Saying goodbye to a best friend ~ November 21, 1991

David Heiller

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1991: It’s 8:15 a.m. My back is sore from digging Binti’s grave. It’s funny how soft the earth is under 18 inches of snow.

Binti is resting on the rug in front of the refrigerator. She likes that spot, and won’t move, even though it’s hard for us to get things. Back in the old days, we would have made her move, but not lately. She’s had royal treatment lately. After 12½ years, she’s earned it.

Binti and the family the day before we said good bye.

I could write a book about Binti. Most people who have grown old with a dog could. Now it’s the final page. She can’t shake hands anymore, like before when she would almost bowl you over with her big left paw. She can’t hear a sound. She won’t eat, not even canned dog food. I never thought I would buy a dog canned food, but we did for Binti about a month ago, when she started looking so gaunt. Now she won’t even finish a can. About all she can do is wag her tail, and even that is weak, not the old rap-rap-rap that used to echo through the house when we’d stoop to pet her.

Last night, she asked to go outside, and didn’t come back for half an hour. Cindy went looking for her. Ida, our three-year-old collie, acted just like Lassie and took Cindy down the road a piece. Binti was stuck in the ditch, in snow up to her neck. She couldn’t move. Cindy had to haul her out and bring her home. We sat her in front of the woodstove and covered her with two old towels. She still wouldn’t stop shivering.

Binti must be thinking the same thing we are. A snowbank, a veterinarian. Same difference. Her time has come.

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 13, 7 p.m. Doctor Frank Skalko found a tumor in Binti’s liver when we brought her in this afternoon. He felt her abdomen on the stainless steel table in his office, with Cindy and I watching, and said, “You’re making the right decision.”

We said our goodbyes then, Binti resting on the table, trusting in us like she had always done, Cindy and I crying on top of her. “You’ve known her a long time,” Frank said. Neither one of us could answer. Then he shaved a patch on her right leg and gave her an injection, and Binti rolled over on her side and closed her eyes, as if she were falling asleep.

We took her home and buried her in the waiting grave, between two apple trees. Noah wouldn’t come with. Mollie did, but ran home crying when I laid Binti on the snow. We didn’t force them.

Ida sniffed her old mentor up and down. She wagged her tail at first, as if asking Binti to play. Then she sensed that Binti was dead, and her tail stopped wagging, and she watched us lay her friend into the hole and cover her with an old blanket, then with dirt, then with sod.

After supper, we took out all our old photo albums, and found several pictures with Binti. The kids want to bring them to school tomorrow, to show and tell. It’s a good idea.

Binti's first day with us in 1979.

CINDY AND I GOT Binti as a puppy when we first were together, back in August of 1979. She was half Irish setter, half roving farm dog. I had just returned from Morocco, so we named her Binti, which means “my daughter” in Arabic.

She was like a daughter too. We took her everywhere, played with her, took daily walks, brushed her so that her fur shone. People would remark at how beautiful she was. That made us proud.

But she was more than pretty. She had good sense even as a puppy. When the kids came along, she accepted them instantly. She knew she had no choice, but it was more than mere tolerance. She let them scoot after her in their super coups, or pull themselves up using her long ears as handles. She never snapped or growled. When she’d had enough, she would stand up and go to the door, or move to another room. She was so patient and gentle, it always amazed me.

Ever since we moved to the Denham area in 1981, we never tied Binti up. She stayed close to home. Once she got into trouble by going into a neighbor’s yard. He threatened to shoot her. I said I would teach her not to do that. For the next two weeks, we took walks past his place, and I held her collar and told her “No!”

I stopped to see this neighbor a couple weeks later. “You must be chaining your dog,” he said a bit smugly. “I haven’t seen her around.”

“Nope, I just taught her to stay home,” I answered with an inward smile.

We seemed to communicate, Binti and me. When the sun would set and silence lay on the land, we would sit on the deck and gaze together over the field. Once a coyote howled from the woods so loud that we both looked at each other at the same time, with a mixture of fear and wonder.

Binti exploring in the snow.

Every winter, a day would come when I would toss a snowball or two at Binti. She would never run away. Instead, she would sit still and give me a look that said, “How could you throw that snowball at me? ME, YOUR DOG?!?” That would always stop me, and I would pet her and apologize.

It sounds like I’m giving Binti more human qualities than she deserves. Some people do that. I remember a lady when I was a kid who dressed her poodle in a vest in the winter, and would take him to the A&W every noon and buy him a hotdog. Someone ran him over one day, and a hush fell over the town like a person had died.

So I’ll admit to you skeptics that Binti definitely didn’t compare to a person. She was far superior. How many people do you know who trust you and obey you and forgive you, no matter what? Name one.

Is that why they call dog a man’s best friend? I think so.

If I could order a dog, like you order Christmas presents from a catalogue, I would order another Binti. No hesitation. She had a good life. She was a lucky dog. And we were too.