SHEBA – OUR JOURNEY TOGETHER

I first clapped my eyes on Sheba after she had come wandering in to the yard where I was working, she was in a terrible state, she was cowering in a corner, afraid of some of the men in the yard as they had brooms. I beckoned to her and these dull, sullen eyes moved to look toward me.  Apart from that she was totally unresponsive. The lads told me that she had wandered in to the yard, gone to the corner and now refused to come out. I bent towards her, she had no collar, she was bleeding from cuts on her body, her fur was badly matted, I also detected fleas and a foul smell. The lads said they had tried to find a name she responded to but to no avail.

I checked to see if she could stand, she could but only just, I petted her lightly, cradled hep up in to my arms and placed her in my van then covered her with my coat. She glanced at me as if to say thankyou.

I then drove her to my local vets, the girls on reception glanced horrifically at the state of her. We were seen right away, the vet said she wasn’t chipped and told me she might well recover in time from her physical injuries but probably not from her mental ones, her spirit is broken she said, should be put to sleep, no hope for her.

The dog looked at me and for just a second, I saw a glimmer of hope. No, I said, I’ll take time off work and give her a chance, I’ll take her back with me and give it my best shot. I took the medication the Vet gave me to treat her fleas & cuts etc.  Once at home, I bathed her, fed her and introduced her to my other two dogs, Patch & Scruffy. They all got on really well.

Over the following weeks I rang all the usual people, RSPCA, Petsearch those kind of organisations to see if she had an owner. No one came forward. Knowing she was a female dog, I went through every letter of the alphabet, saying names to her.  I got to ‘S’ and tried Sheila, her ears pricked up a little and then I remembered that a very common name for female dogs was ‘Sheba’. To this she responded, hobbled towards me, tail waving frantically and licked me and so that became her name.

Sheba & Patch seemed to fall in love and were inseparable and I loved he so much as well.  Her rehabilitation was hard work. She was scared of men but got used to my partner well. She hated vacuums, brushes or anything like a stick, she would just cower.  After a few years my partner and I split up and as much as it hurt me I had to leave Patch & Scruffy with him and I moved back to Birmingham with my Parents an their dog. We settled in very well and the whole thing didn’t seem to up route Sheba in a bad way at all.

We continued to live very happy for many more years. Sheba got used to living with my Parents and their dog Sox who stayed at home with her while I went to work.  Every morning she would glance up with those loving, warm eyes as if to say ‘Do you have to go to work Mummy?’ but then in the evening she would jump up on my Parents bed and be looking out the window when my car pulled up, then bound down to the door to greet me. She always smiled as we would embrace like we’d not seen each other for weeks.

In the later years, her medication meant she put on weight and as she was now an old lady, couldn’t get up on the beds anymore but still every night, she would be at the front door, tail banging against the wall until my key opened the door. She still followed me everywhere, even to the toilet and her loving had no boundaries.  She now had a cataract in her right eye, a nasty lump removed off her left eye and then she became blind. Occasionally her colitis would flare up and she would become very ill but we got through it every time.  Over the years she had began to slow down an by Summer 2005, she became very lethargic and breathless, just as old dogs do.

In October 2006, I went on holiday to Brean for a week leaving my Parents to look after her but I had a bad feeling and rang every day to see how she was and every day the answer was the same, no change. It’s just the way old people are, Mum would say.  When I came back from Brean I was ill, I had caught a nasty cold and I ended up with a chest infection, so I was off work and in bed for a week. I had noticed that Sheba was not coming upstairs to me anymore, she was not eating and she was having trouble going to the toilet, when I went to her she looked at me with those saddest of sad eyes, just as she had did all those years ago when I found her.

The next day I took her to the Vet. The diagnosis was not good.  “I think she has a problem internally, we can take her in and do scans but I feel the outcome will be the same, if she has damage then we will not be able to treat it, she is too old her heart won’t take it”.  This was too much too bare, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.  I came back with Sheba and gave this medicine the Vet had given for her, hoping she may pick up over night. By the next morning she seemed brighter and so I did what the Vet had asked and took her back but this time it was another Vet.  “She’s picked up!” I said delighted, “She even went to the toilet!” I exclaimed, desperately hoping that the Vet would say everything was better.  The Vet explained that she may feel a bit brighter but that the writing was on the wall and that even though she had gone to the toilet, it was still bad news as the stools were black.  “I think it’s time to let her go Rachel”.

We talked a bit longer but I knew by now that it was no use and I looked at my Dad who had come with me and he just looked at me and shook his head, tears strolling down his face, “I’m sorry love, I agree”.  I lifted her up on to the the Vets table, I looked at Sheba and once again she gazed up at me but this time she looked tired and almost as if she wanted to tell me she’d given up and had enough.  I took the form the Vet had given me to sign, my hand shook and tears dropped on to the form which read ‘Permission for Euthanasia’.  I then cradled her tightly in to my arms, I could feel her breath on my arm, I whispered in her ear, “Mummy loves you, I want you to be happy and free of all this pain I hope you understand baby.”. she then sort of went to sleep. The Vet said, “She’s gone now”.

I couldn’t stop hugging her, just kept telling her that I was sorry.  I left the Vet’s room in floods of tears, Sheba’s collar and lead in my hands, my Dad was trying to hold me up as I felt my legs had turned to jelly. I got in the car, sat in silence and when I got home, I collapsed in to my Mums arms.  I did not have a funeral for Sheba, she was cremated and that was it. When I left her on the table at the Vets, I had looked at her, her eyes were wide open but I knew that she couldn’t see, her soul had been taken and there was just a shell left.

I have so many wonderful memories of Sheba and I shall hold them in my heart for ever.  Her pictures adorn my bedroom walls and above them all is a copy of a verse I obtained from The Animal Samaritans Website, called ‘If It Should Be’ by Sharon.  I am so grateful to the site for all the support and also the author of this wonderful verse.

It’s been exactly one year now, the pain is still strong and a part of me still feels empty but at least now I feel strong enough to write my story.

Thank You so much

Rachel