My dog's final meal

I pulled out all the stops, and it was the least I could do.

For my dog's final meal on Monday night, I roasted a 2.2kg chicken on the Weber Family Q, because he not only loved BBQ, he acted like he had contributed to every cook, standing out there while the Q preheated, remaining on guard during the roast, and even mooching around during the clean-up.

I had butterflied and seasoned the chicken with olive oil, coarse salt, lemon pepper, garlic powder, herbs de Provence (which I drove half an hour to source), and ground black pepper. Then I smoked the bird with hickory.

Chicken was his favourite meat, but he had never tasted anything this good.

Beamer (my dog's name) also loved cheese, so I tracked down a camembert wheel earlier in the day, while Beamer slept in his customary place on the back seat of the car, and I baked it in the oven before covering it in honey, and served it to Beamer on slices of French stick bread. He hadn't many teeth left by the end so the crusty bread proved too much, but considering how much he loved cheese, he had never eaten melted camembert before (too rich for his stomach), and he was thrilled at this special first course.

The next morning, before his final trip to the vet, he had a breakfast of bacon and egg, but he was clearly still full from the gourmet meal the night before, because, for once, he didn't finish it. The leftovers were still there when we got back later in the day, and were the first tangible thing to actualise the mourning.

I say my dog, but I'm sure others in the family would dispute that. He was seven years old when he came to us, nine years ago, so he was never really our dog anyway. He was given to us by a family that was moving to Australia and couldn't take him. And at first, I didn't want him. Having had dogs in my childhood, I knew what work they required and how all-consuming they could become. But I am the only male in a family of girls, and so of course I gave in — and anyway, Beamer was male, so perhaps he could help provide our family with some balance.

In the early days, perhaps for the whole first year, or so the photos suggest, he gravitated to my third daughter, Esther. He slept on her bed, stayed with her during the day, and seemed to reserve his allegiance and affection solely for her. There came a shift, however, when his loyalty transferred to my wife, who was two years out from breast cancer, and welcomed the new attachment. He welcomed it too, particularly when he realised it came with more walks and extended cuddles in front of TV — not to mention nights on the big bed. Much to the chagrin of the other guy.

We'd been warned that he was a lady's man — by which his previous family meant that he preferred female company. I thought that he and I might bond over this, because I prefer female company too. But nope, he remained suspicious of me — and would bite me on the nose if I came too close.

But there was another shift to come, which coincided with me working far less in cafes and other people's offices, and more time in the home, as more book contracts arrived and I realised I could get far more done away from distracting people. Beamer very much welcomed this — he never did like being left alone in the house. In time, I secured more remote journalism work that required me to be home almost all day, and then the pandemic hit — I don't think that we have been apart since.

Early last year, the vet told us that Beamer had advanced kidney disease and would probably last a month, maybe three. She was wrong. In the end, what got the better of him was advanced arthritis, and despite not being able to tell us about his pain, he had a way of letting us know. We've plied him with painkillers for months, and for the most part they've given him relief. But when you love someone, you don't need words to know when living, for them, has become a burden that is sometimes intolerable, and that you're only keeping them around because you're scared of how much it will hurt when they're not here.

And that's no small thing. For such a tiny dog, Beamer achieved mighty things. He helped a woman survive cancer. He saved a marriage. He contributed to at least three books and inspired others that are yet to be written. He united a family during a pandemic, and stopped an ageing theologian from going mad with loneliness and crisis of identity.

He also helped to BBQ some amazing meals.

I realised in Beamer's absence yesterday that dogs are all about the senses. The smell of their blankets. The sound of their breathing when they sleep. The touch as their weight falls against your leg. The taste of their breath when you hold them close to your face. The sight of that gleam in their eyes as they hold your gaze.

They're the things I'll miss the most.

My wife asked me would we see Beamer in heaven. I don’t know what I think about those things any more. But I do know this. In the Old Testament book of Jonah, God is as much concerned for the cattle in the city of Nineveh as he is for the people. In the book of Job, it’s the deer giving birth on the mountainside that he watches over like a worried father. And in the New Testament, it’s creation’s cry for suffering to be over that God hears, and which is answered in the letter to the Colossians with Paul’s statement that ALL created things have been reconciled to God, not just humans.

But they’re all thoughts for another day. The present is about the silence in the house … muddy paw prints on the tiles by the front door … his bag of treats in the pantry … a bone he left for us on the back deck … the pain that lingers in my chest to even think about such things.