We cried Otto again. This was in September 17. His head was turned to the right, and the corresponding leg was raised. The cervical, the doctor first told us, but after the examination he raised his eyes and said “he does not react to the examination of the lens, there must be something in the brain.” That’s right, an axe. On the spot, we made an appointment for an MRI of the brain and neck at the Veterinary Hospital in Pikermi, very expensive tests, which also had an associated risk: intoxication was dangerous for a 9-year-old animal. I remember, to pass the time, we went with Lefteris to a tavern in Rafina, where we drank tsipouro, and the more we drank, the more we sulked at the thought of what we were sure the MRI would show. Finally, on the same day, Otto again stood on his (four) legs and with his head up. The survey showed nothing.

That’s why, two Sundays ago, when the veterinarian at the clinic where we took him after a terrible seizure told us that he was dizzy and that he was probably blind because he didn’t react to light, I almost got excited. You screwed up, I thought. He blew it off us. After a while, he will get back on his feet. He always did this, he got sick, we hurried him, we paid 600 euros and he got better. It will happen now, the moment to take out my card.

I have not been confirmed. Maybe his tests again showed nothing (special) and the bill exceeded 600 euros, but Otto again did not get up. The seizures continued as he came out of sedation, causing him to become increasingly emaciated. He was no longer a wild youth of 9 years. He was about 15. When I last saw him on Wednesday afternoon at the reception of 1 polyclinic, he was breathing heavily due to accumulated secretions in his throat (he could no longer swallow). I looked into his eyes for any sign of our dog’s presence. As if they were covered with a thick layer of tears. I stroked his neck hard, where he liked it, so that he could understand me, and approached his ear. We love you, I told him aloud, we love you very much and thank you for everything. He didn’t flinch, but I felt his breathing become even more intense. I didn’t want to see the doctor give the injection, but at the same time I couldn’t wait for the liquid to start flowing through his veins. I stroked and stroked and stroked until the snoring subsided and then stopped altogether. In a strange way, this death felt like a cure. I looked into his eyes. Under the silt they froze. I felt relief and intense pain at the same time. Otto was no longer there, but only a wound appeared in the form of a large, black, hairy, plump, good-natured dog.

If this were all a movie, it would now be a flashback on the afternoon of August 11, 2008 at the family cottage in Nea Makri. There, under the pines, his parents noticed him returning from swimming in the sea. He wagged his tail in delight that someone had come to keep him company, a scene that would be repeated for the first time in countless times. Someone threw him through the bars while they were away, he tells you, since they have a garden, they will need a dog too – that’s the way it is in Mesogea. Who knew we have a problem in this family, we don’t develop an instrumental relationship with our animals, we place them at the center of our daily lives, leaving a void at a very important point when they leave. (hi Bron, hello Blackberry). Looking back, of course, I regret the wasted energy of the first days, when we were looking for the culprit of abandoning the puppy, instead of erecting it under the pines for the benefit of filling our lives with abundant laughter and tenderness. .

And to top it all off, and with lots of fluff. Otto seems to have taken the veterinarian’s assessment seriously from the start that he was a half-breed but had shepherd marks “so he would make a fine watchdog”, deciding when he had already grown from a puppy to a big man. the famous 30-kilogram monster that did not leave a single four-legged animal unharmed, so that he would have the audacity to drive under our house. I don’t know what irritated the neighbors more – his barking or my cries of “Otto, have mercy!”, but they, by the way, showed amazing patience. However, the coach who came home one day to help me deal with this problem shrugged it off. “It can’t be helped, he’s an alpha dog,” he told me, offering to use an electric collar (!) that would shock him every time he barked. I suggested that he put on such a collar and go to hell.

Curiously, however, Otto’s inability to learn was the only omen that came true about his personality. No matter how hard I tried, he never returned the ball, only yelled when I held a treat in my hand, and never left us alone to eat. (Between us, I didn’t suffer too much; a hot-tempered dog clung to the hot-tempered owner.) Other opinions that were sometimes expressed about him, for example. that he would definitely be crippled by hip dysplasia, that he would live hardly 8 years, that his eyes could not see and his heart was not in place (“it’s like hanging,” we were told once after an ultrasound), they refused. Especially the one from the heart. If there was one thing about this somewhat strange… collected being, it was his heart. So much so that we always thought thieves would come and she would lay on her back for petting. And he was not a good guard, despite his somewhat menacing appearance. That’s why, for better or worse, we had anxiety.

I didn’t want to see the doctor give the injection, but at the same time I couldn’t wait for the liquid to start flowing through his veins. In a strange way, this death felt like a cure.

But we loved him not in spite of his shortcomings, but precisely for them. Here’s what Tom Juneau wrote in Esquire magazine in 2014 about his dog Marco in perhaps the most shocking pet obituary ever written. I’ve reread it often over the past few years, putting Otto in Marco’s shoes, trying to finish it at least once without crying, sort of an exercise in courage. It’s useless, it’s like trying to sneeze with your eyes open. But I wanted to prepare for what we pet owners know: the end is coming. I was much younger when we lost our other dogs, and then the grief was divided evenly among the four. Otto was “my” first dog, he appeared after I left my parental home, but before I learned to take care of myself, I learned to take care of him first, and then of myself, I grew up with him, he became part of my identity – I was Lina, who works at Kathimerini and has a dog, Otto. I knew it was there, but I pretended not to notice the terrible footnote that time, in his case, in the case of all dogs, rushes away. “Enough,” Junot writes at one point. “Singing about a lost child is noble, singing about a lost lover is poetry, but singing about a lost dog is sad, unless we are talking about country music. And yet I loved – we loved – Marco so much that when I try to imagine what it’s like to love a child, I wonder how much more love can be in the human heart and in the human soul. I know the answer: a lot. (PS: At the time of writing, Junot has no children yet. In 2004, they adopted a daughter, Nia.)

As I sit here writing and thinking about the years we spent together, a thought occurred to me. Otto appeared literally out of nowhere in 08, in an innocent time before a series of storms that will sweep away everything personally and collectively (it is no coincidence that everyone thought that Rehagel called him that – when in fact he was from the eight and fucking). A few months later, the country – and I – will be on incredible adventures, and everyday life will be saturated with a layer of uncertainty. But one thing remained unchanged in the crisis years, the turmoil of divorce, the anabambula on the 15th, the fire on the 18th – when the country garden disappeared – or the madness of the pandemic: twice a day I put on my shoes, got the keys and a bag, and I took him for a walk. I didn’t realize it, but the strap I grabbed mechanically before opening the door was just as important as grounding in an electrical installation.

By the time you read these lines, we have already lived two weeks without Otto. Two weeks in a country that is not exactly unfamiliar, but certainly strange. We’ll find out where she goes. We learn that it is not necessary to “fortify” the food on the coffee table so that its face does not appear. We will learn not to pull on his leash at 5:00 pm. afternoon. Let’s not hate thunderstorms because thunder scares him, and let’s not leave pharmacy bags for him to walk. At some point, we will stop chasing the tiled cat, which, out of habit, climbs onto the balcony. However, she is not going to leave. He knows that the enemy no longer lives here.

The only one who didn’t seem to notice his absence is our 21 month old son. Even if only a few days ago it amused him when Otto lay on his toys or blocked his way in the living room, not moving forward or backward. It wasn’t out of playfulness—the kids were always a little bored—and it wasn’t out of jealousy. It was from dementia. The first symptoms appeared about two years ago with a slight confusion when walking, but over time they got the better of him.

It was everything we were told – a slow introduction to the drama of Exam 1, wild breathing, puffy eyes. It was painful, but the decision to euthanasia was not difficult, no matter how much we looked, we did not see the dilemma. A candle was lit in the reception area of ​​the clinic. This is a signal that at this moment someone is saying goodbye to their beloved four-legged companion. It was us and our four-legged companion Otto – I still couldn’t believe it. However, there was a pleasant silence – as a tribute – at the moment when we saw how he was carried lifeless on a stretcher from the room until he disappeared forever at the turn of the corridor. In my hand I clutched a loose collar with our common identification mark: on one side it was written “Otto”, and on the other – my phone.

Dumbfounded, we got into the car and sat there for a while until it was time to pick up the child from kindergarten. Otto pulled us out of so many storms unharmed and only left us when he was sure there was someone who could take control.