BOWIE FOREVER

E SEMPRE E SEMPRE

One flat tyre, one missing oil filter, 2500 miles, 50 hours in the car, 19 days away, many hundreds of pounds, nine hotels. This is roughly what it took to get my 16-year-old dog to Portugal and back. You might ask: was it worth it? Does a dog know they are in Portugal? Would it have been cheaper and in fact much easier to fly? Yes, yes, and yes.

I brought Bowie home when I was 17 years old. I have never done anything stupider in my life. I was absolutely riddled with obsessive compulsive disorder, undiagnosed autism spectrum disorder and an eating disorder, fixated on always making the “right” choices and being “good”. In the face of all that disorder, I was desperate for stability. I had never had much of it. At that time, my mother was once again suicidal and completely useless, spending more time playing Solitaire on her laptop in a dressing gown than she did caring for her four year old child. I was caring for that child, the adult woman, two rabbits and three rats. Our family dog had died suddenly, and I was heartbroken. I Googled which dogs live the longest, so that I wouldn’t have to feel that grief for a long time, and the answer was Jack Russell Terrier. When my mother asked if I would like to see a litter of Jack Russell puppies up the road, I said yes.

I have told this story before. I have relived it in my head many times, wondering exactly what my life would be like if I had not gone. If I had sat with that litter and not taken a special interest in the naughtiest one, the one that was pissing on my lap and stealing out of my mother’s handbag. I think that if I had lived through that time at all without her, maybe I would have done more things that were normal for my age, but that I would be much less happy and fulfilled.

What came next was a result of my mother’s lack of responsibility, and my instant bond with this tiny creature. We went home with a receipt for £200 scribbled on a scrap of paper for a dog, female, that had my sister’s name. In the car I renamed her Bowie, because I was going through a big David Bowie phase and I couldn’t foresee a day when I wasn’t anymore. I couldn’t foresee much. I was, after all, 17.

At that time, I was so fucking boring. If it couldn’t be counted, I wasn’t interested. Calories, miles on the treadmill, grades, pages read, pounds made at work, pounds lost at the gym. My friends, weekends out, even concerts could not be counted, and I lost interest. I thrived on having too much responsibility, and the idea of loosening my grip for even a second terrified me. If I had loosened my grip, everything likely would have fallen apart. It wasn’t an illusion. There was no safety net. Somebody in the house had to do something except eat trifle and call their ex, and as I was the only somebody who wasn’t either useless, furry or a child, it had to be me.

But this stupid puppy, my god. She bit my feet, my hands, my hair. She stole everything I owned and used it to teeth. She pissed everywhere. She ran away. She was so bad, but she was so funny. I fell in love. When I was with her, I laughed again. I loosened my grip, just a little. I had a reason to be at home that wasn’t my responsibilities and tasks, something that needed me but also gave me so much in return. She was fun, and I could have fun again. I allowed myself to have fun again.

Over the coming years, I ran everything in my life around that dog. Where I went to uni, what trips I went on, where and when I moved cities. She came everywhere with me. We have been together for almost half of my life, and I can confidently say that it would be completely different without her. I feel quite confident saying that there is every chance I would be dead by now.

When I met my now-husband, he didn’t like dogs at all. He soon learned that my dog was a complete non-negotiable, and after a successful first meeting he was permitted to come with us to her 8th birthday walk in Nunhead Cemetery. I have always taken her entire birthday off work as if it were my own. He committed completely, to both of us, and we have spent every birthday together since. We went to Los Angeles together as a family months later. That was half her life ago.

Last year, after 15 years together, I was told that Bowie was going to die. When we invest emotionally in dogs, this is the tradeoff–they are likely to die before us. I knew that, but I just didn’t believe it could happen to us. We are different. We had a trip to Portugal planned to celebrate her 15th birthday. If there was a plan, it had to happen. We would drive all the way down, a roadtrip like we had done many times before. She would smell new things and meet new people and come back with even more of a love for life. Instead, she was seriously ill, and her condition started to deteriorate. She refused to open her own presents and wouldn’t eat.

When we brought her in to receive fluids, the vet was cruel and callous and tried to discourage us from pursuing treatment. She told me that I had to be realistic, that 15 years was “lifespan”. I’ve seen enough 23-year-old terriers much more fucked up looking than my dog but still happy and alive to know that isn’t true anymore. We got her fluids and a stay in hospital, and she recovered nearly immediately. We were told that she still might deteriorate on her arrival home. She never did. She only regained the weight she had lost and then some, the joy and light she had lost and then some. We went on many more trips–France, Cornwall, the Cotswolds. We thought we had to give up on The Big One, trade it for more time together at home. We were OK with that.

Over the next year, we visited Cornwall over and over again, finding it to be a safe, peaceful place to enjoy what we thought could be our final weeks or months as a family. In July, a tarot reader in Falmouth told me to enjoy my life, that the big change I had long feared would alter my life forever was not coming just yet. I took that to mean that Bowie was sticking around for a while, and I started to act accordingly. I tried to relax, to enjoy my time with her instead of drowning in anticipatory grief. It has mostly been working, though some nights I do cry while clutching her paw. She finds this annoying.

In April, we were given the all-clear for The Big One. The vet told us that age is not a disease, that Bowie is well enough to do whatever she wants for as long as she can. A year ago, I was just so grateful to walk to the beach or to work with my dog. It seemed so unbelievable that I would ever take her to my favourite restaurant in Lisbon, and I was still just grateful for nights on the couch.

So why take the dog all the way to Portugal? Well, we wanted to. She likes going on these trips, runs around like crazy when we get to new hotels, loves new people. I love Portugal and I feel at home there, and I wanted to show her the things I like. I like being with her, being seen as an extension of her. I like going to shops and restaurants and olive oil mills and wineries and seeing people’s faces light up when they see her face. I love showing her new things and keeping her sharp. She isn’t the haggard old bitch you might expect for 16. She runs around, gets zoomies, wags her tail over every exciting new experience. Other than her white muzzle, you might never realise just how long she has lived on this earth.

Our trip, despite some predictable roadtrip setbacks, went as we could have hoped. We visited the Palace of Versailles, Bordeaux, San Sebastian, Biarritz, Lisbon, Madrid, Evora, Aveiro. We rode boats, went to the beach, sat in gorgeous cocktail bars, went to big parks. I took Bowie to my favourite parks and cemeteries in Lisbon. We went to my favourite bar and had a lock-in with some friends. She was adored everywhere we went.

I live pretty much every day at the side of this dog, still, and I will for as long as I can. I am so proud to be seen as part of her. We go to work, to town, to the shops, to the beach, to the coffee shop, to the bar. Everyone expects to see her at my side when I walk in, and they’re disappointed when she’s not. Being with her forces me to slow down, still, to not rush as much as I might alone. To walk slowly, take in my surroundings, to sit in the shade. Taking care of her forces me to take care of myself.

Bowie turned 16 in the Alentejo. We sat outside and soaked in the sun together. She opened all of her own presents with gusto, and played with them too. We went on a walk through the woods that ended in a wildflower field, moving slowly so she didn’t get too hot. We had to hitchhike home, which is another story, but the kind family with the van loved her too. I cooked her a plate of slop that she gratefully ate without needing to be handfed.

I used to think that there was a chance I might one day love a dog half as much as I love this one. I have realised, over the last year, that this probably isn’t true. It is unlikely that I will ever bond with anyone the way I have with Bowie. There cannot be a dog, or any living being, who will have come into my life the way Bowie did at the time she did. There will never be anyone that I can have spent those formative years with, side by side, every single day. There doesn’t have to be. Bowie is the love of my life. I owe everything to her.

I don’t know how to live without her. For now, at least, I don’t have to learn.