Writing Through Cancer

The way the dog trots out the front door

every morning

without a hat or an umbrella

without any money

or the keys to her doghouse

never fails to fill the saucer of my heart

with milky admiration… 

(From:  “Dharma,” by Billy Collins, in Sailing Around the Room, Random House, 2002.)

I’m a dog lover and owner of an aging canine companion, a toy poodle-terrier mix.  Kramer isn’t my usual “kind” of dog –I prefer larger, calmer types–but we acquired him in the second year of his life from a dying aunt, and now, at fourteen, he has my heart.  Despite his excitability and hopelessly neurotic behavior, Kramer has been at my side through cancer, heart failure, surgery and recovery, attentive to my every mood and eternally vigilant, a pint-sized protector who barks loudly when strangers come to the door.  We have established a strong and enduring bond.

And we’re not alone.  We humans have real emotional connections with our pets, whether canine, feline, equine or a variety of other classes.  They are companions, ever appreciative of our attention, sources of comfort when we’re feeling blue or under the weather, playmates and guardians.  Pets, as Florence Nightingale, the pioneer of modern nursing, observed over a century ago, are “excellent companion (s) for the sick…”

Today, Animal-Assisted Therapy (AAT), an approach used to achieve therapeutic goals through interaction between patients and trained animals is widely practiced.  AAT provides comfort, assistance, and companionship for people dealing with conditions such as chronic or grave illnesses, grief, depression or disability.  ATT is also utilized in a variety of settings– hospitals, prisons, nursing homes, mental institutions, or the home.  According to the American Humane Society, Animal-Assisted Therapy has been shown to help children who have experienced abuse or neglect, patients undergoing chemotherapy or other difficult medical treatments, and veterans and their families who are struggling with the effects of wartime military service.

Kramer’s elder canine companion, our West Highland terrier, was a trained therapy dog.  Unlike  Kramer, Winston was calm, steady and loyal, content to lie at our feet as we worked or read.  His temperament made him a likely candidate for therapy dog training, and during his middle years, he and my husband visited children in hospitals.  Winston was happy to climb upon a bed, given permission, and lie quietly by a sick child, content to have his ears rubbed or his back stroked, seemingly oblivious to the happy smile on a child’s face, because when it was time to move on to another patient, he obediently marched along, tail held proudly as if he knew the importance of his role, and patiently repeated the process without complaint.

Winston died at seventeen, kept alive for an additional couple of years, we believe, by the younger Kramer and his relentless enthusiasm.  Yet in Winston’s final days, Kramer stood vigil, unusually quiet, seemingly aware of the gravity of Winston’s condition.  In the days after Winston’s death, he retreated to the place where Winston had spent his last days, lying quietly in the shade under the deck.  He stayed there for a week, coming out only in the evening when we called him in.  Faithful to his older companion to the end, he mourned his loss as deeply as we did.

Is it any wonder we become so attached to our pets?  Or that they offer us solace and comfort in difficult times?  Or that so many poets and essayists alike have written with affection about their pets?

I ran across a dim photograph of him the other day, going through some old things. He’s been dead twenty-five years. His name was Rex (my two brothers and I named him when we were in our early teens) and he was a bull terrier. “An American bull terrier,” we used to say, proudly; none of your English bulls. He had one brindle eye that sometimes made him look like a clown and sometimes reminded you of a politician with derby hat and cigar. The rest of him was white except for a brindle saddle that always seemed to be slipping off and a brindle stocking on a hind leg. Nevertheless, there was nobility about him. He was big and muscular and beautifully made. He never lost his dignity even when trying to accomplish the extravagant tasks my brothers and myself used to set for him… (From: “Snapshot of a Dog,” by James Thurber, The New Yorker, 1999.)

Take time, this week, to remember and write about a pet, whether from your childhood or the present.  How has the animal endeared himself to you?  When has a pet been a source of comfort to you or to someone in your family?  How has a pet played a healing role in your life?  What stories about your pet’s uniqueness come to mind?

But I want to extol not the sweetness nor the placidity of the dog, but the wilderness out of which he cannot step entirely, and from which we benefit…  Dog is one of the messengers of that rich and still magical first world…

And we are caught by the old affinity, a joyfulness—his great and seemly pleasure in the physical world.  Because of the dog’s joyfulness, our own is increased.  it is no small gift.  …What would the world be like without music or rivers or the green and tender grass?  What would this world be like without dogs?  (From Dog Songs: Poems, by Mary Oliver, Penguin Press, 2013.)