“Take a look at this, honey,” I say, walking through the house after Bert with my open laptop. “No babe, I’m not looking because we are not getting another dog right now. We’re temporarily staying in a tiny gîte and the foundation of our own house isn’t even ready yet, this is REALLY NOT the time.” And also: “From Bulgaria? Aren’t there any stray dogs to be found in France?”
But the beige dog lying on a piece of cardboard in the snow in faraway Bulgaria—with the camera flash reflecting in his eyes—has already made his way into my heart.
I look for phone numbers and call Bulgaria because I want to be sure he’s good with kids and cats, but I don’t speak Bulgarian and they don’t speak English, so we both just hang up the phone, sighing in frustration. Then come conversations with a German volunteer who is going to arrange transport and reassures me: Brando has been checked by a vet and is anything but aggressive. “Brando, because the volunteers in Bulgaria say he has Marlon Brando’s eyes,” she tells me. We decide to keep the name as a nod to his roots and out of gratitude to the people who saved him.
Not much later, the phone rings: there’s a Russian transport coming to Germany via Bulgaria, and Brando can tag along. The German volunteers will drive all the way to central France, and Bert gets ready for a long drive. Then everything goes on hold again because they lose contact with the Russian convoy, and nobody knows where Brando is. I’m already imagining awful scenarios: too much vodka, slipping tires, Brando in a crate in the snow… but then comes the reassuring phone call. Bert can leave.
At a parking lot in France, Bert is handed a leash with a big, scared, beige dog at the other end. And probably terribly carsick, but we wouldn’t find out until later.
I’m waiting at the other end of the trip with the kids. Holding onto this incredibly naive image of an adopted dog jumping into my arms after a journey of more than 36 hours. His whole posture is one of total submission, and if they could reach that far, his ears would be dragging across the ground.
But soon enough, he settles in among the playing kids, who pet him with one hand while building the tallest towers with the other. He doesn’t flinch when the boys, dressed up as knights, clash their swords right above him. He willingly lets himself be put in his place by Jacky, our almost-adopted village dog at the time, and the cats are allowed to drink from his water bowl.
But it wasn’t an easy start. I dreamed of a dog that would follow us everywhere and lie sweetly at our feet. But he turns out to be obsessed with the neighbors’ goats, and when a farmer walks up the mountain one day and confronts me bluntly: “When they’re stressed, my goats don’t give milk. No milk means no income. If he goes after my animals one more time, I’m pulling out my gun,” I know he means business.
He has to go on a chain. My heart breaks and my mind is racing. I call dog trainers and behaviorists. Maybe there’s a better place out there for him? But also: you don’t just swap dogs because things get tough, right?
When we move to the south, more peace comes into our lives, and into his. The chain can go straight into the trash for good, making way for walks and baking in the sun. Our hot dog.
Life drifts along until one day, a tiny little gray ball is placed right in front of his nose: Belle. She crawls right up to him; he needs a bit more time. But eventually, she’s allowed to do everything the other cats aren’t: lie in his bed, snuggle up against him, and eat his kibble. When she goes outside, he stays close by. Old Brando has a soft spot for the little cat with two half-front paws.
Slowly but surely, the walks get shorter. He stops coming upstairs to sleep. A dragging hind leg. Doctor visits, X-rays, medication, shots, osteopathy. Arthritis. “That barking in the evening could also be Alzheimer’s,” a vet at the clinic says, and boom, some sedatives on top of it. And my anxiety grows. Because you can feel he’s not doing well. But you also know that 14 is a blessed age. And let’s be honest, sometimes that barking in the evening and at night is frustrating too, because nobody is sleeping well anymore.
Over the weekend, he still gets smothered in hugs by my girl Billie. Sunday night, things go wrong. I wake up with a start because I hear him whimpering on the stairs. I rush downstairs and nearly throw my back out trying to carry him back to his bed.
Three days and nights together in a cocoon. On the couch or sharing his bed, massaging and stroking him. Shots and fentanyl patches. His farts smell worse than ever from all the medicine and restlessness. Nothing seems to ease the pain.
He stumbles outside one last time and lies down on his cushion. He’s grumpy when Bert carries him back inside as it gets dark and cold. We know: he doesn’t want to be moved anymore.
He finishes Bert’s jar of chicken rillettes and all the kids’ charcuterie, because that arthritis diet can honestly go out the window now.
The last night, while I drift in and out of sleep from sheer exhaustion, with the TV on in the background playing images I can’t even remember, he just looks at me so calmly every time I open my eyes. All night long, those two dark eyes are staring at me. I know he’s telling me something.
That morning, I call the vet in tears. “Did you guys figure it out together?” he asks, and I say I don’t know—who am I to decide on his life? This animal that trusts me so much, am I really going to send him to his death now? But I just don’t want him to suffer anymore. “I’ll be at your place this afternoon,” he says.
Brando drags himself outside one last time to pee. “Isn’t he doing a bit better?” I say to Bert, phone in hand, ready to call off the vet. “It’s time, sweetheart, we have to let him go, he’s been suffering for way too long.” And I know it, he told me that night too, and I know I’m the one holding him back. I think of the wise words of my oldest sister, which I’ve been repeating like a mantra in my head for two days: “Animals always accept whatever their owner chooses.”
An endless wait follows. With my father’s passing on replay in my body, time starts stretching and shrinking again. Because at moments like this, all kinds of old wounds open up. I have doubts and feelings of guilt. I send out messages because I believe that by doing so, you create an energetic field where everyone is supported, and that it gives Brando wings.
Then the doorbell rings. It goes incredibly fast, and with his head in my lap and his snout against my belly, he takes four deep, heavy breaths in and out—and he’s gone. Immediately, his body feels lighter, and I can feel him running off. Freed from his broken hindquarters.
There are red roses, and Belle comes over to sniff his ear. His front paw pads are painted black for a print. There are many tears that, like my little sister said, “form the river he can sail across in a little boat to the other side.”
To say I underestimated the pain and emptiness afterward is an understatement, and maybe it’s something only people who have a pet can understand. But in those twelve years together, his life became so woven into our whole family. Fons, who can’t find the words from Spain. The boys, wandering around a bit lost. Bert, completely drained, and me, a puddle of tears.
The fact that there’s no pitter-patter of paws in the morning when making coffee, no little head peeking around the kitchen corner. No more organizing who needs to take Brando for a walk again. No more morning cuddles that leave you covered in fur.
I go for our morning walk alone and cry so hard when I come across his little poops on the road. Who would have ever thought—crying over a pile of poop…
His bed outside from which, when the sun hits it, his scent rises. The cats, who can now undisturbed munch on his last bits of kibble. The overwhelming silence in the house.
At times, I sighed so much at his endless production of hair found all over the house. If I didn’t vacuum every day, I’d instantly have an extra carpet. But for now, the vacuum stays right where it is, because all those little white hairs are so precious to me now.
My biggest teddy bear, my wise teacher, my loyal hot dog: run and play and eat treats and sniff. I know you’re already being hugged to death by everyone up there, because even the people who weren’t really dog lovers, you wrapped them around your paw in no time. Thanks for everything.
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