My Irish Dog

Chapter Two

"We just can't afford it, I tell ya," Robert McGregor said to his wife Emily as they stood in the dimly lit kitchen of the family home. "We're barely making ends meet as it is, and now, with this, there's no way. We can't keep her. We just can't."

His two young daughters had been sent to their room early for the night; this was not a conversation for the ears of those too small to understand.

"And what exactly do you propose we do then?" asked Emily, lifting a hand to wipe the moisture from her eyes. "The children love that dog so much. They'll be heartbroken."

The dog briefly looked up with inquisitive eyes even though her name hadn't been said. Robert thought it strange that the dog had followed the two girls straight to their bedroom, as she usually did, only to have come back out on her own accord. He watched as their little brown and white pet put her head back down on the kitchen floor and positioned it between her outstretched front legs. Her floppy ears drooped back to a folded position.

Robert returned to Emily. "Hell, I don't know. We'll find someone to take her in, or we'll think of something else."

"Something else! What does that mean? Nobody is going to take a dog that's sick. You know that. You're not going to do something bad, are you?"

The dog's ears perked back up, and she lifted her head again. Emily reached down and patted her fuzzy back.

Robert didn't reply immediately. He raised his hands to his face and rubbed up and down.

"I'm not gonna do anything bad," he finally said. "You know me better than that. I need to think on this. There must be a solution."

He looked at the forlorn look on his wife's face and turned away. This conversation was making him depressed. The answer to their problem would not come tonight.

"I'm going to bed," he said. "We'll talk more about this tomorrow."

"Good," said Emily. "I don't want to talk about this anymore either. We should discuss this when it's just the two of us." She angled her head to indicate her meaning. The dog gazed dolefully back up at her.

The McGregor family had taken in the dog about a year before, thinking their children would benefit from having a pet to play with and love. They had found their new pet at an animal shelter in the city of Limerick, north of where they lived. Knowing they were rescuing an animal in need had made the decision to adopt a new family member that much easier.

And the dog was a welcome addition to the McGregors' modest home just outside the village of Bansha in County Tipperary in the south of Ireland. The four of them had always been happy, but the new family member filled a void that none of them knew had been present. And Robert, even though his job as a construction worker wasn't the occupation he had envisioned when he was younger, had never been happier. For the consummate family man, adding a pet to the equation had only made life better.

When the dog arrived, the girls had been given the task of naming her. After much deliberation, they had decided upon Shandy, a blend of their own two names, Shauna and Mandy. Robert and Emily had never been consulted, and they didn't mind in the least. The dog belonged to their daughters.

Shandy was a smallish dog, standing somewhere between a grown person's ankles and knees, and she was a terrier of some sort, mixed, with no way of knowing her true bloodlines. Her long, wiry coat was two-colored, her body mostly white except for a coating of brown extending the length of her back. Bushy eyebrows and dark brown ears, folded forward most of the time, gave Shandy an inquisitive look, as if she were always in deep contemplation.

As Robert lay in bed beside his sleeping wife, he thought about the joy Shandy had brought to his family. She had become the perfect pet for their two young girls. The way the kids and the dog seemed inseparable never ceased to amaze him. When the girls walked into the kitchen for breakfast each morning, Shandy was at their sides. When they walked through the front door after school, Shandy was waiting, greeting them as if they had been gone for days. And each night ended with the dog following the girls to their room to sleep at the foot of one of the beds. It's a damn shame, it is. Why did this have to happen? Those girls are going to be absolutely devastated. Maybe we should have told them about the cancer.

The small bump first exhibited on the dog's right front extremity, just at the joint of the lower and upper leg. Unnoticed for some time, Shauna had found it by chance one day. She was a few years older than Mandy, who was too young to notice much of anything other than Shandy's undying affection. The family had initially brushed off the discovery, thinking it was simply a cyst or some other benign growth that would resolve with time.

But it hadn't. Instead it had slowly and steadily grown and was now the size of an adult's folded thumb. I'm sure Shandy senses something is wrong with her, Robert thought as he once again read through the paperwork from the vet. The way the dog seemed to have been listening to the earlier conversation was peculiar, almost as if she was aware of what he and Emily were saying. He dismissed the thought. But there was no mistaking her occasional licking of the affected area. Yes, she must know something's wrong.

The doctor had told the McGregors that, without an MRI, it was impossible to tell whether the cancer was present only in the dog's leg tumor or whether it had spread to other parts of the leg and perhaps to other parts of her body. Regardless, the only treatment would be chemotherapy, and even that was likely a short-term solution, especially if the cancer had already spread. Recurrence was common, and the overall prognosis was dire: Shandy most likely could not expect to live more than three to six months at the most.

Robert looked through the papers again, concentrating on the cost estimates. Even that single visit to the vet, with the lab tests and other charges, was more than they could afford. The cost of treatment was out of the question.

What to do? Emily was right—no one would take a dog suffering from cancer. He also knew his wife. She would opt for the MRI and any necessary treatment, whether the money was there or not.

No, he would have to take matters into his own hands. He loved the dog as much as any of them did, and he was a compassionate man, but the financial well-being of his family was his first priority.

As he lay there, no good options presented themselves. Although it was not a good one, there was only one option, Robert finally decided. I've got to do what is right by my family, even though they'll never understand and maybe never forgive me. He slid the papers back into the folder and set the item on the dresser next to him. He glanced over at his wife before he shut off the light. Maybe I can at least make Shandy understand.