The long lived Mythos – yes, the dog did have a name, but it was rarely used as she was stone deaf. Not that the deafness stooped us shouting at the beast when it misbehaved, which was quite frequent as it got older. This reason alone was probably why we mostly saw it as a relief when she finally died. At an age of 15 years + it was a good old age to reach; Dalmatian breeders website states they never live past 13! Must have done something right, as using the 7:1 rule that put her at 105 years old.
So where did the cute little bundle of trouble come from? Sandy, our much loved Labrador, had died of stomach cancer, diagnosed by a useless vet as ‘getting fat’. This was a dog that the children had grown up with and as all Labradors , had a very gentle nature, therefore was much missed. I decoded we could do with a new dog and all the kids agreed, Annette was never so enthusiastic, always considering the mess that comes with moulting dogs.
I was for another Labrador, but Joy knew somebody who bread Dalmatians that was about to bump off three deaf puppies unless they could find some suckers to take them on. Annette thought this was brilliant – a FREE dog! I wasn’t so sure as I realised that deafness in Dalmatians was a result of inbreeding and generally led to health problems. However, once Annette had seen the beast attacking my shoe laces with great determination, the deal was done. Never mind that I knew it would need endless exercise, unlike the Labrador which is happy just to laze at your feet until you chose to go for a walk.
So we had the early cute years of an over-active puppy that soon became a young adult that had been half trained to obey sign language. I swear it only did what you told it when it felt like it or when it was physically induced to do so by a heavy hand. Mythos was happy to demonstrate her fitness by leaping high into the air to retrieve a dog toy off the top of the shed roof where one of the kids had put it and pulling like a demented Husky team leader crossing an ice flow. Strange how they had all forgotten the promises to help exercise the dog by this stage, although I suppose getting it to leap and charge around the back garden was exercise of a form.
The cycling years were quite good; I could get towed uphill 🙂 I regularly took the dog out along the canal tow paths at a leisurely pace and she was generally worn out, at least for half an hour. Being determined to wear the damn dog out I took her along with us on a trip to Birmingham. a combination of the good weather and relatively high speeds did wear the dog out, probably a bit too much as I’m convinced it gave her heart trouble. Of course that could have been because of the bad breeding, either way we had to limit her exercise after that as she would collapse if worked too hard.
Nevertheless, Mythos continued to have a healthy life and get regular walking with an occasional sedate run alongside the bike for a short distance. While I remember, I will comment on her incredible jaw power. She used to chew through solid rubber tyre Big Al got her and even one or two golf balls got chewed to death. On a lighter note, she once ‘ate Adam’s homework’ 🙂 🙂 Yes, it really happened. He had got the dog charging round the living room crashing into everything that couldn’t move out of her way and he’d left his homework on the settee. The dog saw it on one of her circuits and snapped at it tearing it up. Adam was not amused.
So we now had a deaf dog that had a weak heart and eventually started chattering her teeth at an alarming rate producing foul smelling bad breath. Never did pin down what caused the chattering teeth, I put it down to old age and eating too many golf balls. This I suppose was the start of the slow plunge into the ground yet she still kept fairly active but, got progressively bad tempered.
The last 18 months were pretty horrendous; the teeth chattering got alarming, her back legs often collapsed (gave her fish oil tablets) and then she started drinking gallons of water and loosing weight; Diabetes! Diabetes requires regular injections of insulin at a cost of roughly £600 a month, or twice the cost of treating a human. Those vets must really love animals. A search on the internet revealed changing the dogs diet and feeding routine could greatly improve the dogs health, this became the only option as £600 a month was more than I earned, even with all the tax breaks.
There then followed 6 months of a high fibre diet, served in smaller portions, three times a day. Bit of a pain especially when I found the foods with highest fibre levels were awkward to prepare; pasta, sweet potato etc. I had never cooked pasta or sweet potato but, soon got the hang of it and her weight did recover a fair bit, but went pear shape again while we were on holiday.
In desperation I started giving her more meat, which is bad for her because it doesn’t get digested if diabetic, but managed to mix in pasta with it. Last couple of weeks were an uphill fight. She ate a little more but, nothing like the amount she needed and was reluctant even to go out for a walk. So when we had a turkey for lunch I piled up her dish and was pleased to see her get stuck in with something like her old enthusiasm, but I think this was the last supper scenario.
She finished most of the food and looked quite pleasantly bloated. Then when we let her out she refused to come back inside despite it raining and her breathing was laboured. I guessed that would be it as Sandy had refused to come inside when she was dying. Annette insisted we bring the dog in out of the rain so I draped her over her blanket and there she lay with one leg extended and went to sleep as her breathing got shallower. Twice Annette said the dog was dead and I did the old Columbo trick with the mirror to see if she was breathing. The mirror misted up so she was still drawing breath. Third time there was nothing but, as the damn dog had a habit of reviving after a close brush with death we both half expected her to cough, puke and revive. I left her another hour and checked again; no response to stimuli. The dog was dead.
Next morning I was awake early, old man’s bladder, so I thought I’d better shit the corpse before Annette got up. Wasn’t very heavy but, rigour mortise had set in and the damn leg was still sticking out at an angle. Dog was still causing trouble even after death; respect 😉 I carried her out to behind the shed and got the spade out and started digging. Quite hard work despite the saturated ground because of all the old tree roots. Eventually I thought I’d gone deep enough and dropped the dog in, one leg stuck up high in the air! Not wanting to break the leg I extended the hole and dug a little deeper. Finally a fit and started filling it all back in. I was surprised there was no mound of earth like in all the movies, but a flat patch of earth was what I’d wanted anyway.
Final touch was the dog collar on the stick in the best tradition of a wartime grave from Hollywood. The job was done and I was pleased to say that it was all over. I don’t think the dog had been in any pain but, it hadn’t had much fun either over the last few months. No more turning out in freezing cold rain after the club on a Friday night or any other night. I didn’t think I’d get used to not having a last walk round at night but, I was wrong. When I see the foul weather outside before I go to bed now I am relieved I having got to coax the zombie dog round the streets before going to bed.
Ode to Mythos:
Mythos the mighty,
poos twice nightly,
always tries to bight me,
never wears a nighty,
she’s Mythos the mighty.
A little rhyme the kids used to sing 🙂