Serge's World

Today would have been Noisette’s 13th birthday, but unfortunately, two weeks ago, on the 26 March 2017, we had to say goodbye to our faithful friend. It has been really hard to deal with her loss, with the house being dreadfully quiet without her constant presence, but I am happy that she is now painfree. Noisette lived a good, and long life for a dog, and we will remember her fondly forever.

She was originally my mother’s dog, who got her as a young puppy in 2004. I was always on the scene at that time, and Noisette loved me being there, because I used to take her on daily runs at the Johannesburg botanical gardens, where she was able to do her favourite thing in the world - chasing after her ball. She loved going so much, that one afternoon, she decided that she wanted to go, but I was doing something else, so she jumped up onto the dining-room table, grabbed my sunglasses in her mouth, and brought them to me, as if to say, “Here you go, now let’s get going”. She got scolded for this, but at the same time, it was so endearing.

Not too long after, we moved to Cape Town, where we traded the botanical gardens for daily runs on the beach, which made for one very happy (and smelly) dog.

When my mother moved to Europe in 2008, I adopted Noisette, and she stayed with me and Claudia (now my wife), officially becoming ours. Since then, she has been a constant companion to us. She was always around, and even slept in our bed each night, cuddling as as close as she could.

Since that time, the longest we have ever been away from her was when we were moving to the Netherlands. Noisette had to wait 3 months after her rabies vaccine, and so went to stay with my sister until she was allowed to make the trip to Europe. Those were the longest 3 months of our lives, and it was a very joyful reuniting at Schiphol airport when she joined us in the Netherlands.

Over the few years, we were able to watch her grow old, which has been very hard. When she was 10, we had to stop her favourite pastime of chasing her ball, as her legs were starting to become shaky, although she still loved her walks.

In November 2015, while getting a diagnosis of diabetes, we received the horrible news that she had developed a sarcoma on her shoulder as well. At that point, we thought we only had a few months left with her. However, she was always full of surprises. We managed to get the diabetes under control eventually, but continuously worried about the cancer, however, she managed to hang on for another 18 months.

On the Saturday night, she did not look good, and when she didn’t want to eat breakfast, we rushed her to the emergency vet in the Dierenambulance, where we heard the worst news a pet owner can ever get. She had an abdominal mass which had ruptured, causing her to bleed out internally, and we only really had one option. We delayed the inevitable to give Cole a chance to get to the vet to say goodbye. After that last injection the vet administered, Noisette slipped away in our arms peacefully. I think she had known it was time.

Over the last two weeks, we have really missed her incredibly. Our lives have been governed by her strict schedule of insulin shots twice a day, which now no longer needs to be done, amplifying her missing presence. I miss it all. I miss her coming to greet me when I get home, albeit, because she wants to go for her walk, I miss her laying as close as she can get and licking my feet. I missed her twitching as she dreams. I miss our walks and our playing. She especially loved to play roughly on a Sunday morning on our bed after sleeping in late. I miss her stealing random pieces of clothing and shoes when we were out, and then sleeping next to them on her bed, so as to feel close to us. I even miss having to get up at 3am to let her out for a wee.

Despite missing her so though, I am actually happy that she was able to live a long and good life. She was the absolute best dog a man could ask for. She will be missed greatly, and while it hurts for now, will be remembered with great fondness.