Misty's Diary: RIP Janka

Another entry from Misty’s diary. In which he says goodbye to the dog and comes to terms with the fact that, silly as she was, he’s going to miss her.

July 2014

“So it’s just you and me, then,” domestic number 2 said to me this afternoon.

Don’t know why he said that, or indeed talked to me at all, since he “knows” for sure that I have no English. Poor sap.

In any case, what really concerned me is that he should say it at all. I have no intention of putting up with his blundering ministrations indefinitely. But fortunately I know domestic number 1 will be back in time. Not that I understand why she’s away at all – again. What’s the point in gadding around so often? What’s the point in having a house, if you don’t live in it? What’s the point of taking a position on a cat’s staff if you’re not going to serve him properly?

No, she’ll be back. What he meant was that we wouldn’t be seeing any more of the oaf dog, Janka. She, it seems, is gone. And I don’t mean for a while. Gone for good. 

He thinks it happened this morning, and in a way it did. She kept having ghastly fits. Nasty twitchy violent noisy things. Horrible to watch. He told me she’d been having them all night (you see, he will keep talking to me). He was going to take her to the vet. But then he left the door open, and she was gone – you know, physically gone, out of the door. 

Normally, I’d have celebrated her going out on her own just for once, like I do all the time, instead of taking one of those stupid leads. But then I remembered that she was already gone, in the other sense, and had been for twelve hours.

It wasn’t this morning she went. It was last night. That was when she had the first fit I saw. She was drooling at the mouth with her tongue hanging out and all four legs flailing. Very ugly. But the worst? I saw her go. Something went out and it didn’t come back. I’d have thought the domestic would have understood: I gave him what he calls one of my piteous mews, and when I’m piteous, I’m really piteous. 

But he didn’t get it. He didn’t realise that the Janka who slipped out of the door this morning wasn’t the dog we’d come to sneer at and, well, love just a bit. It was an empty shell without a mind of its own any more.

Because he hadn’t spotted that, the domestic was worried sick when he couldn’t find her. Phoning the police. Rearranging his work day so he could avoid going into the office. Going off in the car and driving around, or going out on foot and walking round, calling out “Janka, Janka,” as though there was any Janka left.

Well, somebody found the old thing and took it to a vet. Who sent it to another vet. By the time the domestic had found that out, the second vet had given up. What was left of Janka was just one continuous seizure. So the vet put her down.

Trying to comfort domestic number 2

He was all sad, poor fellow. He folded up the cloths they’d put on the couch to stop it getting that distinctive Janka reek and said something pathetic like, “won’t be doing that any more.” He had chicken legs at lunchtime and I’d swear he was close to tears when he chucked out the bones instead of setting them aside for her. And when he caught sight of her lead – oh, Lord. You could practically hear the violins.

To be fair, I was pretty low myself too. She was a noisy, clumsy, smelly old thing, but I’d got used to having her around. Now we won’t have the ridiculous cannonade of barking whenever anyone comes to the front door. And the smell will start to fade. It’s shaming to admit, but I’m going to miss it.

But I’m not as broken up about it as the domestics, because I did my grieving last night, when I saw her go. It wasn’t the first time I’ve seen departures like hers. Friends of mine who are there one day and not the next. Sometimes they’ve moved away, but sometimes they haven’t moved at all, they’ve just gone somewhere else, somewhere we can’t follow them now though some day we will.

Of course, the domestic doesn’t realise I can even have that kind of thought. He “knows” we animals have no notion of mortality. And I don’t want to shatter his illusions, especially when he’s having to cope with the mortality of his number two owner.

Doesn’t stop me thinking he’s a poor sap, though.

We shall not see her like again...
And, to be fair, we'll miss you, Janka