Lindy Kato (Writer)

“Stan, Stan, if you get this message call me – it’s URGENT!”

I don’t know what to do, the surgeon says that Nudge is already unaware of my presence, he will simply stop breathing and he is not in pain. Nudge is Stan’s dog. The pair are linked by something that we do not understand, Nudge lives only for Stan. Nudge chose Stan. I said don’t get the ‘Black Boy’, but the black boy ran to him and wouldn’t leave him. Which is pretty much how we ended up with two dogs, brother, and sister, like chalk and cheese. Now I have Indy in distress with a broken pelvis, titanium plate and stitches and Nudge, unconscious on the X-ray table waiting for a lethal injection. I phone again, answer the bloody phone! This isn’t my decision to make.

A triple osteotomy is not an option; Nudge’s joints are too bad. The surgeon will not consider a hip replacement because he is too young, too heavy and he needs two of them. The new hips wouldn’t grow with him, and he is in too much pain to leave as he is. Indy, he refused to euthanise, and with Nudge, he refuses to operate. I shout again at the phone, pleeease answer.

But there is no answer, and I must make the decision – I tell the surgeon to wake him up, he is coming home with me. It takes three of us to carry Nudge to the car and lay him in the boot. Not ideal for Indy to be on the back seat but she is lighter and far from heavily sedated. I try and pack ‘stuff’ into the passenger well to pad out the space behind the driver and passenger seat. I shove both back as far back as they will go. She shouldn’t fall off.

Nudge made sure that I had about an hour of sleep before the clinic phoned to say that Indy needed to come home. I am a wreck physically and mentally and I have a long drive with two dogs one stitched and bleeding and very distressed and one that I fear will stop breathing at any moment because he is so sedated in anticipation of being allowed to drift away. What have I done? I did the right thing, but the surgeon assures me that I won’t cope. He is not wrong there!

I can’t get Nudge out of the car and Indy hasn’t stopped squealing and there is no way that she is taking the medication that she has been prescribed. She has antibiotics and eventually I get these down with brute force but the tramadol she will not take. I have tried wrapping them with cheese, with bacon, or simply shoving them in and holding her mouth shut but she hates them. She must stay in the crate and the wound won’t stop bleeding. I place a squab into the wheelbarrow and roll Nudge out of the boot of the car. Thank goodness we have a ramp up to the deck. I tip him out onto another bed in the lounge.

Stan is on his way, he left work, too upset to do anything useful. He is coming home but he can’t stay, the job he is on must be finished before he can come home properly.

Nudge: I raise my bleary eyes in response the smell of ‘All-of-Everything’. Thank goodness he is back because to be honest, as far as pack leader goes, Fruit Salad has made a mess of things. Indy has a huge smelly gash in her butt, and she allowed the vet to knock me out. The real pack leader will sort everything out, but first his salty face needs a good wash so I lick as hard as I can to freshen him up.

All-of-Everything tells Fruit Salad that he will take me to Supervet in England. I don’t know who Supervet is or who England is, but at least All-of-Everything has a plan, that’s what a proper pack leader does. But then Fruit Salad chips in!
“You bloody won’t” she says, “I will take him to Auckland, but if they say he has to go, then he has to go, you should say goodbye now, just in case. We can’t leave him in pain, I have an emergency appointment for him in a few days.”

What??? Fruit Salad is going to send me away, surely not back to the Pig Boy with the Badly Stitched Dog. He said I was useless “What use is a pig dog that cries and is scared of the dark!” Then the Badly Stitched Dog ate my dinner. Indy is so brave; she goes out in the dark and I go with her. I look after her, clean her up when she pukes and stuff, but I wait until she goes out if it is dark.

“I need a babysitter for Indy, she must be carried to the garden to pee and then there is the medication that she refuses to take. The wound that won’t stop bleeding and the small fact that she is mad. Debbie is only person who will cope!”

Things have got strange here. All-of-Everything has gone again, and Fruit Salad spends all her time carrying Indy to the garden. Indy is huge and Fruit Salad can barely manage. Indy has a very nasty sliced up bum and it is full if tiny stitches. Her skin is so thin that the stitches won’t hold, and it won’t stop bleeding. She must have antibiotics so that it doesn’t get infected, and she must have painkillers to stop her crying, but she won’t eat either of those things and Fruit Salad spends all day either carrying her for a pee or fighting with her over the pills. I have pills of my own and they are great. My butt doesn’t hurt, and Fruit Salad wraps them in cheese, yum, I love cheese.

Kimba watches the crate as if Indy is her pup. It seems that Indy has gone from being very annoying to the most precious thing in Kimba’s life. I have always been the special one.