Poor Little Fellow

When I was in year six, a dirty white dog used to run up the street and hang around our backyard. Rueben was a real bitch - not as in an 'authentic female' kinda way, more like a 'pat me or try and pick me up and I'll spin and try to bite you' kinda way. Eventually we found out his owner lived down the bottom of our street, and that Rueben's bitch Lily was to have puppies.

Lily had three pups - Oliver, Rose and another girl with an equally as poxy name. We decided that since he was obviously the runt (he was smallest) and had an endlessly entertaining habit (rolling onto his back as soon as he neared someone to get his belly scratched), Oliver was to be ours. We already had one dog (a shitsu-miniature poodle cross bought from the Canberra Times for $50, renamed from Bingo to Elvis Poodely) and $200 dollars later ($50 mates rate discount!) we were the proud owners of a purebred maltese pup, renamed to Colonel Thomas Barker.

We eventually rid him of his habit (the novelty didn't take long to wear off) and he finally settled himself a spot at the bottom of the hierarchy, just below youngest bro (who himself was below Elvis). His destiny was soon evident when it was discovered that one of his nuts wouldn't fall. Whilst on the operating table, being prepped to have it sucked out then detached (sorry fellas), the vet decided it was also a good time to rip out half his teeth (I'm still not sure why, but it was the done thing) leaving us with a very sore pup. He also had a tendency to have constantly weeping eyes - I'd say for at least the first five years of his life, he was easily recognised by his morone stained eyed rings and snout. Apparantly that's normal too.

He was always a 'special' little guy - as a new youngun his weight on his front legs while his was eating meant that his back legs would lift right up in the air. He couldn't wag his tail as it was constantly curled up in a tight piglet tail, leaving his rear end to twitch around a bit. He was the ugliest creature in the world when he was wet - his pink skin shone thru his white hair, and his amazing amount of sunspots were evident for the world to see. He would cry and cry and cry if we all walked down to the shop and one of us went inside - it didn't matter if the other five of us were there still with him. He had less control than was hoped for once we had cork tiles put in the house - he was always introduced by the skitter-skitter-tappy-tappy of his nails on the floor as he tried to run for his meal, sliding everywhere but trying to grip in with his nails nontheless. He would never walk out the front or to the side when we took the dogs for a walk - he was always happy to just hang right out the back of your ankles. He was also good for stirring up Elvis - picking Tom up for hugs and exclaiming loudly 'Tom's such a good dog' would cause insane jealousy in Elvis, and Tom just loved his chance in the limelight.

The second time my dad tried to give him a haircut, something funny happened. He was crying and then he was shaking and panting. Seeing he was stressed, my dad put him on the ground where he promptly threw up and collapsed. This was the first time he had an epileptic fit, discovered after may vet trips, scans and tests. He was prescribed Valium to prep him for stressful situations such as long car trips, or to help him out after he was stressed. At first it was a joke about the dud dog - missing a nut, not many teeth and epileptic. He was always the 'other one' - whilst we always thought of Elvis as the King and Tom as just his sidekick, everyone else thought that Tom was the best thing ever. 'He just sits and loves the attention' 'He's so cute!' 'What a lovely little fellow'. It was only every so often that he'd take fit - he'd pant and cry a little bit, his legs would collapse, Elvis would howl and cry a little, and then he would come good.

He'd been having more and more eplileptic fits (like daily) in December so the vet ran some tests and found fluid in his lungs and an enlarged heart. He was put on medication (2 tablets every morning and every night for the rest of his life at $1 per tablet - that's four sponser children!) and his fits started to reduce. Unfortunately they started up again over the week or so and more trips to the vet determined that although his heart had reduced a bit in size and the fits had reduced in severity, he was still suffereing post-fit apprehension - becoming tense, nervous and anxious. He was to have another tablet every morning and night in addition to his existing ones, as well as liver function tests and lotsa needles which he hated. These new tablets were making him think he was really thirsty all the time, so he started drinking himself silly - like a kilo's worth of water in a day- which in turn increased the fluid around his heart, backing blood up into his lungs, making him short of breath and making his heart work harder and so on and so on. He had also developed bruising outside on his chest. They took him into emergency vet on Sunday for some shots to lose some of the excess fluids, and to ensure he didn't pee all through the house, youngest bro was to sleep in the shed with him to make sure he had his next round of meds at 1am.

He was panting fairly heavily when my brother went into the house to hide the tablet in some raw sausage - when he came back outside Tom had passed out in the middle of the pavers, convulsing with fluid and blood flowing from his nose. All the family was woken up and he was rushed to the 24 hr vet in Deakin, but by the time they got to the second roundabout on Ashley Drive, he had passed away.

I got the phone call this morning - he was 13 years old.

We always thought Elvis would pass first - he's two years older - and we worried what Tom would do - he worshipped the ground that Elvis walked on and we always worried he'd die of a broken heart.

Even though we stirred you, laughed at you and made you the butt of all the jokes,
we loved you dearly and as a part of the family.
We all miss you - especially Elvis - and we hope that you're happy and able to relax at last.