| A Tribute to Max & a Lesson in Adulthood Learned Through Grief |
As I sit here admiring my heavily aging Border Collie Barney and think of all the amazing memories we have together, I can’t help but be reminded of my first dog.
I remember being about 6 when the neighbour told me his dog Ayla was having puppies.
I don’t remember the time frame from when he told me this to when I was holding one in my arms but to this little girl it seemed like the very next day!
He showed me 4 little Cattle Dog x Dingo pups over the fence.
3 of them were marked like a Cattle Dog and then there was Max; he had typical Cattle Dog markings but he was black instead of blue, and he was mine.
I decided.
I was allowed to keep him. Luckily, because his soul belonged with mine.
He was so tiny and had a big round belly. Back then, responsible pet ownership was awry and the pups hadn’t had any veterinary care so my mum got him some worming medication and kept him in the Laundry room with newspaper spread out all over the floor that night.. anticipating what that medication would do to him. The next morning, I rushed into the Laundry room to greet him, super excited, only to open the door to what looked like something out of a horror movie! It actually looked like he had created some kind of spaghetti artwork all over the place! Roundworm everywhere!!! Poor little guy.
My mother was yelling at me to get out and slammed the door in my face. She was protecting me from seeing, touching or contracting the worms myself but I hadn’t even seen my best friend yet!
Every day he grew, and grew alongside me.
I would spend countless hours outside with him training him to sit, stay, come, drop, fetch.. I even had him running through tunnels and jumping through hoops! He was such an intelligent dog. I really wanted to enter him into agility competitions like what I had seen on TV but much like my other interests and hobbies; that flew under the radar.
He became ball-obsessed! Nobody could go outside without him dropping the ball at your feet to play fetch. And if it was just out of your reach all you had to say was;
“Cant reach that..”
.. and he would swiftly pick it up and move it closer.
As my little brother started talking more, and Max was older, we started to call him Uncle Max, out of respect, of course.
I believe I was 9 or 10 when we moved to Riverstone. A bit of a dodgy suburb known for being a little rough around the edges and we had one of those lonely 60- something year old neighbours next door. My mother would refer to this type of fellow as “a dirty old man” - his name was Alan.
Alan used to pop over every other day unannounced to have a beer or a cuppa with my mum where he would sit for hours making inappropriate jokes or trying to touch places he shouldn’t be touching. It was dreadful and uncomfortable at best but he always knew when we were home so it was mostly unavoidable.
Well, one particular afternoon I had put on a new skirt that I loved. It was brown and it wrapped around the waist and tied up on the side.
Alan was out the back on the deck talking rubbish right outside the sliding door to the backyard and I knew if I wanted to go play; I would have to get past him very quickly.
The fact that I had to pre-meditate how I was going to get past a dirty old man in my own home at the age of 10 is wild but I puffed up my chest and made a run for it!
It did not go unnoticed. He lunged his dirty, crusty-paint covered fingers right for my waistline, unravelling my new skirt from my body.
I must have let out a scream or yell of some type because this is where the story gets good.
Max instantly jumped to my defence, growling and bearing his teeth at the dirty old man. It was enough for him to let go of me and I could escape. My mother was right there so I doubt that encounter would have gone much further but I was rattled none the less.
I spent the next hour or so crying into the fur of Max’s neck around the side of the house where no-one could see me, in the dirt track he had created from running back and forth protecting our house. And he stayed. He comforted me.
I think this was the first time I had experienced another being “having my back” so to speak and so I knew from a very young age that animals do infact have feelings like humans do and they do have the capacity to feel for the ones they love.
A few days later Alan came over again.
Out of complete fear I ducked down underneath our house where there was nothing but dirt and a collection of broken tennis balls that Max had accumulated; and I army crawled all the way to the front end of the house at the narrowest point so no-one could find me. With cobwebs touching my hair, I peered through the slats to watch Alans feet walk by as he was coming and to know when he was leaving.
I heard them calling my name for what felt like hours trying to find me. But I just couldn’t subject myself to another uncomfortable encounter with Alan. I stayed silent. Heart pounding. Max right beside me the whole time.
I remember getting in so much trouble after that. For scaring my mother.
This dog was my protector and my best friend. He would bark at every person who walked past the house- without missing a single one. There was nothing you could get past him.
I even remember laying with him in the sun on a dirty old lounge we had outside.
Once he was asleep, I’d play out a little test to see if I could sneak away without him noticing. No Bueno.
If it weren’t for him, who knows what awful things could have happened to our family.
We finally got to move house when I was a teenager but unfortunately we ended up on a corner block where the amount of things to bark at became more frequent and resulted in more things for Max to protect us from.
The neighbours didn’t like Max.
One morning, just like any other; I had a school excursion to the Australian art museum. I must have been 15 or 16 because I got up at 7.30am and caught the train to school, leaving the rest of my family sleeping.
My peers and I had travelled all the way into the city and sat down on the grass outside the museum for morning tea before we were to head in for the tour.
As I took a bite of my sandwich, my little pink Motorola flip phone started to ring.
It was my mum. I felt my heart jump into my throat; nervous to answer because the running joke was that she only ever called if someone died.
I picked it up with shaky hands and said:
“Who died?”
“……..Max.” she sobbed.
I could feel my heart beating in my throat. I didn’t know what to say or what to do.
Tears welled up in my eyes as she proceeded to tell me how my little brother had found him and that she was calling the vet to come and take him away.
All my peers are staring at me wondering why I’m just sitting there, crying. I couldn’t even get words out.
The voice on the other end of the phone;
“Trina, are you going to be alright..?”
My friends circled around me;
“What’s wrong, what happened..?"
That’s the last thing I remember from that whole day. I must have scraped through the rest of the day on auto- pilot because I knew I couldn’t go home until the excursion was over.
The vet said it was likely he was poisoned but we had no proof.
In hindsight; I did not recall him following me alongside the colorbond fence that morning like he usually would.
I should have known something was wrong.
He was gone when I got home that day and I didn’t even get to say goodbye.
He took a part of my soul with him that day. My whole childhood, he was there.
I wonder if this was one of my first lessons in becoming an adult. Dealing with grief and getting through the day without being able to curl into a ball and rock yourself through the pain..
I certainly don’t have much time to sit and cry these days. Its’ all go, go, go when you have children.
Mostly, I just keep doing what I’m doing with tears rolling down my eyes if I need to have a cry.
To my dear friend Max; Thankyou for being there for me when no-body else was. Thankyou for protecting me when Nobody else did. Thankyou for sitting with me when I was scared, sad or alone. You were an incredible dog, so loyal and intelligent.
I will never forget you.
Now, I look into the sweet, innocent eyes of my darling boy Barney sitting here with me and my heart already hurts for the day I will have to say goodbye to him.
It makes me cry to think about it even for a second.
I’m not sure how I will soldier on through the day when that day inevitably comes because I think it will be double, triple the pain since he's been through thick and thin right by my side for the last 13 years and the list of amazing qualities he has are endless.
Loving my dog a little harder today.
All my love, Trina x