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As any animal lover will know, the joy a furry friend can bring to our lives is unmatched. The unquestioning companionship, loyalty and warmth our pets share every day is constant and unwavering.
Sadly, we also know, their lives aren’t measured in human years. The chances are we’ll have to say goodbye long before we’re ready to – and that’s a heartbreaking reality of owning a pet.
Sometimes it’s unexpected. Other times there will be signs and we will have to make the terrible call that it’s time for our beloved animal to go. Neither path is easy. But why don’t we take this loss and its resulting grief as seriously we do when we farewell a human loved one? That’s what I talked to Ryan Wilson, co-founder of charity Working Paws, about this week on a new episode of The Australian Women’s Weekly Love Stories podcast.
Ryan is ex-SAS. And during one tour of duty in Afghanistan, he worked with an incredible dog called Fax – a dog who would see him become dedicated to working with service dogs both now and post-service.
Fax was tasked with leading his team to a safe space for a helicopter to land. But when he stumbled across a group of waiting Taliban, this brave dog was shot and killed. Ryan attempted CPR to no avail.
“We treated these dogs like another team member,” Ryan said in the podcast. “So when Fax was killed, it was hard on the troop – particularly his handler at the time. We performed a funeral and a ranch ceremony as we would for any fallen soldier and gave him the respect that he deserved.
“It doesn’t matter whether it’s a pet or a cat or a dog or any loved one. If there is love there, it hurts the same no matter who it is, or what it is.”
Ryan was next teamed up with Keni, who he served with until his canine companion was seven. Keni then retired due to injuries received in service. And so he moved from a life in uniform to a life as a beloved and indulged house pet in the aftermath.
“Keni lived to the ripe old age of 15 which is pretty uncommon for a dog of that breed and that size, and especially given all the work he’d been through,” Ryan revealed.
“But unfortunately, he got to a point where his injuries just became too much. His back legs started to give way, and he was struggling to get up and move around and walk around.”
After family and friends gave him some tough love, it became clear that an unthinkable decision had to be made to put Keni down.
“I was kind of blinded,” Ryan said. “I was like, ‘No, it’s fine, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Yeah, he struggles to get up a bit but he’s alright.’ Now looking back I think I was convincing myself he was okay when he was in a lot of pain.
“It was tough, I’m not going to lie. It was a gut-wrenching decision … to put him down. Part of me wishes that one day I just woke and he had passed away in his sleep. But typical Keni he was like, ‘No I’m going to hold on and make you make the call.’ He held on as long as he could.”
What Ryan did next though, helped him not only cope with the choice but also gave Keni the sendoff that he more than deserved. Reaching out to some of the friends who had served with them both in the military, Ryan held a special day where they came to the house to have a drink, tell some stories and let Keni know how much he’d meant to them all.
“We sat around and he was still there,” Ryan said of the emotionally charged day. “Everyone said their goodbyes and then the vet came into the house and we put him down.
“Initially I didn’t want to do something like that, I just kind of wanted not to make a fuss. Because it was quite emotional for me as well and I didn’t really want people to see that I suppose. But I am so glad I did do that. I think that helped a lot. Knowing that these guys stopped what they were doing and came out and spent a few hours there with him to say goodbye means a lot to me. And it definitely would have meant a lot to Keni.”
So how, I asked, did Ryan get over the grief? That’s something I really wanted to know, having just said goodbye to my beloved cat Armani just a few months ago.
“He will always be with me no matter what,” Ryan said. “And I guess there’s some things I can’t really move on from. It’s just something I will learn to live with every day and just be thankful that I did have 15 years with him to be honest.”
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