Man's_Best_Friend

I can still hear her, padding along the now darkened and deserted hall which she once love to curl up in. I can still smell her distinctive, unpleasant smell she carried around with her everywhere she went. Her presence follows me everywhere. Tara was given to my parents by my grandad when they became married, but sadly when my mum began working full time she had to give her back, and so my grandparents took her in. Even though she wasn’t exactly my dog, I loved her like she was. Tara wasn’t your typical Mongrel: she loved to chew objects that I never knew were even edible; she was so mischievous that she even got me and my cousins into trouble and her short black fur made it incredibly hard for her to be seen in the dark, which caused a lot of tripping accidents. But most of all Tara was the most caring and loveable animal I will ever know in my lifetime. She was the one pet that I felt especially close to; my dog was like my best friend, and then she became ill. It was a cold summer’s day when my mum took my sister and me over to visit my gran and grandad. I was incredibly eager to go as I would be able to take Tara for a walk as well as spend some time with my grandparents. When we arrived at my grandad’s house I expected Tara to be waiting for me at the front door, tail wagging in delighted greeting; however my expectations were far too great that day. I opened the door to find her limping sorrowfully up the hall to meet us. As soon as I saw Tara, I immediately knew something was wrong: she didn’t have the same sparkle in her eye which she had had the week before. My grandad explained that her back legs had just stopped working properly and he blamed it on her age. I didn’t want to believe this as I loved her so much and didn’t want to lose her. But deep down I knew he was right as Tara was fifteen which is seventy-six in dog years. Just to be on the safe side, my Auntie Margaret took her to the vet. As expected my grandad was right, however the vet gave us tablets to give her for the pain. A month passed and Tara gradually got better, and in no time she was running about again joyfully; the sparkle had returned. I was incredibly relieved to know that she was physically healthy again and moreover that I would be able to spend more time with her. However my hopes and desires became increasingly more like unrealistic dreams as we became aware of the fact that she hadn’t fully recovered. This showed through her frequent deafness and her inability to move properly: she struggled to lift her body off the ground. The biggest problem Tara faced was her lack of awareness of her surroundings: she would walk a couple of steps out of the door and forget where she was. These symptoms suddenly became common occurrences. It broke my heart. A couple of months later things went from bad to worse. Tara was deteriorating fast, which left the whole family fearing the worst. We could see that she was in excruciating pain and none of us could bear to she her like that, so my gran and grandad started to talk about the possibility of getting her put down. This decision was then put on hold as my mum and dad were about to go to Torremolinos in Spain. This meant that my gran and grandad had to look after my sister and me for a week and move in with us. I was delighted with the arrangement as it meant I would be able to see Tara and I hoped I’d be able to take her for short walks. However, because of the condition she was in, she was unable to walk or rather limp very far. When the time came for my parents to leave, I made sure Tara got used to being in a different place and that she was familiar with the surroundings she would live in for the next week. The next couple of days went quite smoothly for my sister and me, with no troubles at all, except for my gran forgetting how to turn the heating on during the day! Tara, however, spent those days forgetting where she was and struggling to even hobble two paces in front of her. This meant I was unable to take for a walk, so all I could do was supervise her in my back garden. Only being able to watch her made me feel like there was no hope left. The dog that once loved to chase cats and wander into strangers gardens, was no longer there. I couldn’t find a way to accept that I had lost her. Halfway through the uneasy week, it was Celtic’s Co-operative Cup game with Hearts. With my dad being away in Spain, I got the chance to go with my Papa. I felt extremely excited and grateful to be able to go as it would be the first “Mid-week” game I had attended in a few months. However, I was a bit wary about leaving my gran and grandad in an unfamiliar house. Luckily, though, my little sister knows everything there is to know about our house, so that was less of a worry. All day at school I couldn’t stop talking about the game because I was so excited. As soon as I got home from school, I pulled my Celtic top on and raced to get my scarf and money ready. At six o’clock my papa came picked me up to take me to the game. I said hurried goodbyes to my gran, my grandad, my sister and of course my wonderful Tara. I was just so eager to get to Glasgow and to the football that the next thing I was about to do didn’t even cross my mind. I left the back gate open. My papa and I returned from the most woeful football game I had ever watched, to find my gran, my grandad and my sister sitting in the kitchen, looking solemn. Where was my wonderful dog' My grandad quickly informed me that Tara had wandered off, out the gate, and out of sight. At that moment, my heart stopped. I didn’t know what to do. Part of me wanted to cry, part of me wanted to tear my hair out and the other part wanted to run out of the door and go and search for her. I stood still and quiet for a couple of seconds, then the part of me that wanted to search took over. I told my grandad that I was going out to look for her, but he said there was no use searching in the pitch black. I immediately sprinted to the cupboard and found a torch. Within a minute my grandad and I were hastily walking down my street with dimly-lit a torch, looking for a black dog. After just a couple of minutes of being out in the cold October’s night, my hands had turned to ice and with no luck so far, I felt a sense of dread creep over me. Then some hope returned. A man walking his dog passed us so I stopped and asked him if he had seen Tara, and to our surprise, he had. He said he had seen her wandering and limping along the pavement. My heart went out to her. Poor Tara, she would be clueless! Little did we know that that little bit of hope was about to turn to dread. As we reached the bottom of my street, a woman stopped her car and asked us if we were looking for a dog. What she said matched Tara’s description. It was then that my heart sank. The woman told that the dog had been hit by a car and was lying on the road and the police had just turned up. I could hardly breathe at that moment. My grandad and I then rushed to the scene. We saw the police immediately. The moment I caught sight of Tara, I couldn’t hold my emotions back. Beads started pouring from my eyes and refused to stop. The policewoman said the man that hit her had phoned the police straight away and made sure Tara was well attended to. My grandad tried to make her aware that it was he that was there comforting her, but I think we were unrecognisable to her. We waited at least half an hour for the vet to come to examine the damage that had been done to Tara. As soon as we informed the vet of her illness, I could tell by the expression on her face, that what she was going to say next were the words that I did not want to hear, words that would scar me for life. When I heard the words “wouldn’t last long” and “relieve the pain”, I was inconsolable. Those next few minutes will haunt me forever. The vet let my grandad say his goodbyes first, but when it came to me, I was speechless. I just didn’t know what to do, what to say, how to feel. I stood rooted to the spot, like at statue. All I could think about was the goodbye I had said before I committed the most idiotic crime I could ever commit. The policewoman saw that what was about to happen next would destroy me, so she tried to comfort me. With my grandad by her side, and the vet slowly sliding the needle into her temple, Tara slowly drifted off. And then her eyes closed forever. The next couple of days were the hardest days of my life. First of all, telling my gran what had happened when we got back that night, was so difficult. My sister and I had to take the day off school as we were equally devastated and needed time to grieve. However the biggest challenge of all was telling my mum. We didn’t want to ruin the end of her holiday by telling her while she was still in Spain, so my grandad broke the news as soon as she and my dad arrived back in Scotland. This was to give her time to prepare herself for when she came home and Tara was gone. This horrible and unforgettable event affect my whole family in different ways: my mum lost her dog; I lost and friend; and my grandad: lost the pet he always called man’s best friend. When I think back to that night, I wish I could have done something to stop this from happening. Why did I forget to close the gate' It will haunt me for years. And yet deep down a part of me knows that Tara was already in the last stages of her life. As my family say, perhaps it was for the best. I will never forget Tara and will always regret that we had to say goodbye.