The hardest goodbye
We've written before about the many ways living with a pet benefits your mental health. So how much of a hit do you suffer when they die?
Mark and Duchess in the garden
MARK WRITES: I’ve been thinking about what one newspaper called the ‘feel-good story of the year’.
The BBC journalist Rory Cellan-Jones recently acquired Sophie, a rescue dog from Romania. She is off-the-scale anxious and frightened. Rory has been documenting her agonisingly slow progress towards trusting her new family.
I’ve been one of thousands of people offering Rory advice and support. When Duchess, our own Romanian rescue dog, first came into our life, she hid under a table and would only eat when she was sure no-one was looking. She shrank from human contact for weeks. It was two years before she let out a bark. Yet she was crazy and aggressive with other dogs on walks.
There were times when, alone in the house, Duchess cowering at the top of the stairs, I said to myself, ‘this just isn’t going to work’.
But it did. Bit by bit, Duchess came out of her shell, came to trust us and became a wonderful companion: funny, noisy, spoiled, entitled (she is a Duchess), wilful and loyal.
That should be ‘was’ a Duchess, because she died 10 days ago after a short illness.
And that raises the question: if Sophie is the ‘feel-good story of the year’, how bad does it feel when a dog like Duchess leaves you?
The day after
It’s a beautiful morning with a hint of spring in the air, but a world without Duch is a really raw place. I’m looking towards the house expecting to see her snuffling around by the fence, then trotting down to my office for a treat. I’m thinking it’s time we took her to the beach – or is she still lying by Annie’s chair, snoring happily after her breakfast? I’ll go in and her tail will slap sleepily on the floor. Only it won’t. She is lying in the woods under six feet of earth with a simple arrangement of silver birch sticks to mark the spot.
Remember what they gave you as well…
The one thing I hear most often is ‘you gave her such a good life’. That’s true, and a comfort. I’ve been thinking about this. Our pets' lives become deeply entwined with our own. That’s not simply that we organise our day, or meal times, our holidays around our pets. Their mental state is a constant concern to use, especially when you have unhappy, troubled dogs like Sophie and Duchess.
But they also give you a good life. Our mental state is probably of a deeper concern to them than theirs to ours. Dogs spend hours a day watching you, studying you, trying to ‘read’ you. There is self interest there (‘is he going to give me a treat?’). But animals want to belong, too, find a safe place. (Mutual staring between humans and dogs releases oxytocin, known as the love hormone).
Annie and Duchess: staring and caring
Rory Cellan-Jones reviewed some of the research about health and owning a pet. There is some interesting, if quite familiar and not unexpected stuff here. What the researchers don’t say is something I am sure he feels really strongly, as we did.
Which is: the greatest pleasure, the best moments, are when you see your dog being happy just being a dog – no longer anxious.
And of course during the difficult times you are desperate to communicate with your pet: it’ll be all right! You don’t need to worry! Your life is great now!
But we can’t always get through. I wonder if it’s so different to us trying to reassure an anxious person. Nothing to worry about! Just enjoy your life! And for people, when they are at their lowest, I wonder if those well-meaning words just sound like meaningless syllables from a different species?
Rhys has some thoughts about this later in the blog.
Here’s what I learned from Duchess
From the outset of this blog, I stressed that I don’t suffer from anxiety – but I want to understand how to be a better friend and family member to Rhys – because he does.
But that’s not to say I don’t experience anxiety and its debilitating effects. And that’s when Duchess helped. I remember walking her during lockdown. As we tramped through the woods on beautiful, crisp, early spring days, I was worrying about work, the future. We were also having a difficult time with the farmer whose land surrounded ours. I gave a lot of energy to thinking about what I should have said the last time I spoke to him, and what I would say next time.
Then I remembered what people say about dogs: they live in the present. There was Duch, sniffing trails, burrowing in the leaves, utterly focussed on the sights and smells around her.
Now, I am not sure it’s true that dogs live entirely in the present. Duchess clearly had memories and associations, some of them painful. And every time a dog sniffs a branch or a lamppost, they are recreating in their heads who has been there and when – and maybe what they had for dinner.
But they do not inhibit that world I described two paragraphs ago: a world of would haves, could haves and should haves, of the imperfect past and the conditional future.
When someone walks by talking intently on their mobile phone while their dog wanders off I think – just be here, with them, now. I think that’s what our pets teach us.
A life entirely shared
Duchess and Rhys on Coldingham Sands, November 2021
RHYS WRITES:
I'm a tremendous animal lover so any pet, especially if it's a cat or a dog, I instantly gravitate towards. They're also SO good at sensing our emotions/mood. So, if you're in a good mood they seem to mirror that. In a bad mood, they'll either leave you alone or be there for you.
They're always so happy to see you – although with my cats, when I walk through the door that also means feeding time.
Anxiety? When I take my cats to the vet and they're scared and don't understand what's going on, and why you're doing this to them, you can't help but try and comfort them. ‘It's all right’ or ‘You're being so brave –well done’. It's an impulse, because they can't talk back or tell you what's wrong. So I suppose in a way that's how it is trying to comfort someone who suffers with poor mental health, because you can't really understand or articulate a sentence that'll make the situation any better.
The only difference is the other person can actually tell you
I've ALWAYS wanted a dog for the company and the companionship. I plan to adopt one at some point in the future. From what I understand, they take up a lot of your day. Cats are very low maintenance: make sure they have food and water, and opportunities to go outside, and they're fine.
I've walked my fair share of dogs before and it can be so good for your mental health, even on the frostiest of mornings or the hottest of days. It's got to be good: you're helping each other.
People often throw around the phrase towards the end and then start of the year "A puppy is for life, not just for Christmas". Which is true. My favourite phrase is: ‘They may be only a small part of your life, but for them, you're their entire life’.
Read more about dogs and anxiety in Lucy’s moving Message from an Anxious Place last year.
Anxiety Role Model: Max the Springer (aka The Miracle Dog)
Mark writes: It’s well worth watching this video in full. The story, in brief, is how a springer spaniel helped a man overcome a deep depression. It gets better: not only does Max become a workmate, the two of them also become YouTube stars. We’ll talk about social media another time, its good effects and bad ones. But if you want inspiring stories involving dogs – I’m all for it.
Max died last April, aged 14. He left quite a legacy. They all do,
Beautiful. And you're right about the rewards that come when you see an animal finally trust, finally walk through that door. I've most recently seen that with my mum's cat. He came to us as a street cat. He'd never played, or had enough food to eat. The first time he ate without trying to get as much food into his mouth in the fewest mouthfuls, and without looking over his shoulder I cried. I also cried when he finally played with his toys.
I am so sorry Duchess died. She looked young. Ensuring they have a gentle death is the final and greatest show of love.
Thank goodness she didn't die without that.
I had a tear in my eye reading this. Goodbye Duchess xx