The day a vet I didn’t know killed my dog, my world imploded. In the lurching realisation of what had happened, it was as though every (kind of) healed wound of betrayal and abandonment I have experienced in 70 years opened up. If I had seen my insides splattered all over the wall of the little back room of the veterinary clinic I wouldn’t have been surprised.

3 days later.

The senior vet listens to my stuttering childish outpouring of grief and rage and disbelief without interruption. I feel heard for the first time. A detached part of me observes that I am breaking a lifetime habit of not making a fuss. I am making a very big loud messy fuss and I can’t seem to stop. When he does speak, however, it is not to answer my questions about what happened. How could a dog who was running up the hill yesterday with his ball in his mouth die getting an ultrasound without sedation? What happened in the 2 and a half hours he was there and why did it take so long? Why didn’t anybody phone me to say things had gone wrong? Why did she suggest I take my dying dog to the car park to see if he would “perk up”. Why did I have to point out to her that he had pulmonary oedema? Why did she tell me he had been ” a wee bit stressed and needed a wee bit of oxygen?” Why did she then keep me away from the resuscitation? Why did he look so disorientated and confused that he didn’t seem to recognise me? This was the dog that had pulled me to the clinic to go in because he loved visiting there (as long as I stayed with him).

Instead the senior vet says kindly that he wanted to help me with my grieving process. I say I want to understand WTF happened. He has no answer for that. I rage more. I ask him to find out. I ask for a written account of what happened in that two and a half hours. He says he will get that.

A week passes. I cannot sleep at night. I lie awake after 2 am until it is time to get up. I have constant nausea. The feeling of dread in my stomach occupies the entire space. A video loop of Murphy’s last half hour of life plays and replays. In the small hours my mind tries to imagine what might have happened. I become paranoid about why there is still no written report. I try to think what to post on my facebook page about the poodle gang. I do no housework. The place looks dreadful. I don’t care. Good people offer to visit me. I have no idea what I could say to them. I push them away and wait for the report.

Murphy wasn’t quite himself. He had started to leave the chewy bits of his dinner. I looked in his mouth. He certainly did need a dental. The front teeth were white but some at the back, not so much. I got an appointment at the vet. The clinic where all my dogs have had really great care for 12 years. Murphy had developed a murmur. His bloods were normal but an echocardiogram was advised as part of the pre op workup for an anaesthetic. Murphy had separation anxiety but was good as gold at the vet. I explained this and it was agreed that he could be admitted close to the time his echo would be done. No sedation. I signed the consent form and left him. I even joked to the girls at reception as I left….look I can’t even leave him for an ultrasound without crying. He didn’t want to walk with the vet. He told me to close the door and that then he would walk. I looked back and saw him being pulled reluctantly to the kennel area. That was the last time I saw him walk.

By way of explanation, I plan to write this as it arrives in my mind. My mind is a jumble. Things arrive out of sequence, shoot off at tangents and generally behave in a disorderly manner. Mostly this happens after 2am when I wake up and can’t sleep. I considered waiting until I had written down everything I wanted to write and then editing and arranging it tidily in sequence. While that might make it easier to follow, it would be a sort of censorship. A sort of tidying up the mess. And right now I am a mess. I have been a mess for 4 weeks and one day. Four weeks and one day since a vet I never met before killed my dog. In the process she screwed up my head and for now at least, my life. I have neither the energy nor the inclination to make that tidy. I’m writing this for Murphy. Murphy who was the kindest, gentlest most polite boy you could wish to meet. Thank you for reading it.

I never left a dog at the vet’s without anxiety. Not because I didn’t trust them, I certainly did, but something more primitive. Something about leaving them behind without me.

Once, while sitting in the clinic car parkI watched as a man in an unmarked van parked close to the side door. He got out and went in through that side door. Soon he came out again carrying something heavy in 2 black bags. He opened the van door and threw them in and drove off.

Another time, while sitting in reception I glimpsed a vet nurse carry a heavy bag out of an empty consulting room lke she was carrying some particularly awkward trash. Part of me could never quite dismiss the knowledge that they do death here as well as healing. I suppose death must become matter of fact. You can walk in with your dog and later you can walk out leaving the awkward trash behind. But no, that was never going to happen to me. I wouldn’t let it.