20 May 2002 - 11 November 2012
This has got to be one of the hardest entry for me to write.
I am still in a shock, but at the same time I needed to write about our dog, Cleo.
Growing up, I have always had a dog. In fact, I am such a 'dog person', that in my list of 'The Perfect One' (as in the person I would marry), has one bullet that states , " Must Love Dog". Somehow, it is unfathomable to me to spend the rest of my days with someone who do not care for dogs.
My vision of a perfect life, has a dog running around somewhere in the backyard. So, if some dude do not share that vision, too bad. Cars, house, digits of saving or gold nuggets stashed in the his account are still negotiable. But dogs, no. Not negotiable at all.
So I finally met my Perfect One. And he loved dogs. (Now 'love', as I soon learnt, comes in different languages. We will get to that later.)
Cleo was unplanned.
My Perfect One had been wanting to get a German Shepard. He knew someone who has one, who had promised to give him a puppy. It took a while. He waited almost 2 years for her to call, and when she did, she told him the puppies are not quite German Shepard.
But, Great Dane. She sounded desperate to sell the puppies as they were growing big real fast.
He came back from work that day and told me about it.
I was like, "Great Dane? What is a Great Dane?"
He answered , 'Just like Scooby Doo and Marmaduke'..
Now, in this parts of the world, we do not get to see a lot of giant dogs. So I did not know what to expect. But since this puppy is going to be our first dog together, I needed to know as much about it as I could. Up till that point, yours truly thought Scooby Doo or Marmaduke are just cartoon dogs drawn extra large out of natural proportion
because, that is just what they are .. Large cartoon dogs.
Not real big dogs.
So I googled 'Great Dane', and what do you know. The world of Great Dane opened up to me. I was nervous and shared what I learnt. Does he know how big it could grow? Does he know how much it could eat? Does he know how loud it could bark? Does he know they like to dig big holes in the ground? Could we handle a big dog?
We are not talking about just big. We are talking about Big big... Real big. Extra large, big. As in, baby cow, big. But it's not a cow, it would be a dog. As big as a baby cow. Does he know how big a baby cow is? 'Cos that is how big Great Danes can grow into. Especially male. If female, maybe we could cope.
He said, we could have a look at the puppy first, and then decide if we still want it. Sounded like a good plan, except deep down I knew, once we got there, there was no such thing as 'look first and decide later'.
So we went over to have a look. I remember approaching the huge box where she was kept. She heard us approaching, and leapt to stand on her hind legs to peek over the box. Our eyes met and she barked.
(This is her full grown at 7 y.o)
There.. It was love at first woof.
So we brought her home. And that was the beginning of our journey with her. She grew real fast. The neighbour loved her too. And they were amazed at the rate she was growing. They too, like us, have never seen a Great Dane before. She made friends with the neighbour's young sons.
Coming home after school, the boys would rush outside and called out to her and chit chatted with her. She would just stand on her hind legs, with her front paws against the chain link fence, wagging her tail at them. Just enjoying and basking in their attention. It was as if she knew what they were talking about. As she grew heavier, the chain link fence tilted even more to one side. And we began to get real concerned that the fence would just collapse under her weight, one day. When we first got her, she was to be able to go in and out of the kitchen door grill easily, through the 6"by 6" opening. Less than a month, she no longer could. It upsets and puzzled her. It amazed me. And she was still a puppy.
Man, what a hyperactive puppy she was. Even our vet told us, that he suspected that Cleo might not be a pure breed Great Dane, as Great Dane tends to be mellow in nature. There is nothing mellow about Cleo. She was hyperactive and growing up real strong. My Perfect One gave up on walking her, despite him being 6 feet tall and all. She caused his arm to be dislocated one day, as she tugged the leash too hard, too sudden. (Now, that is another story for another time.) To us, it makes no difference if she was a pure breed or not. She was our Cleo. Instead we just let her loose and play fetch for her workout.
Then we moved, and were blessed yet again with neighbours who loved her. We had a neighbour who has a young man for a son. His mother told us, that he would sneak out of his room at night, out to the back and sit by the drain and just chit chatted with Cleo in the dark, who was kept outside our kitchen. His mother wondered what on earth could he possibly shared with Cleo, when he could not even open up to his own family. All we knew, one fine night, the police came to their house and bundled him up and put him to jail. Apparently he was involved in some unpleasant incident which rocked our peace loving town. It was splashed on the front page of the paper. It shocked everyone. His parents never saw it coming. We certainly did not expect that. To us, he was a nice young man who likes to secretly chit chat with Cleo at night. He thought we all did not know, but we did. Whatever dilema he was going through , I guess he could only find solace confiding in Cleo.
Then we moved yet again. This time to our own place. The reason why I wanted this house, despite the distance from town was because of its backyard. I can see Cleo running around happily in the backyard.
Before we moved in, we had to do some extension and we built a kennel for her from the leftover material . The kampung contractor who first heard of the idea that we wanted to built a little house for her commented that even his kampung house is not fully tiled like Cleo's kennel. He thought we were dog- crazy bunch people, wasting good money building a house for a mere dog. Well, my Perfect One may not be that dog-crazy, but he is married to one, who is. ( But we did have a lot of leftover tiles from the house extension, so why not tile her kennel, right. Nothing wrong with that, methinks)
And we thought we will live there, happily ever after.
I am not able to go into detail of what happened last Sunday, without breaking in tears. A big chunk of our pain comes from not knowing how something like that could possibly happened. It is unthinkable. A tragedy, of which, its cause was totally unknown.
My Perfect One woke up on Sunday morning, and one of the first few things he normally does is to get himself a glass of water. Then he would look out the kitchen window and just check on her. That morning, he sensed something was not quite right. He saw her, but something was amiss. Then he open the window. Usually Cleo would sit up at the sound of the kitchen window clicking. But this time, she kept still. Our hyperactive Cleo NEVER keeps still. (Only when she sleeps, but at the slightest sound, her lopsided ear would twitch, and she would wake up.)
He did not tell me straight away as he was not prepared to find out what was the matter. It was only after I had my shower, that he told me " Brace yourself. Something happened to Cleo". I wanted to run to the back, but he stopped me.
It was a blur of visions and emotions from thereon.
Part of the bits that I do remember was him saying we would have to send the body SSPCA for cremation. But there is no way, for me to let her go just like that. I wanted her to be buried in our backyard. This is her backyard. And she will rest here forever.
By the time I was composed enough to walk over to the kennel, I found that she was no longer there. I could not find him either. Then I found where he was. With a digging shovel at hand. He looked very angry. It did not make sense to me why was he angry.
I was too emotional, I could not ask him why was he angry. But I remember thinking was it because this is another burden that Cleo had put on him. Is he angry that even till her death, she caused another hassle for him. A lot of questions, and unruly emotion goes through my mind.
This brings me to the part of 'Love has different languages'.
In raising Cleo, we learnt that we both had a different language/perception when it comes to 'loving a dog'. He keeps saying I am spoiling the dog, while I think that he is too harsh and mean to her.
For the life of me, I could not understand why must he be too harsh with her. My vision of the perfect dog is the 'goofy-roll- on- the- grass- toss- and- tumble' kind . His vision of a perfect dog is the 'German Shepard- superdisciplined- guard dog- ramrod- straight- back' kind .
Cleo is not a German Shepard (FULL STOP) There is no sense in trying to turn her into one. She is goofy , she is silly. Work with that.
Noooooo... He had to work that ramrod straight back sense into her, somehow.We would get into fights with each other about it. Big fights. He gets frustrated/disappointed at her. Most time, he gave her what appears to me, like angry looks.
And that was what I saw again, last Sunday as he was digging a hole for her grave. Hence, the questions.
But for most parts after that, it was a tear filled day. I do not think I have ever cried that much, until my head hurts. And just as I thought, I was able to breathe, another wave comes in.
It breaks me especialy coming to terms with the finality of never being able to see her out my kitchen window anymore.
If you look out my kitchen window, she has always been there. Waiting and sitting looking at you.
Yesterday was our first day without her. My Perfect One came home, and started doing his daily routine of watering the plants and letting the dogs out. I always come home later than he does.
When I drove my way home, I used up packets of tissue, trying to brace my useless emotional self, arriving home not being able to see her anymore. And when I reached home, I expected to see his stoic face telling me what was his masterchef menu for the evening.
As I entered the kitchen, saw him standing by the kitchen window and then he turned. He said, ' I dont feel like cooking today'.
I asked 'Why?'..
He said, ' I came home and don't see her wagging her tail at me anymore'. And his voice broke..
Right then and only then, I knew. He loved her as much as I do, too. We just loved her in our own different way all these years.
Then it hit me. Just because he did not love her the same way that I do, it does not mean that he did not love her with all that he has.
Only then he shared, yes, what I saw on Sunday was anger. But it was not at her. It was at 'we both know, but cannot say, who' because we do not have proof.
As much as we both would like to lay blame and point accusing fingers at 'we know who', we know it would not add to the best memory of her.
If there is any lesson we would learn from dogs, is their unfailingness to forgive. No matter how unthinkable the wrong is done unto them. For us human, well, forgiveness, would be a constant work in progress.
In my book, dogs are, and have always been, the superior being.
Yes, this is my idea of heaven.
And out of the unthinkable tragedy that caused Cleo's death on Sunday, two good things happened.
1. I know for sure he loved her as much as I do. (Despite his stoic ways)
2. I, with certainty, have no fear of dying. Not only would I get to meet my Heavenly Father, Cleo would be there too.
Waiting for me with her ball. Waiting to play fetch again.
Until then, Cleo, you be a good now!
You will always be mommy's silly girl.
