Dushtu is gone. Distemper took her away, limb by limb, over the course of a month.
I named this street puppy shortly after her mother shifted the litter, one mouthful at a time, into my garage when their shelter was destroyed just before a cyclone saturated the region over several days. Dushtu translates as mischievous; a name she earned by being the feistiest pup with the first inclination to play. She was the only one named under my care, because she was the only one with a recognizable personality. When the weather finally dried out, the litter relocated to a cozy plot of land closer to the home of the family that cares for the mother. There, Dushtu became known by a different name.
I’ll spare you the details of her suffering, which left her completely paralyzed– save for one leg– and left such a traumatic impression that there were mornings I would ride my bike as far as I could to unhear her wailing; but the cries still echoed in my head even away from home. Men gathered in the streets discussing what to do. And neighbors would comment or inquire, clearly frustrated that she hadn’t passed yet as we collectively witnessed her decline. The medicines weren’t working (until one of her five “doctors” gave a strong enough pain pill that she could at least sleep through the night). I’d stumble out at 5:30 or 6am to hold her against my chest until the morning cries settled down which kicked off a daily routine that kept me tethered to her side a few hours each day like the mother of a newborn.
No matter how much I tried, I couldn’t convince what became a small team of caretakers, to consider euthanasia. Everyone had hope that her strong spirit would pull through even though there were so many nights that we were all sure we’d wake up the next morning and she would be gone. But day after day, and then week after week passed. One household fed her warm bowls of chicken soup, another made calls to various vets and purchased all of her medications, and I administered the syrups and pills, gave her baths, washed her soiled blankets, and moved her through the day from patches of sun and shade. Towards the end, I was blending up boiled chicken and feeding her through a syringe. I’d change clothing 3-4 times each day as I’d inevitably end up with food or urine or feces or fleas all over me. And my hands became raw from an irritating combination of eczema and over-washing. The utility room became a makeshift clinic with bottles of medicine, syringes and a pile of rags.
There are different philosophies here that have been impossibly difficult to accept. In my mind, euthanasia was the only ethical thing to do from the first week. But not only is that a taboo concept where I live; as it ultimately turned out, I wasn’t able to even find a resource willing to provide the service. You see, rather than full-fledged veterinarians, the area has a small number of vet techs or dog-loving volunteers. I couldn’t find anyone with the required certification who would give a lethal injection once I finally managed to convince the puppy’s primary caretaker that there truly was no hope of survival. But even that didn’t matter because, by that time, Dushtu had only one day left.
She was doomed by circumstance to suffer and it turns out that caring for her only made the pain last longer than nature would have allowed. She had her good days, of course, which is partially why others were resistant to the idea of letting go. Even I started doubting myself, wondering if I was giving up on her too soon. Afterall, she had been the strongest from the start and she survived a battery of setbacks.
Dushtu is now the fourth street dog that I’ve had to bury in just over a year (there was a fifth who died at my doorstep within a couple of hours of being brought to me, but she was tiny enough that her mother carried her away at the end just as she had carried her in). I learned the word kodal here. It is part shovel, part spade; rather than leveraging a foot to wedge into the ground, you bend your back low to the ground and carry the weight of its head like an axe (…far more labor intensive). Thankfully, a hearty college boy helped as his girlfriend and sister waded into a thicket of brush where I placed Dushtu’s wrapped body, sprinkled with flowers.
A few minutes before her last breath, a black and white doyel (magpie robin), landed near us on a ledge and dropped a fuchsia bougainvillea bloom to the ground. It’s with me here in a jar to remind myself that we are all observing and all caring for each other, even when loss is beyond our control.
It is a terrible thing to feel powerless. To watch suffering unfold. But perhaps power doesn’t always lie in the ability to change outcomes. Perhaps, sometimes, it’s in the refusal to turn away. To keep caring, even when it only softens the edges of something unthinkably cruel.
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