Commitment in a time of illness
Play
How a family's differences about caring for a sick dog led to an irreparable rift
SOME YEARS ago, a family invited me for afternoon tea. Mother, Father and college-graduate Daughter enjoyed inviting people around for a chat, a relaxing stroll in their small but elegant garden, and for an additional bonus, interaction with their dog Seua, an extremely intelligent, friendly, soi dog they had adopted as a puppy.
You could see how proud everyone was of Seua, and rightly so. He could do tricks, play hide-and-seek, fetch the newspaper, everything you see an actor-dog doing on TV.
“We never trained him,” the proud Father said. “He just knew.”
A few years later, Daughter, who had been studying abroad, was getting married, and I was kindly invited to the wedding.
At the reception, I learned the sad news that Father had passed away the previous year. Not wishing to live alone, Mother had invited Daughter and her new husband to move into the large house.
I was invited back to the house a few months later. With Father’s death, the elegant garden had become a bit untidy, the house was somewhat faded, but the worst change was in Seua.
He must have been around 12 years old at the time, old but not really that old. With good care, he had a few years more.
His appearance, though, was terrible. His bright eyes were faded, his energy was gone, and, most shocking, his skin showed every sign of mange. His fur was gone, and wounds were bleeding on his skin where he had scratched at the terrible itching.
Gone was the friendly, lively pup I had met. This dog was depressed and suffering badly.
Mange comes in several forms caused by different parasites. To determine which kind of mange (and which treatment), a vet would take skin scrapings and study them under a microscope to see which parasites are responsible.
There are general treatments, all involving baths in medicated shampoos and medication, but (in my opinion) a vet could tell the dog’s owner what steps to take.
Mother was now too old and weak to take the dog anywhere, but Daughter and her new husband didn’t show much concern over the dog’s situation.
“He’s just too old,” Daughter said.
Her husband was more forthright. “It’s time to put him down,” he said.
Mother was in the other room at the time. The two younger people told me that she would get upset whenever they tried to discuss putting the dog out of his misery. For her (I think), Seua was the last link she had to the happy times she had enjoyed in this house with her late husband.
I asked last week, when considering the problems of my 18-year-old American shorthair Phantom, how old is too old?
We know that we cannot cure those tumours in Phantom’s mouth, nose and eye, but we can try to make him as comfortable as possible so that the otherwise healthy cat can enjoy his remaining time.
I don’t know if Seua’s mange could have been cured completely. It would have taken months, at any rate. Managing Seua’s treatment would have required the will of the dog’s owner, however. If the owner didn’t want to invest the time and energy in participating in the treatment, the dog didn’t have a chance.
Mother was too physically weak to handle the requirements, and the two younger family members weren’t interested in spending the time or the money on Seua’s treatment.
One evening, the husband took Seua to a vet (not mine) and had the dog put down without telling Mother.
As far as I know, Mother wept for days over the death of her beloved dog when she found out – and she never spoke to her Daughter’s husband again.
