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Whistle walked into my house with the name "Bandit" when I was four years old. I quickly changed his name seeing as I had just learned how to whistle, it only seemed appropriate. Dad tried to change my mind, but, being the stubborn child I am, he walked away unsucessful. Whistle spent a lot of his time hiding under the dining room table and chairs, and I spent my time sitting next to him, petting him, trying to coax him out. Soon enough it went from me following him, to him following me. I remember days when I would come home from elementary school and he'd be sitting at the screen door, anxiously awaiting my arrival...
Being in a military family, Whistle moved three times. He died just before his fourth move, but, because of his ill condition, he did get to visit our new home just before he passed. He was 15 years old. A mutt, with some obvious terrior in him. Medium sized with a wolf-like body structure. He had these ridiculous eyebrows that twitched when he moved his eyes. And his facial expressions were always priceless. My favourite is probably his look of playful disappointment..he would lay down, put his head on his paws, then twitch his eyebrows in such a way that I just KNEW he was going, "tsk, tsk, tsk...really, Bridget? really?"
14 years after we adopted Whistle, things started going downhill. Fast. So fast in fact, that it wouldn't hit me. I couldn't accept it. His nerved endings were pinched off in his hip, so he kind of dragged his feet along. He was dying from kidney failure, so my last couple weeks with him were spent cleaning up his diarrhea. I had to carry him up and down stairs, inside and outside, even to my room sometimes to sleep. He slept in my room every night ever since we got him. Soon enough my stressed and hurting mother was getting onto me for not taking him out enough to go to the bathroom or for not doing what needed to be done to help him in whatever way. I couldn't take it. I just couldn't accept that my childhood companion was dying. Was in so much pain. And the only reason he was still in that pain was because I wouldn't put him out of it for my own selfish reasons.
We brought him with us when we visited our new house because he was too ill to just leave him home alone for the weekend. The two-hour trip was anything but pleasurable for him, I'm sure. When we arrived, I carried him to the back yard and he immediately fell. "come on, boy, you gotta get up...you gotta go to the bathroom, get your legs moving...come on..." I remembered one day at home only a few weeks prior to this when my friend walked in on me re-filling his food bowl...I was knelt down, petting him, and whispering, "just a little while longer, baby...just stay with me a little longer..."
One morning, he wouldn't get up. He wouldn't move. He wouldn't even lift his head to look at me. He didn't wag his tail in hello. That's when I knew..I told my mom I was done watching him suffer just because I can't let go. She had come to this conclusion too. The next morning she called the vet's office to schedule a day to put Whistle down. The next day, May 8, 2012, I skipped the beginning of school, wrapped my dog in a pink blanket that I slept with as a child (that my mom was so kind as to bring for us to burry him in), and I layed him on a soft table in a small room. The vetrinarian came in and talked to us about some things and about the procedure. I knew Whistle was ready, and I was too. We had spent his last night sleeping on the floor next to each other, my head on his side, just like we used to. I sat there next to him, petting him, whispering to him as the vet stuck a syringe into his front leg,"I'll make all the pain go away, you'll be all better soon...you'll see.." She pushed in some fluids, then removed it. He took a few more deep breaths, then his last. My hand was on his side as I felt his heart slow down, and the last rise and fall that would ever come from my loyal friends body again.
