.
My wife, Tuk, and I have no children and we are quite the isolated
hermits socially, so our animal pets are especially dear to us. They die and leave us too soon. Our beloved cats are falling sick now. Life is impermanent (“anicca,” in Pali
Buddhist lingo). It will not last.
.
Thai people do not believe in euthanasia for suffering
animals, and I think their belief is cruel.
However, I can do nothing about it since the veterinarians here refuse
to put them down. This belief is an
aspect of their karma beliefs, and my own differ on this.
.
Since I moved to Thailand, Tuk’s three dogs have died. One died suddenly – and my father-in-law
suggested that it was bitten by a deadly pit viper within our small
compound. (Indeed, one day while sitting
out in the shade of our tiny courtyard I followed the intense gaze of one of
our cats up to the tin kitchen roof overhead – a beautiful green snake was winding
amongst the trees and layers of roofing right over me. I looked it up in my reference books, and it
was undoubtedly such a lethal pit viper.)
.
Another dog of Tuk’s was a nasty cuss who never liked me, a
mangy, pitiful but robust canine. He got
terribly sick suddenly – I’m sure it was from eating a chicken bone – and he
lay down out back moaning and crying out for over a couple of days and nights. I would get up in the night and sit with him
on a little stool, talking to him and touching him until he quieted down a
bit. I remember one night nodding off a
bit while sitting with him, and he woke me by tensing up his ears. I looked behind us, and in my flashlight’s
beam I caught the undulating movement of a huge reptilian tail (of a monitor
lizard) disappearing down into a hole in the ground. Spooky.
The dog finally died, but not before we had reconciled our differences a
bit and made peace.
.
The last dog, Macky, was a wonderful, goofy, stinky old
mutt. He lived in the house, and he
thought I was nuts because I talked to him all the time in a strange
tongue. I think his heart gave out in
the end. He had been failing, and he
went back to the toilet area to lie down.
I was the only one home, and I stayed with him. I couldn’t help but think of Jack Kerouac’s
genuine compassion for “poor suffering creatures everywhere.” I told Macky that he was a good dog and that
if Buddhist rebirth is true (which I do not actually believe), then he would build
upon his virtue in this life to find better opportunity for achieving virtue in
the next one. Without breaking eye
contact with me, Macky soon had his final seizure and expired. We miss the old guy.
.
Now our cats are sick and dying. Mommy Kitty has disappeared outside for three
days now, and in her emaciated condition she cannot survive the hard rains that
hit us daily. I have searched everywhere
for her, but she hid herself well. I was
her favorite (after her kittens had all grown up), and she slept at my
feet. I still roll over carefully in the
night out of habit, so as not to disturb her. I think she is gone, and I regret that I did not get to spend time with her in her last hours. I will write a full tribute to her at another time.
.
Silly Willy (who really adores Tuk and can never stay away
from her) is ravaged by a virus that the vet said is chronic, fatal, and
incurable. We have thought he was on the
threshold of death many times, but he is a stubborn guy and won’t go out
without a fight. He is skeleton-thin and
struggling, and we assure him that we are in his corner.
.
“Poor suffering creatures everywhere.”
.
-Zenwind.
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