Jessie

The first time I saw Jessie, I was in hospital recovering from a lung infection.  She was a round butterball of black fur with legs, and the kids wanted her so much.  She was typical of all our animals, she was another “rescue job”, and the kids had brought her to meet me before I came home. She settled in very quickly, obviously intelligent and loving the kids.  She won everyone’s hearts.

 

Hubby and the kids used to go out often chopping wood, and Jessie had to stay in the truck if there was any actual felling of dead trees, but this particular day, when she was about 5 months old, she managed to get out.  Dont ask me how, no one is admitting anything.  And of course the crown of the tree fell on her.  They brought her home, limping, so off to the vet.  This started a long and interesting relationship with the vet……After Xrays, it was found she had broken her pelvis in a couple of places, and also the neck of her femur (the thighbone, where it fits into the pelvis).  The pelvis would heal, but the femur needed surgery, so I left her at the vets, and rang every day to see how she was (I must have driven them mad), and a few days later I brought her home.  She recovered very well, typical of all young things, and was soon back in the thick of things.  She grew up to be an important member of the clan, and the best fielder on the backyard cricket team.  Only problem was after she caught the ball a few times, it got awfully yukky, and also she didn’t really want to give it back, she preferred to lie down with it and chew it up.  She was also very good at rounding up the chooks (chickens).  We put that down to the kelpie (sheep dog) in her, and she loved to swim ….. well she was mostly labrador….and of course she loved her food.

 

One day after a swimming and walking expedition with the kids, she was shaking her head furiously, so back to the vets.  He poked around inside her ear and pulled out a piece of plastic….don’t ask….I have no idea….and sent me home with some drops.  This sort of started the pattern, she seemed to perpetually have problems with her ears, and she spent so much time at the vets getting them cleaned out, she would walk straight up to the vet, present her sore ear, and wait patiently while he dug around and removed any foreign matter.  She seemed to know that she would feel better afterwards, and it was worth the discomfort.

 

One unfortunate side effect of her ear trouble was that she was half deaf some of the time, and this led to another incident.  We had a 3 tonne truck which used to sit in the back yard when not in use, and all the animals thought it was a wonderful source of shade.  This particular day, my son had to move it for some reason, and got everyone out from under it, then attempted to start it.  It wouldn’t start, and Jess snuck back under it, and didn’t hear it when it did start.  Son didn’t check to see whether anyone had got back under, which he should have, and did in future, and one set of back wheels drove straight over her.  I got a panic stricken phone call at work:  Mum!  Is the vet open??!!  I’ve run over the dog!!  As you can imagine I panicked too, but thought, the dog must still be alive, or he wouldn’t want the vet, and organised for him to bring the dog to the vet straight away (I worked in the next building to the vet).  The son and his sister brought her straight down, and the diagnosis was a broken pelvis, and strict instructions on handling and feeding.  The fact that she was (typical labrador) overweight had actually been to her advantage in that it provided padding, but now we had to get it off her, and of course she wasn’t going to be interested in walking.  A strict diet was going to be in order.  So the kids took her home, and made her a bed outside, because she wasn’t going to be able to negotiate the steps in the house.  By the time I came home, there was the Taj Mahal, made from tarpaulins and star pickets, with an old foam mattress in the bottom, and the dog lying in state, but wagging her tail, so I knew things weren’t too bad.  She was on very high doses of pain killers, and “flying high”.  She just lay there for the next couple of weeks, only getting up to go to the loo, but eventually recovered really well.  The “diet” worked  and she lost the weight, and we were gradually able to reduce her pain killers as she recovered.  The vet was really pleased, as he had been concerned that being older she may not want to get up and going again.  But Jessie didn’t want to miss out on life, and was soon back in the thick of things, playing with the kids, going for walks, and NOT lying under the truck…..

 

Jessie became everyone’s best friend.  She was such a good listener.  She knew when any of us were upset, and she would just sit at our feet and look up at us with her beautiful eyes, and you just got the urge to tell her all your troubles.  I can remember when my daughter’s best friend died at the age of 22 from cystic fibrosis, I was feeling pretty sad and Jessie came into the bedroom where I was sitting, and just launched herself onto the bed and stuck her head under my arm.  I couldn’t help myself, I gave her a big hug and bawled my eyes out.  I felt so much better afterwards.

 

Another time, we had had a big fall of snow nearby and we decided to drive out and look at it.  So the kids all piled into the car, and so did Jessie.  Our other dog, Albert didn’t really want to come, but the kids thought he should.  Once in the car, he started to whinge;  he was not a good traveller.  Jessie put up with it for as long as she could, and when she could cope no longer, she just barked at him, as though she was saying, Oh please shut up!  We turned round and took Albert home, and let him out, we knew none of us could cope with him whining and Jessie barking at him for the whole trip there and back.  So off we went, and we finally made it, and got out and the kids ran round in the snow, built snowmen, threw snowballs and generally had fun.  Right in the thick of it was Jess, till her feet got cold, and then she went straight back to the car and asked to be let in.  So she spent the rest of the snow visit looking out at the snow with a huge grin on her face.

 

She lived till she was nearly 10, and continued her habit of needing regular vet trips with ear and other assorted problems.  Her wonderful relationship with the vet continued, and right at the end she became ill.  All the kids, who had by this time left home for further education or work, came home to say goodbye.  The vet was able to give her treatment which kept her reasonably well for a short time, but when that failed, we did what we had to, we let her go with dignity, and had her put to sleep.  After giving us so much, we could do nothing else.  She still lives on in our hearts…a dog in a million.