Our dog Cooper had to be put down on August 16, 2012.
He had cancer in both his chest and abdomen. He was struggling to breathe. We
found out on a Monday night and by Thursday night he was gone. It broke my
heart. I loved him dearly. We loved him dearly. He touched a lot of people in
his short 9 year life. I feel so lucky to have known him. He was a free spirit
and still curious and excited right up to the end. He was an amazing dog.
I had always wanted a dog but didn’t get one until I was
56. I kept putting it off for some reason. I would talk about the idea of
getting a dog with my kids in the car from time to time and finally decided to
go for it. My son Dean came up with the name Cooper and I liked it right away.
Cooper had his name long before he was born. It was later that I came up with
an explanation of his name. A Cooper is a barrel maker and scotch whiskey is
kept in barrels and whiskey is similar in colour to what Cooper was.
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| Gabriola Island, BC |
I answered an ad in the Vancouver Sun newspaper. Dean and
his twin sister Leah and I drove out to Chilliwack to see a recently born
litter of golden retriever puppies. They were all out in a fenced yard in the
back of a farmhouse. Some were taking a snooze while others ran about. The breeder worked for a vet and this was a
one- time only thing so it wasn’t a puppy mill. The puppies slept in a free
standing garage at night which had a Franklin stove where the puppy poop was
burned.
I was asked to pick out the puppy that I wanted. They all
looked kind of the same to me. Not knowing what I was getting myself into, I
simply asked for the biggest guy in the litter. We had to wait about another 6
weeks before taking possession of him. “Possession” is a funny word.
Leah and I made the second trip out to Chilliwack to pick
up Cooper. Dean was tied up with something else. It must have been nap time
because Cooper slept in Leah’s lap all the way back to where we lived in
Richmond, BC. We were getting kind of hungry and stopped off at a MacDonald’s
in Cloverdale. I went in and got the food and Cooper remained in Leah’s lap.
Such a peaceful little dog we thought. We were wrong about that.
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| As a puppy in Richmond, BC |
My ex and I had split up several years before and we were
doing the co-parenting thing. I rented a large house close to my kid’s high
school and they would come back to my house each day before being driven to
their mom’s place or some activity they were involved in. My office was also in
the house and most weekdays I would meet the kids in the large park next to
their school at close to 3 p.m. with their new puppy. It was quite evident from
the start that they were more interested in showing him off than taking him for
walks which was entirely OK with me. They also had a big cat (Zack) that they
were very fond of at their mom’s house.
I really didn’t have much of a clue about having a dog.
The stuff about not peeing etc. in the house was easy. It was the teething that
was the problem. Cooper would chew on anything he could find including my bed
cover and the furniture. I tried leaving
him in the bathroom when I went out but he chewed away all the rubber along the
baseboard and scratched the door. I knew he was going to be a big dog so I went
out and found the biggest kennel I could find before everything was in tatters.
Right from the start Cooper was a “puller”. He was determined to get wherever we were
going at a very fast speed. I started to get annoyed with some neighbours who
repeatedly said “Who is walking who?” It didn’t take long to figure out that I
had a very active dog on my hands with almost unlimited energy.
It didn’t seem like Cooper was a puppy for very long. I
wish I had taken more pictures of him then. Like the time he spotted his image
in a mirror and started barking. Or when he first saw the ocean and seemed
frightened by the waves lapping up on the shore. I was totally wrong about that
suspicion.
He started to sprout like a weed. It almost seemed like
he was on steroids. He grew into one handsome dude and I kind of felt like his
wingman. Or was it the other way around? Throughout his life he was well
muscled and sleek. He got a lot of exercise. For his first few years he was
taken for a walk at least twice a day, sometimes more.
I started taking him over to the huge park near my kid’s
school early in the morning at about 6:30 a.m. when hardly anyone was around so
he could run free off leash. It was here that he first discovered chasing
birds, the kind of birds that that didn’t fly together but who zoomed in solo
over the grass and the morning dew in search of worm or grub. He never got
close to them but he didn’t quit until he was exhausted and out of energy.
One morning a young couple with a dog about the same size
asked me if I was OK with them letting their dog off leash so it could run with
Cooper. Their dog’s name was Princess. All was well for a short time until Cooper
ran their dog into a fence. They weren’t very pleased about that.
Dogs only see in black and white and Cooper had a nasty
habit of ingesting discarded Kleenexes if he spotted one. I always had to keep
an eye out. Dogs can be a bit gross at times
We started to expand our horizons as to where he could be
taken for a walk. We went down to the dike area in Richmond where they had an
off leash area. At the time, he loved to race around with other dogs. On more
than one occasion he somehow managed to find an oily pit which he rolled around
in and I would then have to get him to go into the river to get most of the
gunk off.
We discovered a great off- leash park out by the
Vancouver International Airport. Cooper
was about 5 months old then. By this time he had a keen sense of where water
was and would do anything to get into it. He was still about a month away from
being neutered and I remember a couple of gay women chastising me that this
procedure had not yet happened. It was only when I got home that I thought
about whether their dogs were spaded. If so it wouldn’t have made any
difference if Cooper tried to mate with their dogs.
I took Cooper into the vet to get neutered. I was told by
some that this would quiet him down a bit. When I went to pick him up he
wandered down the hall like a listing John Wayne. 20 minutes later I realized
his personality hadn’t changed one iota.
As a novice with dogs two things quickly became evident
about Cooper. He liked to pull when on his leash and in his exuberance he liked
to jump up on people when greeting them. I enrolled us in a dog training class
at a local pet store. It was a really
crappy atmosphere out in the parking lot with distractions and cigarette butts.
In fact the trainer smoked while giving instructions. It was just a waste of
time and money.
I owned a country place on Vancouver Island at a place
called Fanny Bay. About twice a month we would go over there for the
weekend. On one of those weekends I
stopped off at a drug store and picked up a bag of fruit candies and some
disposable razors before catching the ferry. After we arrived I went to the car
to retrieve those items only to discover that they had all been eaten by
someone. Sometime later, Cooper and I
were out on a trail when we ran into some hikers. I told them about Cooper
eating the razors. They then told me that they had spotted some blue plastic in
some dog poop further back on the trail and now it made a lot of sense.
Cooper got me in trouble several times when he was
younger. I remember the time I was spending the night at a girlfriend’s who
lived near Kits Beach. Dogs weren’t allowed in her building so Cooper slept in
the car. I awoke early and took him down to the beach in the dark. He jumped a
guy in a suit who was carrying a cup of coffee. A passerby broke up the fight
that was just about to start. That was a close one.
When Cooper was about two I decided to pack it in in
Vancouver. I sold my business accounts and we moved to my place at Fanny
Bay. I was going to be
semi-retired. We lived there for two
years as bachelors. I was kind of a
serial dater on the internet and over the years Cooper found himself in a
number of strange houses. One time he took over an ailing Doberman’s toys and I
could see him up on the host’s couch looking out the window when I went out for
a smoke. There are many other stories
about how he interacted with these women but I will leave that to your
imagination.
I’ve always been the type who liked to lie down on the
couch while watching TV. At Fanny Bay we had a routine. I would change positions on the couch from
time to time. Cooper by this time had become well accustomed to sharing both
the couch and my bed. All I had to say was “switch” and we would readjust where
our territories were.
The whole setting at Fanny Bay was kind of idyllic. In
the colder weather or when it snowed we were both safe and comfortable in our
small house with a roaring fire. In warmer weather we investigated all of the
close by trails. Cooper often swam in the ocean at the nearby oyster beach. He
loved rolling on dead fish. Yuck! We would often drive over to Roswell Creek a
few miles away where he would have a good swim.
I still had the problem with his pulling and jumping up
on people. From time to time I would hear a shriek when we were out in the
woods and Cooper was ahead of me. He was all about introducing himself by
leaping up at them. One day I let him out of the car on a quiet road not seeing
anyone around and the next thing I knew some old guy was beating him with a
newspaper.
I’m not saying this was a good thing. I made one last
attempt at getting Cooper out of his bad habits. I hired a guy who had a whole
slew of border collies. He could direct them with hand signs from a hundred
yards away. His solution to Cooper jumping up on people was to stick your knee
in his chest. All well and good for me but how did I train complete strangers?
About once a month I would go over to Vancouver to visit
my kids. Sometimes I would leave Cooper at a local kennel near Fanny Bay. A few times I found it hard to recognize him
when I picked him up. He had been rolling in the dirt with the other big dogs.
When I would get him in the car he would be sitting in the front seat staring
out the window as if he was making a statement that if we were such good pals
why did you dump me with strangers?
In warmer weather I would often let Cooper lie by himself
out on the front lawn. He tried to dig a few holes but for the most part he
seemed to be content. Occasionally he would sneak off drawn by his curiosity
through the woods behind us only to be returned by a neighbour. I started to peek out the back window when I
couldn’t spot him on the front lawn and attempted to stop him before he started
to wander.
One day he went next door where they had an older big
black dog. Somehow Cooper managed to get a big stick caught in his collar and I
don’t know who was more grateful I decided to check on him.
My kids and their friends visited from time to time and
Cooper always welcomed them into the pack. Over the years he always slept close
to whoever was visiting, either in bed with them or on the floor beside the bed.
He kept this habit to his final days.
At some point I came to realize that the Fanny Bay deal
wasn’t going to work. People kept mostly to themselves in the area and there
was no social life other than the occasional brief chat at the roadside while
out for a dog walk. I loved everything about the area but it seemed like the
kind of place to go before you die or go into a home. Cooper and I had some more living to do.
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| Dean at 16 (in red T-shirt) with his friends and Cooper at Fanny Bay, B.C. |
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| Leah at 16 with Coop at Fanny Bay oyster beach. |
I sold the property and we moved to Victoria. I certainly
over paid for the place I rented but I was determined to have a sizable
backyard for my dog. We soon discovered Elk Lake Park in Saanich. We spent many long hours there. Once again
Cooper discovered chasing birds. He
would run to exhaustion and it dawned on me that I had to cut his efforts short
when one day he lay panting in the weeds totally spent.
A few months after arriving in Victoria I met Linda on
the internet and she would become a big part of Cooper’s life in the years to
come. A guy with a golden retriever couldn’t be all that bad I guess? Linda
lived in Nanaimo and for over a year we would go back and forth to each other’s
places.
Linda had been a life-long owner of dogs. Cooper and her
bonded right away. She knew things about
animals that I didn’t. My philosophy in
bringing up children or taking care of a dog was rather simple. Enjoy life,
investigate, have fun. Just don’t take too big of a risk or hurt yourself.
Linda was to share in the next 5-1/2 years of Cooper’s
life. Over those years we hiked and travelled all over Vancouver Island. The
place we always like the best was Florencia Beach in Pacific Rim National Park
on the west coast of the island. In later years we would make a day trip of
going there and be back home by sundown.
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| Playing with Linda Victoria, BC |
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| Florencia Beach BC |
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| Florencia Beach BC |
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| Florencia Beach BC |
We took Cooper to lot of islands near to Vancouver Island.
Salt Spring, Gabriola, Hornby, Denman, Sointula, Alert Bay, Quadra, and Cortez.
We took him to Port McNeil, Telegraph Cove, Tofino, Banfield, Spider Lake,
Rosewall Creek, and out to Bamfield when Linda went on The West Coast Trail. We
watched Cooper surf at China Beach north of Victoria. We took him to the
interior of BC and Invermere, up to Whistler, and back to his old stomping
grounds in Vancouver. Cooper got around.
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| Tribune Bay, Hornby Island, BC.
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Linda and I have lived together for 4 years in a small
community just north of Nanaimo called Lantzville. I kind of gave up the leader of the pack
thing a bit to her. She was more of stickler about Cooper having a restraint
thing attached to his collar where as I would usually not use it. I was used to
his pulling.
We had the good luck of having trails through the forest
only minutes away from our front door. We spent hours on those trails with
Coop. We also had to try to dissuade him from searching for rabbit poop or as
we called it “the buffet”. At the end of one of the trails was a blackberry
patch and Cooper learned how to gingerly help himself to berries among the
lower thorns. He knew where the small creeks were on the trails were. We were
rarely successful in getting him home dry.
Finding Cooper a place to swim was always a priority in
warmer weather. Up the hill from our place is a marsh with lily pads and
croaking frogs and down the hill there is the ocean and a pebbled beach.
Cooper came with us on our trip back east earlier this
summer. He drove with me across Canada to Ontario. He ran around the
countryside In Saskatchewan and swam in Lake Superior. He stayed at my
brother’s place near Guelph, Ontario in the country for about 2 weeks out of
the 5 week trip.
We then headed back to the west coast and BC across the
US. At times the temperature reached as high as 105 degrees. We made sure
Cooper always had plenty of ice water. He swam in Lake Michigan, went with us
to visit the American Pickers warehouse on the shores of the Mississippi in
Leclaire, Iowa, he swam in an alpine lake in Yellowstone National Park.
A few days after we got home Cooper was feeling kind of
listless. He lost his appetite. The he perked up only to become listless again.
We thought that it might just be the heat or maybe fatigue from the long trip.
He still came on his daily hike but he seemed to have slowed down a bit. We
thought that maybe he was just getting older. After all, he was 63 in human
years.
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| Alpine lake in Yellowstone National Park |
My son Dean came over for a visit for a few days and
about 2 weeks later my daughter Leah came over for 4 days. We took Cooper out
to Pacific Rim National Park. We had no idea that it would be Cooper’s last
visit. This time he didn’t race around like he usually did. You could tell he
wanted to. My kids got to see Cooper one last time.
We had noticed that aside from Cooper slowing down that
his stomach was starting to swell. We thought that maybe he had been drinking
too much water in compensating for the heat or he picked up some kind of a
stomach bug on his cross-country trip. We took him into the vet on Monday
morning. After having a look at Cooper and feeling his body the vet suggested
x-rays and then asked us to come into the examining room to tell us the news. I
had to go outside and cry and Linda joined me in the car to do the same. It was
as if a large part of our life was about to be removed.
Leah was still here and we still had to tell her. We had
a spontaneous group hug and a further cry. Leah went home on the ferry the next
day but got to say goodbye to her pal.
We took Cooper down to the beach in Lantzville on Tuesday
night for one last swim. It was a special time. Linda started to feed him
whatever he wanted. It reminded me of a prisoner choosing his last meal.
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| Leah and Cooper |
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| Last swim Lantzville, BC |
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| Last day at the beach Lantzville, BC |
I think Linda and I were both stunned. We wanted to keep him with us as long as we could. I took Cooper for one last short walk while she was at work. The hours in his life were getting shorter.
We agreed on Thursday that the time had come. I don’t
think Cooper had a clue about what was about to happen and that is a good
thing. He was alert and curious right till the end. Breathing was becoming too
difficult for him.
We will miss him. As the days go by it gets better. We
got his ashes back a few days ago and sometime in September we will once again
take him back out to Florencia Beach and cast his ashes to the wind. They will fly
away like the free spirit Cooper always was.
I’ll miss the way he placed his head on my knee when he
wanted something.
I’ll miss people asking if they could pat him as they did
countless times.
I’ll miss him disappearing in the distance as he chased a
high flying bird along the beach.
I’ll miss hearing his footsteps.
I’ll miss his love of fun.
I’ll miss the way he shared himself with strangers and
those that knew him.
I’ll miss being greeted at the door when I come home.
I’ll miss just knowing him.
