Poppy · Tue May 30, 13:48 by Eleri Straker
Tomorrow I may be saying goodbye to one of my best friends. My beautiful retriever, Poppy.
Poppy is a wonderfully barmy working strain retriever, so she’s smaller than your average goldie, and an awful lot faster. And a hell of a lot smarter. She is our third Golden Retriever so I have some knowledge of the breed.
We got Poppy some five years ago, as a small, emaciated, ill-treated specimen that looked more like a whippet than a retriever. But once she settled in we discovered that not only did she have the most patient, long-suffering nature, but also a great sense of fun. She taught us specific games, and I do mean that she taught us. She also discovered that the way to wind us up was to steal shoes. She doesn’t chew them, she just ‘acquires’ them. If you kick off your shoes, she will very delicately pick one up, give you a sneaky look and saunter away, casting the occasional taunting glance over her shoulder at you.
When my daughter, a runner who thinks nothing of running five or six miles a day, came home from university, Poppy found a running mate. My daughter, despite her speed and considerable stamina, has not yet been able to wear Poppy out. (Our other dog, a big, butch Alsatian, reckons he’s faster, but Poppy leaves him standing every time).
Almost two weeks ago, I took Poppy to the vet for treatment for what seemed a minor ailment. Within 24 hours, she was unable to breathe owing to the massive swelling that suddenly erupted in her throat. Dozens of tests and two exploratory operations later, the prognosis is not good. The current diagnosis is probably a tumour, which, owing to its location, whether it’s malignant or not, is probably inoperable. So I have to come to terms with the likely death of my beautiful Poppy.
To make things worse, I can’t, as yet, tell my children as one is in the midst of his AS exams and the other completing her Master’s exams.
But my colleagues know, as the vet has been phoning me at school to update me on my dog’s condition. They have been brilliant. English departments are supposed to be empathic and this one certainly is. I told one of my colleagues about Poppy’s condition and he informed the others, who then spent the rest of the afternoon making me laugh. I’m very grateful to them for that.
Paradoxically, one of the difficult elements of teaching English is its empathic side. My lovely year nine group has developed real empathy through their study of poetry and Shakespeare. They are aware of the fact that my dog is ‘sick’. Tomorrow they will ask, as they have done every lesson for the last few days, how Poppy is. Do I tell them the truth? I probably will, as their concern is genuine, and I owe them an honest response.
