Puggy's Gone

I can't sleep. I'm consumed by sorrow, anger & most of all, guilt. 11th December. 1 year ago on this day, we brought Basil home to live with us. It started off with an intention to celebrate his 1 year anniversary with us. Nothing out of ordinary. Woke up, watched a movie on Netflix. Hubs had to help a friend collect the tool set he bought from gumtree. Went to Gallaria to buy Chris Cringle present for my work place. While we were there, I bought ingredients to make a meatloaf for Basil from Coles. Came home, watched another movie while fixing up the meatloaf.

Then, I received 2 consecutive missed calls from my dad. I don't answer when he calls becoz I will call back with the calling card which is obviously way cheaper. 2 consecutive calls meant that it was urgent. I quickly called back. He started off by telling me not to get too worked up, that Puggy has passed away. Then he went into cremation details, like how they will collect Puggy the next day, that it will cost this much if we want to leave the ashes at the columbarium & that it will cost this much subsequent months & that it will cost this much if we decide to keep the ashes.

Immediately, I stopped him & demanded to know what happened. At best, it was a story with no head or tail. At worst, it was a load of crap which I couldn't even understand. He said he was walking Puggy when he tried to bite someone. 1st, Puggy has never bitten anyone & being flat faced, I don't think he can actually open his mouth big enough to bite someone's leg. More likely, he wanted to charge at someone. So he yanked at the leash to hold him back. No details on what happened in between. Just that his tongue was hanging out of his mouth. Then, a young lad told him Puggy has no pulse anymore, his body was limp, he had already gone cold. How many hours have passed??? Who is this young lad??? Why didn't you bring him to the vet???

He said he doesn't know where the vets are. When I left for Perth, I gave my parents the names, addresses & phone numbers of 2 vet practice. 1 was for the nearest vet & the 2nd was for the 24 hr vet. This year's CNY when I went back, that paper is still stuck on the wall & I reminded them again about it. Now he's saying he doesn't know where the vets are??? Where did you bring him??? Then he went back to telling me the young lad told him no point in going to the vet coz it would just cost extra & there would have been nothing they could do since Puggy was already dead. He gave my dad the number for cremation services & he went on to repeat the cost of the cremation etc. I stopped him again. I said I wasn't interested in all these. I want to know exactly what happened. He went silent for a few seconds. Then he started to repeat the story of the cremation details again. I hang up on him.

From his half ass account, I think he either broke Puggy's neck or collapse his trachea pulling on the leash. But wouldn't that have taken excessive force? If it's only collapsed trachea, if you go to the vet they can perform emergency surgery. How many hours passed before he brought Puggy to this young lad that his body had already turned cold? Who is this young lad? Pet shop? I called the pet shop nearby but the guy on the phone said it wasn't his pet shop.

I feel so guilty becoz all of this wouldn't have happened if I brought him to Perth like I did with Ton Ton. My decision cost him his life. Why on earth did I think my parents would be capable of taking care of the dogs? They didn't want me to bring Ton Ton over, saying that they know how to take care of the dogs. Why must I bring him over? If I hadn't, Ton Ton could be dead too. I left Wang Wang becoz he's more of my dad's dog than my dog. I left Puggy behind becoz I thought it cruel to take 2 out of 3 dogs from my parents & also we didn't have enough money to send 2 dogs over. When we went back for CNY this year, I saw the less than best state they were in. Overweight, not much life in their eyes. I gave strict instructions on their diet once again. Why the hell didn't I decide to bring Puggy over then? Now nothing can bring him back.

Pug's life expectancy is about 16 years. He's not even 10 years old. I thought we had time. I tried saying goodbye with reiki. But I couldn't "see" his face in my mind, I couldn't even feel him. It's like he was just gone. All I saw were trees, in a forest or some sort. Then, a blob of light exploded into thousands of glittering lights that floated up into the sky. He really is gone. He isn't even on earth anymore. I caused his death.