Why it can be OK to hurt when a lowly Lowcountry mixed-breed mutt has to die

Is it wrong to hurt when a mutt dog dies when there’s so much real pain in the world?

I’m thinking personal pain, like losing my dear mother in January, 97 years into a beautiful life that formed me.

And not long ago, I started a little prayer list of my friends and acquaintances who have lost their spouse, and the little list now runs a page and half.

That’s not just pain, it’s life-altering pain.

But it still hurt, like a hole in the heart, when we had to put down our 14-year-old “Lowcountry mix” rescue dog in February.

Her name was Brae. She came to BraeBrae. Or BrBr. But she mostly came to chicken strips.

The name came up not purely because it sounded appropriately Scottish. It was because she came with a broken tail. Or, as the vet called it, a vertebrae thing.

I would tease Brae by starting a joke, which she never finished: “A black dog walks into the Broken Tail Saloon…”

Brae was adopted from the Maranatha Farm Animal Rescue, which was on seven acres at the end of dirt road near Ridgeland.

The late Karen Wilkins, the saint in charge of that yelping farm until her failing health forced her to close it, said Brae had been abandoned under a deck at birth. She had been hand-fed by a volunteer in Sun City Hilton Head.

We always thought that jolting beginning of life may have played a role in Brae’s peculiarities.

She was the most stubborn creature ever. She had strong opinions about everything and didn’t mind sharing them. And she defied all boundaries. Every open door was to be exited. Every fence line was to be broken.

She never got used to the two other dogs we brought into her domain.

She often sat with us, but she would be facing the wall. She chewed on her bed like it was a pacifier.

She didn’t like to be fiddled with by human hand, certainly not for a bath or a brushing.

She didn’t seem to like a lot of light or loud noises.

But she was a bright spirit. In her youth, when she got excited she’d run in figure eights.

And she would sometimes do that in greeting the special people she loved, like our neighbor Jim across the street and our daughter, Ann Talley.

She liked to take long, and very slow and deliberate, walks. And she loved rolling on her back in the grass or leaves.

BraeBrae got special attention from us over the last year of her life, when she was slowing down and got hard of hearing. And then couldn’t jump up on her love seat or the bed. And then her body became riddled with lumps and bumps that the vet said were no doubt cancerous.

She started getting special food, like rotisserie chicken scraps.

It hurt when she died because she adored me. For 14 years, she greeted my every entry like I was Santa Claus, and she’d circle back around for a last check on me before leaving the house. She even rested by the tub when I took a shower.

But I don’t think that was the main reason for the hole in our hearts.

It hurt because she never lost her spirit. She never lost her spunk. She never seemed to know she was falling apart, and she certainly didn’t acknowledge it.

There were no complaints, no whining, no why-me?

God had given this lowly mutt the gift of life, and she never let go, no matter what.

In that way, BraeBrae was an inspiration. And it’s OK to hurt.

David Lauderdale may be reached at lauderdalecolumn@gmail.com.