Jockey

Here we go.

I am back in France and I'm back blogging. I kept on saying before how nothing really intriguing was happening and now, everything seems to be happening too quickly...

We arrived in Nice airport last Tuesday evening. I was looking forward to take Gordon in the following days to my parent’s apartment for the first time. I was also in a rush because my dog is old and I was worried for him, I had the feeling that it might be one of the last times I would see him. Well, I didn't know it was going to be THE last one.

On Wednesday afternoon, we where having a coffee with my dad at one of our local Cafe "Chez Betty" in Villefranche sur mer, my hometown. The same lady has owned it for many (MANY) years. She use to live in Africa with her husband that was in the French foreign legion (the ones with the funny costumes).

Funny costumes yes but crazy men also!

And everyone in town knows that you don't give shit to Betty. And the ones that tried surely regret it very much... she once beat up two guys who tried to rob her bar at 2 am. 

Anyway, we where having a nice time all together when my dad received a phone call and went outside. He looked very worried. I joined him and asked what was going on:

''It's Jockey..." (My dog) he told me.

"He is not doing good and wont stand up again."

My heart started to beat faster as I knew what was going on.

I knew since a while and I prepared myself even if I was scared about it. I was about to loose my first dog, my best friend, a member of my family.

We rushed home and took him to the vet. I hadn't seen him in about 4 or 5-month maybe and an old dog like that, changes very quickly. Last time I saw him, he was starting to loose the hair around his neck and tail...it already chocked me a lot and I realized that he was really getting old. This time, he was on his blanket, front paws and head on the floor, huge belly and painful back legs. He was hardly moving.

My mom told me he lifted his head up just before I arrived. She thinks he was waiting for me to let go...he might have smelled my odor on my parent’s clothes when they came back from picking us up at the airport the day before. I really don't know. But knowing him, I wouldn't doubt it. I was always the "cuddly one" to him. My dad was the authority (with a lot of tenderness when we weren’t around to see it), my sister, the playful one. 

Now my mom. My mom was the one my dog chose. She was the one giving him food, taking care of him better than us and probably more naturally than us... She was his mom too.

He would follow her everywhere and would always cry when she'd leave for work. He would know that she was on her way back 10 minutes before she'd open the entry door of the building!

Just before we took him out of the apartment, he did something pretty incredible...

He couldn't really move so we had to rap him in his blanket to put him in the car. But just before that, he stood up and walked to her...maybe only 3 or 4 steps.

But it was amazing. She just wanted to go get something in the living room and he wanted to follow her, just like he always did. When he understood that he could go no further and that his leg wouldn't let him anyway, he simply laid down again and let us take him.

My dad and I went to the vet with him. My mom stayed with my sister. We thought that he might be back, even if just for a while. But we thought wrong.

When we arrived at the waiting room of the vet, Jockey was very scared and his heart and breath were going really fast...then I took his head and gave him a nice rub. I was crying, so was my dad. The door of the vet's office opened. It was like if a bomb had exposed in me, I knew and I hated it.

He told us there was nothing to do anymore. No operation, no medication, no nothing.

We could wait for him to go on his own or end his suffering. I'm sure you already guessed what we chose...

He told us to hold him and try to talk to him while he was preparing the injection. We where so scared, my dad and I...and so was my dog I think.

He was not calm like what you see in the movies. It's the vet, dogs hate it, and we all know that. And no you don't have half an hour to tell them how much you love them:

That was the fastest injection I've ever seen. He told us two minutes but, in what seems like two seconds later, the needle was in my dog's leg. I watched the pink product go down as my dog's breath became slower... here it was, death in front of my eyes, for the first time. It took my friend and left me a body empty of its soul, with opened eyes. That too, they do not show it in movies. They do not show you how quick and sad it is, how scared the dog can be and how they have to put a piece of paper in his bottom and a recipient under his penis. When life goes away, everything else does too...

So voila, he was already cold and my dad and I where empty too.

The vet rushed us to take a decision for the "funeral".

We have no private garden so we decided to keep his ashes that we will let go in nature. The vet's assistant that we knew for years always loved our dog and was crying with us. Even if she probably sees that all the time.

He was great and had so much love to give.

When I was sick or sad, he would come and put his head on my lap. He would also wait on my bed for me to fall a sleep every single night when I was living at my parents and would come back on the morning and stay with me until I'd get up.

We got him for my 10th birthday at the dog pound of Nice. He was already 2 years old or so and we decided that his birthday would be the 11 of Mars, the day we first brought him home, two days before mine.

We was going to be 16 years old. We kept the same name he was given at the pound.

He was brought there after the firemen found him wandering the streets of Nice. They think he was not well taken care of before us. He was also scared of hands over his head in the first few months with us. Then all that disappeared.

He lived very happily and loved us more than anything. We also loved him. 

It is very difficult to loose your dog. It was the first time I experienced such pain.

But my dog was definitely one of the closest friends I had. I mostly grew up with him and he mostly grew up with me.

We shared our best years, the ones where there was nothing to worry about.

We will miss him so much.

His name was Jockey.

I hope I'll see him again when it's my turn and I hope he'll be running like crazy! I know I will run to him.

Je t'aime mon coeur.

*I will soon add a picture of him on this post*