Grief, My Dog and I,
by Simon Goulding.
15th Feb 2023
Many of my friends and family have had death bowl into thier alley over my 42 years alive, yet none of these deaths have stricken me with the profoundly beautiful yet crushing experience of grief and the mercurial pathway it leads one down. I believe we don’t talk about grief enough; we also don’t talk about it in the right way and when we do, we use sanitised language. I’m writing this emotional outpouring to help bring comfort to those who are about to, or who are going through the impossibly tough experience of the loss of a loved one, especially if the loved one is a pet.
In my case, the loss was of my dog, my best mate and the companion who shared my prescription for life; Patt Buster! My bouncy dog Patty B was everything to me. We shared our lives together and he knew me better than any other soul on the planet; he saw the darkest parts of me which I don’t lightly share with others. He got my sense of humour, and I got his. We were a splendid pairing; he was the peanut butter to my marmite, and I was the Vince to his Howard. His favourite word was sausage, he had a favourite park, a favourite pub and the wonder of chicken nuggets at the drive-thru takeaway never ceased to impress him. I spoke to him like he was a best pal, a soul guide and a family member. He watched me go through a divorce, he saw me painfully attempt and pass two degrees with the wonder of ADHD, he kept me sane in a pandemic, he guided me through untold amounts of mental health crises and my goodness he knew how to party!
He was, of course, an utter twat of a dog at times! He got caught chewing someone’s false teeth, a razor blade and chewing gum to name a few. He raided the fridge more times than I can remember, and there was that time when I’d mixed my drinks when he’d also eaten a box of dark chocolates and we were both throwing up in tandem, making each other throw up even more! YUCK! One of my favourite stories is the time my ex-husband and his family were paralytically drunk doing karaoke, and for once my party dog was not having it one bit; he looked at me and went ’sod this!!’. He then did something I always knew he could do which I had never witnessed, and never saw happen again after: he walked over to the door, got on his hind legs and managed to get his mouth to open the door handle. He walked out, and then to keep the infernal racket out he closed the door behind him and took himself to bed for peace and quiet! Above all, he made me smile every day until his very end.
I knew Patt was accepting his fading neurons gracefully; he’d been having fits for around three years on and off before he pawed his way into the afterlife. It wasn't unexpected, and I knew he was in decline: he was almost 15, which is a grand age for any doggy, yet the expectation didn’t prepare me in any way whatsoever for his journey of departure. On the 19th of February 2022, I woke up with Patty B for the last time. Dan, my ex-husband, who had Patt Buster with me from a puppy came round and we gave him sausages, took him to the park and then to the vets to say goodbye. Looking in his eyes as they faded was one of the hardest moments of my life, which has replayed to me so much in the past year.
I really wish I hadn’t penned this on the train from London to Leeds, as I just burst out crying in front of everyone; what a whopper. But, I digress: so, what of the past year? What have I learnt, and what knowledge can I give to help others?
Years ahead of him snuffling his last sausage, I’d always said I’d mourn him for a weekend and then get on with life, as he wouldn’t want me to be a sad sack moping around with eyes which resembled bruised apples. I wasn’t stupid to think this, just hopeful; I had it in the back of my mind that because Patt was an animal and not human, it didn’t matter as much. After all, I’d lost plenty of cats and goldfish and even the class hamster in the summer holidays once! Surely this would be the same, as he was just an animal? I thought I’d be different emotionally, as I used to be a butcher when I was younger and I was personally responsible for my boning knife and chopper going through many a turkey, topside and tripe. It turns out I was thinking tripe and hadn’t weighed up my emotions correctly. Patt was as every part worthy of a lengthy and beautiful grieving process as any human would be. As we don’t have a properly accustomed period for mourning with flowers, cards and a funeral as we do for humans, it can easily feel like the death passes us and our furry friends without a poignant acknowledgement, sometimes leaving their owners disjointed and without a final goodbye.
At the time of Patt passing, I was having a big sober stint, and everyone thought I would break my sobriety which I’m glad I didn’t. I dealt with it well and got on with life as I had planned to. What I didn’t realise was that I was parking my grief for a later date. Being someone with ADHD, it’s easy to throw myself into a new project: some exercise, a trip away or cleaning the house to boost my dopamine to help ignore the situation; it’s something I have always done and will continue to do. My plan was to start finding older dogs who needed love for their twilight years who had been bereaved by their owners, and within weeks of starting to search, it took an unexpected turn when I ended up fostering an untrained lurcher who terrorised the poor cat. My lovely housemate Georgia installed a baby gate thinking it might help, but the Lurcher was straight over it within seconds! This sent me in a downwards mental spiral; the grief knocked me over like I was a toddler on a bike with no stabilisers. The lurcher would try to cuddle me and I felt like I was cheating on my beloved Patt Buster, I would then burst into tears or run out the house. After a short period, the lurcher needed to go as I couldn’t give my all to train a puppy whilst grief was so prominent in my life.
In the first few months, I experienced the odd hallucinations, such as seeing a pillow the same colour as Patt quickly morph into his head and back. I would also hear something which sounded like his collar make me think he was going to come down the stairs. When I used to get in from work, I would hear him get out of bed and come to me, only to realise it was the cat coming downstairs to try and ponce some of my sandwich. My friends would sympathise with this too when they came to visit me, and get all sad when he wasn’t there to bark the door down upon their arrival. The experience shaped my dreams at night too; I’ve always been one for lucid dreams and the ones I experienced after Patt passed were the most lucid I have ever had in my life. Patt would appear in my dream and lick my ears and face and cuddle up to me, and I knew it was but a dream and that in seconds he would be gone. I would wake up in tears, unable to breathe and be alone. Again.
The intangible, unquantifiable impact was omnipresent. At first going for walks were hard, seeing everyone else with their dogs in the park whilst my internal monologue was churning away that life was never going to be quite as good as it used to be. Now my favourite one had left me to fend for myself, I chose to avoid our favourite pub, our favourite park and, in fact, all the local parks as I didn’t want to make myself sadder. Of course, lardy boy here started eating loads too, replacing outdoor dopamine boosts with chips and chocolate. Our brains crave dopamine, especially for those who are neurodiverse, and pets give us a great big dose of the feel-good every time we walk through the door or take them out down the park. When this goes, our brains won’t care where we get that boost of dopamine from. Understanding this for me had an important part to play in understanding how to deal with grief and set myself on a better path instead of using meaningless empty distractions; it gave me a raison d'être once more.
Asides from my personal downfall, there was also the role which others had to play in the process of grief. Some people got me cards, had pieces of art made or sent well wishes and pulled out old pictures of Patt I had never seen from their archives. On the fateful day, me old mate Walshy met for a pub lunch to check in, my lovely buddy Aidan got the first train he could to come give me a hug, my other pal Julie gave me some little paw ink print pads where you press their paw onto a card to remember your furry friend by just in time before we said goodbye.
On the other hand, there were other things which were well meant, yet as I’m a Freethinking Atheist I found them to be the opposite of comforting. I believe that if science can prove something, it exists. End of discussion. I don’t believe in God, nor mumbo jumbo such as being told Patt was waiting for me at a rainbow bridge, random unconfirmed rumours about the doggy afterlife, or that my old dog will steer me into the arms of my new dog: it’s utter rubbish in my eyes. Whilst these were meant to be so lovely and comforting, it just made me feel more isolated as I know what’s done is done. My point with this isn’t to speak ill of people’s beliefs that comfort them, just that they didn’t comfort me. I need things which are pragmatic, backed up and to the point, which is half the reason for writing this piece. Quite a few people offered me the loan of their dog, but after one big emotional goodbye, I couldn’t face any more; I had to get used to being alone.
There came a time when my tears dried and it was time to not let depression take over, but instead to be the person my dog thought I was. With this in mind, I did the one thing I feared doing for so long which I never thought I would do: I started ADHD#sharp, a music production business which supports people who are neurodiverse with funding from the Arts Council. I also started outdoor wild swimming, walking lots and getting back outside again to boost my dopamine effectively without Patt in my life. Cold showers are great boosters for dopamine too. if you are ADHD, I have a separate article I have penned on ADHD and coping mechanisms on my ADHD#sharp website.
I gradually went back to all the local parks and got used to Patt being a fond memory. Once a week for as long as I can remember, I always used to sit with Patt on top of the Kirkstall Valley and have five minutes to take stock of my life. I realised on one of these walks that I was no longer doing this due to my break from going to the parks and had forgotten about this important piece of mindfulness. These days, I regularly return to my spot on the hill, and it is the place where I talk with Patt. His ashes are scattered nearby, and I’ll often have a little cry as I once again take stock before getting on with my day. Here in this little safe space I feel that my soulmate, spiritual guide and best pal are with me once more, if only in my mind and only for a moment. As well as this, I still say goodnight to Patt every night as I go to sleep. I find it comforting to remember my best pal, especially as I sleep alone.
My wise friend Rebekka pointed out a few important things on my journey with grief; firstly, that different cultures deal with grief differently. In this country we send cards and flowers, have a wake and move on. The Jewish community grieve for a full year and then just once a year. In Mexico, the whole country stops once a year to celebrate those who are no longer with us. Looking into and understanding different ways to grieve are important. Secondly, she also pointed out to me that we don’t have a specified grieving process for our pets, and suggested that we should all do something. I got on the phone to my ex-husband Dan, and we agreed that Patt Buster loved parties and loved sausages, so we held a big BBQ on the Platinum Jubilee weekend and called it Patty Jubilee! We had a toast with everyone eating a sausage to him and we also scatted his ashes at all his favourite places. We also had a fine selection of some of Patt’s favourite DJs and it finally felt like we had said goodbye to our boy.
They say that we must live a year and a day without or loved ones before we get used to their passing. A year without trips to the seaside, muddy walks in winter and a bowl full of left-over Christmas dinner. Sometimes we expect it to be hard, and other times grief hits us like a fish to the face unexpectedly. I always knew Christmas would be tough, yet I wasn’t expecting it to be the moment I opened the decorations bag to see Patty B’s Christmas socks staring me in the face. He hated those with a passion, and here I was all ready to have a jolly time putting up the trimmings with streaming eyes!
I’m a few days away from it being a year since Patt had his last sausage. Patt Buster’s final gift to me was to teach me to learn to embrace grief rather than avoid it. It has the power to enable as well as corrupt your mental state, and writing this article to help others is a way of showing that.
So much of the journey of grief is beyond our control, but there are some things you can do if your cuddle buddy is still here today. I’ve made you a list of quick top tips that you can control starting right now:
Plan a goodbye ceremony, party or something similar so you get a proper goodbye. It really helps.
Keep a clipping of their hair, take a paw print and keep their lead.
Make something you carry with you. Ashes in a pendant or hair in a bracelet are great ideas.
Eat all the chocolate you need to and all the food you want in the first few weeks. You’ll be missing the dopamine.
Look at other healthy things too boost your dopamine after the first few weeks. Cold showers, walks, swimming. Join some local exercise groups so you keep in the habit of going and make new friends.
Do some research on places to put you loved one down in an emergency. I really wish I’d done this, as we were ringing around everywhere on Friday night.
Put some cash aside so you don’t need to worry.
Have a little special place to go once they are gone and start going there now with them.
Have a look into how different cultures grieve. It might surprise you and help give you structure.
Understand above all that grief is the love you have ready to give which doesn’t know where to go. For me, this was the most comforting thing to hear.
“When we lose someone who we love, the grief is like the sky; spread over everything. We find a way to live with it, or we don’t. We carry the sky alone, and that is our burden”. Baptiste.
