Passing of my little feisty doggy Schnoofy

 

 

It was June 7. 2010 and I am married for almost 3 years with Philip de Haan,(father of two daughters) and as I had no kids but 2 dogs and cats I brought into the marriage, he accepted them as our children. There were SchnoofyII a feisty macho male with a real terrier character, and Dida a super feminine Spanish reddish sheepdog, sweeter than any real woman I could think of. Schnoofy II this little white dog was a real "piss artist" and with this I don't mean he was an alcoholic.... but he liked to piss up against anything that resembled a tree: the foot of a chair, the leg of a table , a doorpost.... and helas this bad habit I have never been able to talk him out of. He also liked to fuck a lot. Even at one point when he had produced a cute but dumb little offspring son called Dingo, Schnoofy still tried to mount his own son... Dingo should have been called Dumbo as he was really the stupidest little dog I ever came across. He should have been the first choice of a nest of six but as I was on vacation when his mother had him, I had the last choice so all the clever looking doggies our macho had produced, were already given away.

          Ah well … Dingo and Schnoofy made quite an embarrassing couple specially when the house was full of decent Bed and Breakfast guests or at a party with lots of spectators... the pair would be quite a sexual exhibition. If it was not his son, Schnoofy would try to hump fluffy pillows or even try to fuck big Dida, but as Dida was a taller dog, Schnoofy never quite reached much higher than her kneecaps. So he settled for her tail. And in desperation Schnoofy would even try out some interracial activities with our two Siamese cats. Dingo was not meant to get old, as one day right after Philip and I came back from an extended vacation in Mexico, Dingo was spread out on the couch almost totally disintegrated. The stupid little bugger had eaten half a hash cake our housemate, who looked after my animals in our absence, had left on the table after a party for his stoned friends. Even though he had wisely inserted a cocktail pricker with a note on top of the cake that said SPACECAKE DO NOT TOUCH, he had forgotten that our little four footer liked sweets and could not read. Stoned as my friend and his mates must have been they apparently left the table and passed out, and had totally forgotten to remove the cake and put it in the fridge. So Dingo ate enough space cake to put 4 adults to sleep. It was horrible to see him die round midnight when we took his limp body to the emergency vet.

There was no helping this little thing; his pupils were diluted, his white hair was all a mess with sweat, slime from his mouth and excrement stuck to his ass and in his tail. It was a nightmare not to forget. You have guessed by now that I certainly was not going to let THAT friend ever again look after my home or animals.Meanwhile years went by, and when both Dida as well as Schnoofy were about ten years old little Suzy was brought into the house, also from Spain but that’s another story altogether. Suzy seemed to rejuvenate my two ageing dogs and Schnoofy still had that cheerful strong tred when we walked him daily. He was a proud macho made a lot of noises specially when he met in the park with much bigger dogs, then his Napoleon complex would flair up. At night he was a delight for me to have him by my side. . He loved to sleep against my thigh or upper leg or in winter time rest between my feet to the great dismay of my husband Philip who hated to have dogs IN bed, tolerated them barely on top of the cover but being such a hygiene freak as he was, he constantly kept warning me about how filthy it was to have a dog that walked the street and sniffed all sorts of things he would find or in the park sometimes pe in the filthy water of the lake or liked to roll over in goose shit ---- UNDER the sheets. I was not allowed to kiss my dogs on the nose, but did it anyway and.. till today can say I never picked up any diseases of my beloved animals.


Schnoofy was much like his boss, ME, a total insomniac . If I was awake he was awake, often he would make a funny path over the bed , after jumping on the bed via his little staircase a dear friend and carpenter had specially designed for him, as when he got older he could not jump as high as the bed anymore. In the middle of the night he would stand and growl softly to let me know he was ready to come to bed with me, while the other animals and Philip would be asleep. So I clicked with my tongue that it was o.k. to come on top of the bed, then he would jump, walk all over me , make a turn over my head and pe down between the sheets on the other side, then he would sigh real deep and rest his cute head against my thigh and in winter time this woolen animal with the softest of furry skins really was like a wonderful little oven. He was quite a jealous little fellow and I think Suzy's arrival was not what he really had expected and competitive as they were Schnoofy would as he grew even older often retire underneath the bed and lay on a big wooden box full of drawings of a dear friend of mine from Ibiza only in the morning to jump on our bed again and have a little battle with Suzie who was now laying on top of the blankets as Philip had instructed her.

Lately we had noticed that Schnoofy had lost not only a lot of teeth, pulled out by the vet but also a lot of weight. He slept almost all day in his red basket at the end of my office desk right underneath the central heating in wintertime. Philip and I had just come back from a 5 week trip to Spain where we had brought along Suzy to accompany us and I was shocked about the state of Schnoofy we found him in.

Arnold our new friend who looked after my Noah's Ark had told me on the phone to Spain that Schnoofy seemed ill and had almost no energy. Two visits to the darling young veterinarian who resembled himself very much a poodle, as he had a big bunch of curly black hair , had given him two sorts of pills. But as he barely could eat anymore Arnold inserted the medication with a little pipet he shoved with some water between his lips. It did not helpAnd so.. Philip and I decided to put Schnoofy down at the age of 12.5 which is exactly when his predecessor SchnoofyI had died.

The horrible sounds of the poor dog trying to breath , the near choking and the pressure on his poor little heart were too much for him. For weeks he had apparently been gasping for air so his heart in the end gave out. He was all skin and bones and his big brown eyes looked as if to say to me: "please do not make me suffer any more" .Philip and I were supposed to take a plane to Leeds that same morning at midday where we had to attend a Jewish Theater festival. It was all perfect timing...I carried my dying doggy into the car, early in the morning, after we all said goodbye to him at the house, with tears in our eyes, and there, cuddled against my chest Philip drove in total silence apart from my sobbing noises to the vets office.

 

 

I gave him all love I had in me to make his last journey comfortable. The vet listened to his heart and lungs and approved of our decision to end his life. He then gave him one big deep stab with an injection needle in his tummy but as Schnoofy was a strong little fighter he needed a second shot. Not in the heart yet. I held him on my lap and Philip supported the now more peaceful body that once was my favorite animal . Yet he did not want to go yet. A second injection made him suddenly all upset . He put up a final battle, his little almost toothless mouth opened. wide and he started shrieking horribly loud and gasping for air. The vet said his lungs were full of water and took him to his operating table, rested him there and together with his charming assistant they put an oxygen mask on his face and so fifteen minutes later Schnoofy II died peacefully. Thank God, not like his son, in agony.On our flight to England a few hours later, I cried a river of tears and for days have been weepy. I still see the moment my ex lover Dia and I had chosen this cute little dog from a special Malteser Lion kennel in the South of Holland. He was one of 20 woolen balls that were running around in this family home. He was the first one to run over to me the moment he laid eyes on me. And how I cried with happiness at that time as then too I had just lost my first Schnoofy dog...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LOVE XAVIERA