Where nothing ever good happens

I’m at the vet. Defa quivers almost uncontrollably because she knows, quite rightly, that nothing ever good happens here.

‘She’s lost quite a lot of weight, hasn’t she?’ the vet comments as the scales struggle to settle on the weight of the shaking dog.

‘Should I feed her more?’ I ask, knowing that she doesn’t look overly-thin but realising that she has lost a lot of weight. Her medication is clearly making her carry her weight differently.

He feels down her ribs and stomach. ‘She’s not overweight and it’s good that she’s not because that has its own health problems. But…’ He pauses. ‘It might be a good idea for her to carry a bit of extra weight so that when she starts having a few days when she doesn’t feel like eating, she’s got that weight on her.’

I stop, taken aback by what he has said. This is the dog that eats anything and everything. That will sit outside ALL DAY waiting for someone to come and play ball with her. That literally springs off the floor in excitement and joy. The dog that makes it hard to remember that she has liver disease. When I think of canine liver disease I think of Brin, who was so poorly that her last few weeks, even before we knew what was really wrong with her, were such a terrible struggle. When I think of liver disease I think of the guilt and tears of last December.

So hearing the vet talk about the day when Defa won’t want to eat, talking as if it could be any day now, makes my eyes involuntarily prick with tears. I don’t want to think about the day she starts that quick and inexorable decline but today I can’t help it.