Ironically, Tosca didn’t like me when she first arrived as a puppy; she seemed to see me as her rival in the pecking order (Ross, my younger brother, on the other hand, she dismissed as bottom!). She would growl at me, and I would snarl back, until we both thought we had won. But our relationship grew from this unpromising beginning into something deep and unique. I used to love curling up on the sofa with her, stroking her soft, floppy ears as she rested her head on my lap. When I was studying for exams – first GCSEs, then A levels, then the endless exams through five years of vet school – Tosca always seemed to know. She’d suddenly suspend her usual demands and come and sit quietly beside me, as if she understood that I needed her support. So when, at the beginning of my fourth year at vet school, Tosca became ill and almost died, I was devastated.
By the time I left home for college we’d had Tosca for over eight years and our little Yorkshire terrier, Paddy, for four. Paddy was only eight months old when we got him and was just a little brown ball of fur. He’d been rescued from a house in which around 200 Yorkshire terriers had been found after their elderly owner died; some of them dead, the rest suffering from disease and malnutrition. Paddy had escaped relatively unscathed and he and Tosca soon bonded – she took him under her wing and they’d snuggle on the sofa together.
Then one Saturday, when I was home from college for the weekend, I found Tosca lying on her side groaning, her belly horribly swollen. She had gorged herself on the sack of dried dog food we kept hidden away in the conservatory. We couldn’t think what was going on, or even how she’d got to it – Tosca was a bit of a scavenger, but she’d never done that before. In recent weeks, though, she’d had other episodes of behaving oddly, such as hiding in strange places so that we had to hunt for her.
She had drunk a lot of water after eating the food, which had made it swell in her stomach. We took her to Louise, our local out-of-hours vet, who decided that Tosca would need surgery, as there was too much in her stomach for it to be eliminated naturally.
Louise operated that evening, but when I phoned to see how Tosca was doing, Louise told me she wasn’t coming round from the anaesthetic as easily as she should. When Tosca finally did wake up she was in a bad way – her condition was critical. And as the life of my dear, faithful exam-buddy hung in the balance, I had to return to college after the weekend and anxiously await updates from home.
The following day, Mum phoned. Tosca had been referred as an emergency to the Queen Mother Hospital, which was attached to the Royal Veterinary College where I was studying. My parents were on their way right now with Tosca in their car, as it was quicker than waiting for a pet ambulance. I waited outside the hospital until they swung into the car park. When I opened the boot I was shocked to see that our lovely energetic and bouncy dog couldn’t even stand up. She was attached to a drip and was limp and lifeless.
Inside the hospital she was whisked away by vets and nurses and a little while later the senior clinician, Giacomo, called us in to explain that Tosca’s abdomen had become septic after her operation and as a consequence her heart had started beating in an irregular rhythm that could be fatal. Even with further surgery to flush out the infected fluid and medication for her heart, she would only have a 50/50 chance of survival.
We were stunned. Tosca couldn’t die; we weren’t ready to lose her. We were allowed to go through and give her a cuddle before she was taken into surgery. After several hours of anxious waiting I was told that she had made it through the operation but was still in a critical condition. In addition to her stomach problems they had found a small tumour on her adrenal gland. Once again she hadn’t come round as expected, which the vets felt might indicate that she also had a brain tumour which was causing the anaesthetic to be filtered out of her brain more slowly than usual.
The news that she had cancer as well as septic peritonitis was pretty devastating, but there was still hope. The cancer was in the early stages and could be a slow-growing type, so there was a good chance that, if she made it through this ordeal, she would have another couple of years.
Tosca remained in the Intensive Care Unit for three weeks. It was a tough time for all of us, but with the expert care of the vets and nurses, she pulled through. As a vet student I was allowed to visit her often and I spent a lot of time in her kennel, talking to her, cuddling her and sitting beside her with my textbooks open on my lap. She had grown painfully thin, but I coaxed her into eating again by gently feeding her sausages, and when she was finally well enough to go home she tottered out of the hospital. All the way home she squealed in the way she did when she wanted a walk, so we knew we had our Tosca back and promised never to complain about her annoying traits again.
We were all thrilled to have her home, and once she was back in her own territory she carried on getting better and soon seemed like her old self. But as the months passed we realised she was losing her sight, and her head had begun to tilt to one side, which meant that she probably did have a slow-growing brain tumour. This may have accounted for the uncharacteristic behaviour that she continued to display, such as hiding in strange places and her gorging episode.
Tosca didn’t appear to be too fazed by losing her sight. She still charged around the house, so we put bubble wrap around the trees in the garden and horse boots on the legs of the dining-room chairs so that she wouldn’t hurt herself when she bumped into them. She never seemed to have a problem finding us – or the dishwasher – and she still demanded our undivided attention.
When I graduated a year later she was still doing well and we were hopeful that she would be with us for some time yet. After my graduation ceremony and the ball that followed and once all the excitement was over, Jacques and I drove down to Cornwall to join my parents and Ross for a holiday. Every year Mum, Dad, Ross and I go to the same little cottage in the Camel Valley Vineyard in north Cornwall for a lazy fortnight of pottering around beaches, walking the dogs, looking at holiday cottages and filling up with cream teas at Viv’s café down the road. This year, Jacques was joining us, and I was looking forward to spending time with him in one of my favourite parts of the country. Jacques and I planned to arrive a few days after the rest of my family, as I had to pack up my house at university and say a sad goodbye to my housemates and friends.
After the long drive from Kent to Cornwall, never less than six hours, Jacques and I pulled up at the vineyard, got out of the car to stretch our aching limbs and lifted our bags out of the boot. We walked down the path towards our cottage to find Mum outside with Tosca lying on the ground beside her in the shade.
I ran towards them. ‘What happened?’
‘Tosca’s been really off colour today,’ Mum said. ‘We knew you were on the way, so we decided to wait and see what you thought before getting help. Especially as it’s Sunday.’
I knelt down and stroked Tosca. She barely responded. Her little tail, seldom still, didn’t even manage a small welcoming wag. There was also a faint rattle coming from her chest as she breathed.
‘She was playing in the sea yesterday,’ Mum said. ‘You know how much she loves dashing in and out of the waves. But she can’t see them coming and I think she’s inhaled some salt water.’
I looked up at Mum. ‘She really looks awful. We need to get her to a vet. I can’t help her, I have nothing with me.’
We got Tosca gently into the car and took her to a very friendly local out-of-hours vet called Sandra, who took her temperature – which was alarmingly high – gave her an antibiotic injection and a Metacam injection to bring her temperature down and asked us to bring her back in the morning.
A diagnosis was difficult. Given that we knew she had cancer, there might well have been tumours in her lungs. But it was also possible that, having inhaled seawater, she had developed pneumonia.
We