On the Brink of Goodbye

A greyhound's boundless love sent the grim reaper packing - for now

Dogs are like eternal children, you'll forever be picking up their poop, cleaning up their messes, feeding them, reassuring them, and taking them on endless adventures.

And when you've parented two children of your own to young adulthood a third, hairy variety doesn't necessarily fill your heart with immediate joy.

But over time Reuben’s soft gaze, grateful affection and boundless loyalty weaseled his way into my heart.

And his own loving heart and unwavering devotion may just have saved his life.

Man’s inhumanity to dog

Reuben is a rescue greyhound, bought about six months before Mick and I met. With his marriage over, Mick felt the weary weight of a house filled with solitude. His children were still around, but busy with teenage lives, and his only other solace was work, so he found true comfort in the joy of a wagging tail and soft brown eyes to greet him with honest delight every afternoon.

Here in Australia, there's a racing industry that uses up greyhounds. They’re born into grotesquely cruel conditions, treated with contempt, and then slaughtered. Injured and surplus greyhounds are deemed to be "wastage” as their enslavers pile their corpses into pits.

Reubs earned his abusers more than 25,000 Australian dollars - and the instant he was incapable of turning a trick he was unceremoniously dumped.

And so, when Mick started hunting for a good boy to greet him with a smile each day, my youngest stepchild convinced her dad to buy a rescue greyhound, and together they went on a dog saving quest.

She and Reubs formed an instant bond, and he’s been her adoring admirer ever since. She can play dress up with him and playfully tease him to her heart’s content - her lightest touch is like having the sun on both sides for our old boy, her affection the energising glow of dawn.

all photos are property of author

The cat conundrum

Greyhounds are “bloodied” by the creatures who brutalise them. These naturally gentle dogs are taught to savage smaller animals to make them better at earning money for the brutes who own them.

When my ex-husband left in 2015—taking with him the fridge, bed, sofa, television and my trust in humanity—he somehow neglected to take any of his responsibilities, including our naughty little Tortie. She was another rescue, that time from the AWL.

Cally in her glory days - None Shall Pass

Cally Cat, short for Calico, was a symphony in beauty, grace and aggressive entitlement. On the one and only occasion that Cally and Reubs crossed paths it was very nearly a gladiatorial spectacle, but fortunately I was on hand to prevent a massacre.

After that, it was quite the production keeping them apart, but we managed it, until her demise earlier this year at the good age of 17, when I found her on her favourite cushion, gone to greet my parents and my good boy Toby and all the others loved and long since lost.

Because, sometimes, love finds a way.

***

“It hurt something deep inside to hold her, limp and so terribly small. A lot has happened in the 17 years since I brought her home. So much loss. She was the last link to a part of my past that I never got to share with you.”

The loss of Cally is a tale I’ve only touched upon, because there is only so much grief the heart can bear.

***

Love finds a way

A stolen slipper and the dry and dusty back yard of a couple of years ago, we’ve done a lot of work out there since this, maybe I’ll write about it sometime

Greyhounds come from a long and royal lineage, and are bred for certain traits. As sighthounds, one of these is the ability to ignore instructions when focused on a goal.

That makes them difficult to train out of annoying habits like slamming excitedly into you as they once again forget they weigh 45 kilos and are constructed from muscles, springs, coathangers and claws.

They wish they were lap dogs, and are skilled at being selectively deaf.

Reuben cannot be let off the lead, because he will simply start running and keep running till his heart, legs or the road gives out.

But I've seen him run, in the back yard, in fenced dog runs, and in old videos from his racing days, and he was splendid. Any person who could look at that magnificent creature in full flight and think "Now, how can I monetize this even if I make its short life a misery?" is not the same species as me, regardless of appearances.

Reuben often forgets he’s not a pup. His courageous heart is filled with the desire to leap, and his joie de vivre set the springs in motion from time to time a trait he can’t be entirely trained to forego.

The scream of death

Another trait greyhounds all seem to share, oft discussed amongst owners of the breed, is their extreme wimpiness when it comes to pain.

“GSOD: The Greyhound Scream Of Death – The spine-tingling scream brings on intense panic on the part of their owners, often to find the GSOD is an extreme overreaction to a minor incident…Trust us when we say the first time you hear it is terrifying, so be prepared!” Source: Greyhound Rescue.

There's nothing like a greyhound screaming in pain to make the neighbours wonder what the hell is going on—ask me how I know.

One day, a few years ago, as he jumped playfully up upon a slightly dodgy leg that we’d been trying to prevent him from straining, Reubs crashed to the kitchen tiles in a butterflied heap.

He’s a damn strange shape, and heavy to boot, and I struggled fruitlessly to lift him as he wriggled, writhed and screamed.

With much panting and struggling on both our parts, I managed to help him onto his side and sat there, soothing him with words and gentle pats till Mick got home.

And so because being a wimp is a well known greyhound trait, we simply missed what he was trying to tell us.

The Death Clock starts to tick

It was two days to the cruise, and Reuben hadn’t been outside for nearly 48 hours. We were starting to feel a sense of doomed defeat.

The death clock ticked louder every hour as he refused food, endearments and commands and would only drink water if we brought the bowl to him.

He’s far too large and ungainly to be carried around, so there was only one way this was headed.

Greyhounds tend not to be very long lived, and our canine companion is now 10.

Earlier this year he had a stroke, which they’re prone to, leaving one ear cocked at a permanently quizzical angle.

And over the last couple of months he’d become a little ginger about lifting and laying his cumbersome frame; he tired more easily, and sometimes limped a little.

But we didn’t think much of it beyond the natural decline of age and his various encroaching infirmities.

His last check up was last year, 10 years is a decent age for a greyhound—and we were complacently sure that, given his breed, he’d tell us with a squeal and a yelp if he was suffering.

But it turns out, our furry friend was more stoic than we gave him credit for—and that was very nearly the death of him.

The day the bell nearly tolled

As the anxious audience to his sad decline, and not wishing to leave our kids to have to make any terrible decisions while they were looking after him while we sailed away on the ocean blue, we realised this might be all for our 45 kilo lap dog.

I called the vet and brought her up to speed. She agreed to visit the house that afternoon, and likely euthanise our poor boy.

So, grimly, we started calling the kids to prepare them for what was coming. Three of them were working, two of them quite distant, but our youngest was on a late shift, and lives nearby. She wanted to visit him one last time.

And so she came to bid him a final farewell.

Call me Lazarus

Mick went to pick his daughter up, and I sat on the floor in the study where we’d held vigil for the last few hours, gently stroking his soft fur.

Mick works from home in that room, and Reubs claims most of the floor as his own, often eschewing his cushion to stretch his great limbs and make of himself as big a nuisance and obstacle as possible.

Apparently oblivious to my touch, the lifting and falling of his enormous rib cage was the only sign he’d not yet left us. “You’re a right good boy” I murmured. “Don’t worry, Reubs, I’m here”.

The griefs of a whole life time gathered in the room as I sat vigil, and the ticking of the death clock gathered pace.

Love conquers

The front door opened, and I heard our youngest’s voice.

Reuben’s ears twitched. His eyes opened.

And then, to my astonishment, he began to heave himself awkwardly to a sitting position.

As she entered the room, he dragged himself to his feet and gazed up at her blissfully, then limpingly allowed her to coax him outside. To our cries of delighted astonishment, he ate a treat from her fingertips, and even managed a sad attempt at a jump or two before taking up his favourite position, across her lap as she sits on the floor.

heaven is the lap of his beloved

We were agape. This was not the half dead creature we’d been trying to coax to move from his cushion for the last few days.

Within ten minutes he returned to his sanctuary in the other room, to be alone with his misery.

But we were all astonishment. Was it a last hoorah—or was there hope?

The vet was as good as her word, and arrived a couple of hours later, giving him a thorough exam, throughout which he sighed a few times, but otherwise barely moved. He certainly wouldn’t be coaxed to his feet for the vet, about whom his feelings are ambiguous.

But his earlier signs of life had given us fresh hope, and I told her every detail as she listened carefully.

“Look, I’d still support putting him to sleep, given his health and his current condition” she said, carefully “But, based on what you told me, and his reactions to my exam, if he was my dog I’d try one more thing first.”

Her hypothesis was that our poor brave boy had been enduring creeping and eventually agonising athritis over the last few months.

The dog who screams if you pull him too hard or give him an unexpected bump had been stoically living with growing pain over the last few months, until finally he just couldn’t face getting up anymore. But his overwhelming adoration of and excitement at seeing his most beloved short circuited the pain for long enough to us to bear witness to Lazarus rising.

The vet wanted to try him on a strong pain killer that would take effect almost immediately. If he wasn’t feeling far better in a few hours, we’d discuss her return and what needed to be done.

“If this works, you’ll see a marked difference pretty quickly” she stated firmly, along with a few other instructions. “Call me in two to three hours, let me know how he’s going”.

Two hours later, Reuben had scoffed his dinner for the first time in days and was walking like a normal old man, happy to visit the back yard and wagging his tail for pats.

The future is briefly bright

It’s not a cure, of course. Reubs has a number of health conditions and he will not be with us for many more years. And the pain killer he is on will, over time, take its toll on his system.

But supposing he gets even six more months pain free and enjoying his life? Six more months of walks, treats, pats and hugs from his most cherished human.

For a dog whose lifespan is 10-14 years, six months is a great big chunk of time.

It may be more, it be may be less, but for now we’ll take our Christmas miracle. A gift gratefully accepted along with a lesson worth remembering—love is a formidable force, never underestimate its power.

Because, sometimes, love can conquer even death.

At least temporarily.

***

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https://nsw.animaljusticeparty.org/_the_world_s_richest_disgrace_greyhound_racing_in_nsw

https://animalsaustralia.org/our-work/greyhound-racing/ban-greyhound-racing/

https://hsi.org.au/animal-welfare/stop-greyhound-racing/

“Australia has more greyhound racing tracks than all the other countries in the world combined. Every month, around 1,000 greyhounds are injured on them and many die.

Due to overbreeding, thousands of healthy greyhounds are still euthanised every year if they’re deemed too slow or unprofitable. Greyhounds are often given banned substances such as cocaine, amphetamines, and Viagra to make them run faster.

The Australian greyhound racing industry still allows the export of dogs for commercial racing and breeding. Loopholes in the Australian regulations mean they could reach countries such as China to be exploited in their illegal underground racing industry.

Greyhound racing is scandal-ridden and synonymous with poor animal welfare, so it’s no surprise the majority of Australians have long supported a ban.”