The Beginning Farmer: Death on the Farm, Part Two

Reader Contribution by Jennifer Nyberg
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No farmer can rely on a static environment.  Farming’s very nature is change, the dynamics of the weather, the shift of the seasons, the tasks that diversify in the warm months and contract again as it grows cold.  But there are elements of farm life that remain, that are comfortable, familiar, perhaps for years.  And then, suddenly one day, they disappear, too.  And then the farm feels like it might never be the same again.

Our farm dog wasn’t much of a farm dog.   He was far more a farm-house dog,  a big softy that didn’t like to go out in the rain.  While sheep held a definite fascination for him, he never did quite figure out what to do when he came face to face with one, and generally stood stock still with only the high point of his tail whisking gently back and forth.  Impressive in stature and spirit, however, he made a point to personally welcome each customer of Horse Drawn Farms. Some, after seeing the gigantic form of a jet black Great Dane come charging down the driveway towards them at full tilt, never came back. Those that did came to enjoy that the huge head in their car window, the eager, laughing face and the deep bark  were as much as part of the visit as the very fine eggs they were there to procure.

The weather was vacillating from hail to sunshine the day it happened, the typical coastal spring.  Seedlings were nestled in the greenhouse, and the lambs quietly moved between grass and shelter while my mind rehearsed the upcoming mad dash of planting.  Rupert had been out  with me most of the day, his familiar black outline following me, now to the goat paddock, now to the horses where he waited for Cirrus’s grain to be set down. Cirrus, ever obliging, was the only horse who seemed not only to tolerate Rupert sharing his breakfast, but actually to welcome the companionship of a second head in his feed tub. (More than once, I watched the old boys, each with half of the same carrot in their mouths, politely demur as to its ownership with a definite clamping down of  teeth. Cirrus, with his advantageous incisors, usually won out.)  As the afternoon drew late, the motorcycle of my husband came up the drive signaling Rupert’s daily off-farm walk, and after some joyous greetings,  he and my husband set out together. 

A phone call interrupted dinner preparations.  Rupert, now soaked with a sudden violent hailstorm, was not well and needed to be picked up by car. Immediately I jumped in the truck and pulled out of the driveway to find my husband standing with him less than 100 meters away – they had not even been able to cover that small distance.  It did not bode well.  Once home, my husband and I thoroughly dried and warmed him, but it was clear he was feeling faint.  He teetered to his bed in the living room and collapsed, exhausted.  Later, standing up by his water dish, he vomited.  We were somewhat relieved – perhaps he had only picked up a bug. We made him comfortable and warm for the night, hoping for improvement by morning. It was clear within those few hours, however, that he was, in fact, gravely ill.  He gamely stood up at the sound of the feed buckets being filled for morning chores, but quickly lay down again, and  we decided then and there to carry him to the truck for a trip the emergency veterinary hospital.  A battery of ultrasound and blood tests confirmed: he was in heart failure. 

We euthanized him at home that evening, on his bed in the living room. He lay in state there the following day, a practice I had never understood until I felt the strange comfort that his still body provided.  I could pat his head, stroke the familiar ear, and yet look in his eyes and see that he was dead, that his spirit, our dog, our beloved friend and companion, wasn’t there any more. It was soothing, and final. Our grief spilling over, my husband and I wept helplessly together as we buried him near the kitchen window.

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