Opinion
What’s a good death? For Maggie we chose a sunny day and roast chicken
Kate Halfpenny
Regular columnistOur dog Maggie died on Tuesday, just shy of her 15th birthday. Last February, our vet said we’d be lucky to get Mags through winter. That it would be her last trip around the sun. Nobody told our old warrior. Stubborn and tough as nails, she ploughed on. Until she didn’t.
A month ago, at the vet surgery, three of us crouched over Maggie, focused on her pale gums. “Super anaemic,” said Dr Lissi. Blood tests, a suspected tumour, an ultrasound, no real answers. Just the knowledge now our girl really was close to the end.
Maggie after her final walk on Monday.
There was a reason she suddenly wanted to sleep outside all night, that her truckloads of drugs were harder to juggle and leaving her agitated. Arthritic, she struggled to stand.
“She’s really tired,” said Lissi, a specialist in end-of-life care for pets. Her worry was Maggie was on the brink of a catastrophic event like an internal bleed. “She’s had a beautiful life. We want her to have a good death.”
A good death. Sheesh. On paper, the intersection of loss and dignity. For us, a crushing responsibility, of agreeing to a day for Maggie to slip earthly ties, noting it down like a lunch appointment. Surreal.
We chose a day when the forecast was sunny, so she could go with warm fur. Maggie ate roast chicken. Had her blue leather collar taken off for the last time. “Learn To Fly” was playing. Lissi arrived.
Edith Wharton called dogs “the heartbeat at your feet”. We had the terrible honour of cuddling Maggie as her own warrior heartbeat stopped. She chose the spot: her corner of my home office, in front of the bar fridge.
A good death.
Chris and I wrapped her in a blanket, spooned her, told her she was our North Star. A metronomic swimmer, really good player of balloon tennis, but hater of hot air balloons. We carried her to the vet van, shut the doors. Opened them again for another kiss.
Then she was gone.
Maggie in her chosen spot.
Since then, we’ve dehydrated ourselves so much with weeping we’re looking like old apple cores. Exhausted, we prop up in bed at 7.30pm for the sweet torture of Maggie photos and videos. We’ve remembered the time she stuck her jaws together with a stolen wheel of Brie, the day she ran onto Alexandra Parade rather than face her groomer.
And we kept all of her stuff right where it was. Bed next to ours. Blanket unwashed. Unfinished packet of beef straps in the laundry. I’m carrying around hair clipped from her fringe in a Glad Bag. What I don’t know what to do with is the grief.
While nobody has dared say “she was only a pet”, we know she was a pet. We know our friends Sam and Steve have lost their dads John and Ian at the same time, and that this is not a shared tragedy like losing a child, partner or parent.
Still, missing an old dog has made me feel like I need to go to hospital. She was our shadow, in every room with us every day. The backing track to our fights, laughter, lives.
Is it normal to feel this unhinged? Sick of being told to “stay strong” and – kill me now – “fur babies are family”, I’ve turned to science.
There’s more research than you’d think about losing a pet. PubMed has 96 papers for the search term “grieving pet”. One says mourning the loss of a pet needs recognition from health systems. A 2019 study published by the US National Institutes of Health says a pet’s death can take longer to get over than a person’s.
There’s also the pre-emptive fear another pet, current or future, will cause the same heartache.
“Those who do insist on a special relationship with their dog or cat put themselves at risk from a mental health point of view,” wrote UK psychiatrist Kenneth Keddie in a 1977 study, one of the first about pet mourning.
Magsy, I’d lose my marbles a million times for you. Sleep tight, beloved beautiful girl.
Kate Halfpenny is the founder of Bad Mother Media.
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