London – Occasionally, you see a news story that resonates so powerfully and personally that it hurts.
This was how I felt reading that dog owners Symon Spencer and Theresa Clancy had compiled a bucket list for their eight-year-old Rottweiler Coco after discovering she had a terminal illness (see video below).
Symon and Theresa had gone to the vet after noticing that Coco was walking with a limp, only to be told that she had bone cancer and that her life expectancy was four to six weeks.
Their reaction, once the tears had dried, was to compile a list of treats for Coco to make her last days as enjoyable as possible. This included many food-related items that we can be sure any self-respecting dog would appreciate - eating fish and chips on the beach, having an ice cream, getting a Big Mac from a drive-thru and other activities calculated to get tails wagging such as playing football on the beach and running into the sea.
Plus some things for which, frankly, it’s hard to imagine that Coco craved over her short life - sitting in a police helicopter, going to work with her owners and appearing in the media (big tick for that one).
The story of Coco strikes a particular chord with me as I am in the same position with my beloved 10-year-old dachshund Rovi. He was diagnosed with a malignant melanoma a couple of weeks ago, and the likelihood is that he has between three and six months left before the disease finally claims him.
It is a quite shattering state of affairs, but the vet’s advice was clear. Your time together is short, so do all you can to make it enjoyable.
Our vet is a man of huge distinction who has the most exemplary bedside manner. He has looked after Rovi’s medical demands - of which there have been many - since he was a puppy and he is as punctilious with the pastoral requirements of the owners as he is with the pharmaceutical needs of the pets.
He told us the story of his Labrador, who had also been given months to live. Throughout his life, the dog had been on a strict dietary regime, but with time running out, the handbrake came off. Every night, the vet would stop on his way home, buy a rotisserie chicken and share it with his dog. So determined was the Labrador not to miss out on his roast chicken dinner that, a year later, he was still going strong.
The clear implication was: give them a reason to live, and who knows what might happen? Rovi would always put eating at the top of his list of hobbies, and even as his cancer is insinuating itself in his body, his appetite remains undiminished.
So, without formalising matters in the shape of a list, we have determined that Rovi’s final days will be replete with the things he loves, most of which are comestibles, like sautéed calves liver (I know what you’re thinking, but he’s a middle-class dog with a very refined palate), ice cream, minced beef and pears (not on the same plate, of course, though I’m sure he wouldn’t turn his nose up).
He’s also looking forward (if a dog could do such a thing) to going to the beach, lying on the sofa and sunbathing. He is not the world’s most demonstrative dog (there are times when he forgets he even is a dog) but he’s found a way to tell us what he’d put on his own bucket list.
Anyway, we are strictly following vet’s orders. Do whatever he and you like doing, and don’t put anything off because you might not get time to do it. What a metaphor for our own lives, I thought.
The Independent
Twitter: @Simon_Kelner