“My dog is trying to vomit, but nothing comes out,” says the lady I speak to on the phone. I send for her immediately and try to reassure myself. The last gastric torsion I saw was at least fifteen years ago. Images appear in my head of dogs struggling with their last strength as I try to insert a tube, gas hissing through a needle, a floor full of diluted stomach contents. Emergency and night consultations, looks of horror, tears, death and the attempts to outrun them.
Unfortunately, the way the Bernese Mountain Dog stumbles into the practice does not bode well. I look at the panting and drooling, try to nod encouragingly and examine the animal. It’s the dreaded gastric torsion. Thank God we got there very quickly.
I call the Medical Center for Animals and they can go there immediately.
“Madam, you have to go to the Medical Center for Animals immediately. They can operate there immediately. Then she has the best chances.”
“Straight away?” She looks at the dog with a mixture of pity and disgust.
“Straight away.”
“That is not possible! I left my two-month-old baby with the neighbor. I have to pick her up now. My husband can pick up the dog here in an hour.”
My smile is one of the sad kind. “No. That is far too late.”
“But my baby needs to be breastfed now… she is only two months old.” Gentle despair.
I shake my head slowly. A baby is usually hard to ignore and it feels unnatural, cruel even, but today that innocent creature has to go hungry. “You have to get there now, otherwise your dog will die.” I drop the word like a stone in a pond. After all these years, I don’t use the word much anymore. Falling asleep, euthanasia, putting him out of his misery, the last injection, death. There is always a softer and kinder description. But to withhold food from a baby I need the word. Relentless. Disruptive.
She looks at me, opens her mouth, but closes it again. She nods and takes the dog from me. No questions about cause, prognosis, aftercare or costs. Apparently she sees not only a surprisingly serious veterinarian, but also an experienced messenger of death.
Chris Polanen wrote the novels Waterjager and Centaur.
A version of this article also appeared in the October 5, 2023 newspaper.