy. Just a pup, Bayleigh,a female of big proportions, who was as gentle as a lamb and was genuinely puzzled that Laddie didn't want to be her friend. We left them in the house together, Laddie in one room and Bayleigh in another. We were going to be staying at theirs that night, but changed our minds when we returned to find Laddie shaking in fear or adrenalin so went home instead. i drove. I didnt want to but Alena is inclined d tp speed or take the kerb on two wheels which can be tad disturbing for her mother. I hated to drive at night back then but was delighted to find I could see fine. (new glasses Alena thinks I am too slow, and shes probably right, but I can cover ground if I need to. Alena took Laddie to innumerable vets, "He's got a bit of arthritis" said one and gave her a script. "Hes getting old" said another. "He has cataracts" said one more. Cataract removal was $3,000 an eye. I think of him now, toddling his way to the side gate. Alena he said he liked the side entry entry as he could see out to the street through the gate my old father in law made. The gate was timber and shade cloth and I loved it as Tiny made it all those years ago, when Laddie was a pup. The thirteenth of April 2015. Laddie was fifteen and a half when he breathed his last breath. Nothing wrong, they said. Old age and a thirty percent lung capacity because of bronchitis, just a touch of it. Alena hadnt slept the night before, listening to him wheeze. The wheezing getting louder by the minute. She ran out into the streets and screamed for help. Someone rang the RSPCA and Laddie was gone. To Burwood. Alena was allowed to spend time with beloved Laddie before he was euthanised. "It didnt look like him," she said after. Laddie had an oxygen mask on, there in place since he was picked up. He had been struggling to breathe. She kissed him many many times. They asked her if the wanted to be present for the end and when they told her he might convulse she said. " No" I had suggested to her when she knew he was going to die, to put away all of Laddies things. His food, his water bowl, his blanket that he liked to devour into bits. She gave his food to the neighbours upstairs and they invited her up in return, for dinner Laddie was a "well loved " dog And would not we all love that ? To be well loved. I think of him now with his intrepid walk. Just a dog, not even that good looking. But for Alena he was there for her, through the last five years of a very low period in her life.The end of her twenty year marriage The time, (apart from when her little sister died,) of the worst pain of her life. Laddie was the one thing she didnt lose. She lost her house, her car, her kids. But she never lost Laddie, not once xxx(x)