For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be a vet. There was something about the thought of saving animal’s lives that called out to me. However, with my below-average grades and lack of any motivation to raise them, I obviously didn’t attain the As and A*s required for courses at any university. Therefore, I settled for a slightly less demanding, yet still animal-orientated course in Veterinary Nursing. I think you call them ‘Vet Techs’ or ‘Veterinary Assistants’ in the US.
In September 2014, I started University. Honestly, I loved it there. I felt independent for the first time in my life. My parents had been pretty controlling, so moving into student accommodation and being able to do pretty much whatever I wanted without the fear of them looming over me was a godsend. Anyway, this isn’t really relevant to the story I want to tell. In January this year, I started my first placement. I was placed at Animal Friends Veterinary Practice in Hertfordshire, only a 30 minute bus drive from my uni. It was ideal, all the staff welcomed me with open arms, and made sure I got plenty of experience to write about for my reflective log every week. The first month flew by. I was doing pretty much everything a regular Veterinary Nurse was doing; checking on the in-patients, giving them some much-needed TLC, and of course, dealing with some of the more tragic and morbid cases that every vet practice gets.
We could never have expected Charlie, though…
Charlie’s owners were a couple in their late 60’s. The first time they brought him in, they were worried sick about their poor boy not eating, struggling to go to the toilet and generally looking depressed. The vet was sympathetic, and suggested that Charlie be admitted for bloodwork and some fluids. They accepted, and Charlie was brought through to us in the General Practice room.
The only word I could use to describe that dog is ‘decrepit’. He looked like he had far surpassed the usual 14 years a dog can live for. Charlie’s bottom teeth stuck out of his jaw in an almost impossible manner, his fur was deep black and tinged with matted grey clumps in several areas. The weirdest thing about Charlie was his eyes; they were glazed over completely and resembled two huge, opalite marbles. When I managed to get a look at Charlie’s file on the online database, his profile put him at 22 years old. I can’t say I was surprised, I mean he certainly looked his age. We’d seen many extremely elderly dogs in here, but twenty two years was a milestone Animal Friends hadn’t come across as long as any of the vets or receptionists could remember.
Charlie was placed down on the examination table and stood there for a moment on his spindly legs, shaking constantly. As the vet prepped his syringe and sample tubes, I slowly approached Charlie and called to him calmingly. I’m not sure why, as he was probably both deaf and blind at his age, but part of my job was to make the animals feel comfortable, so I stroked him and cooed to him for a few minutes before hugging him to my chest and restraining him while the vet took bloods.
I still remember how cold he was. It was like holding a corpse. I could feel every bone protruding from his tiny frame, and he kept stiller than any dog had ever been as the vet prodded around trying to find a vein. I’d never seen anything like it, it was as if he felt no pain at all. It took a good twenty minutes for the vet to collect enough thick, dark blood to fill the sample tubes and then attach an IV drip, and as he took them up to the lab, I was left to bandage his arm.
Winding the small piece of cotton tape around his arm, I noticed Charlie was staring right into my eyes. I don’t know how I could tell, his eyes were pretty much completely translucent with no pupil even visible… but he was. I could feel his gaze. Worse still, as I looked back, a red tinge began to form in them, as if rising from the centre and coming up towards the surface. Just then, the weirdest smell hit me. It was like the smell of a fireplace that hasn’t been dusted out in a while, a pervasive smell of soot and ash. I knew then that something about Charlie wasn’t right. I quickly scooped him and the bag of IV fluids up into my arms and took him to the kennels, putting down a nice cozy bed for him and a bowl of food and water.
I didn’t see Charlie for another 5 weeks. I was off the next day, and apparently all bloods had come back normal so he was sent home with some instructions to try and feed him his favourite foods just to make sure he was eating something.
It was at the end of March that Charlie was brought in again. According to the vet that saw them, his owners didn’t look so worried this time. They were more exasperated than anything. They said Charlie still wasn’t eating or even drinking, and was completely unwilling to do any form of exercise. He was admitted to hospital again. This time, the same vet set up the X-ray machine to see if there was any kind of internal blockage that was making Charlie unwell. To our expectations, he needed no anaesthetic. As we lay him on the cold, metal table and placed him in the required position, he stayed there. I’d never seen a dog so compliant… so still. It made everything easier, yes, but it thoroughly baffled both me and the vet. I made sure to never look into those horrible eyes again.
X-rays showed nothing untoward. Every organ was visible and looked just the way a normal dog’s looked. The vet stood there with his head resting on one closed fist, staring at the image for what I can imagine was a good ten minutes. While he did this, I picked Charlie up from the table and out of curiosity, felt his abdomen. God, the feeling still haunts me. His temperature read normal on all the thermometers we used but… It felt like I was feeling a bag of chilled meat. I felt as if I could have been sick right then and there. Finally, the vet told me there was nothing, and I could hook him up to another IV drip and put him away in his kennel.
There was something different about the way he said it that time, though. As if all the hope for this dog had gone. He shook his head sombrely as he spoke, and I remember asking if I could warm the IV bag a little to try and bring his temperature up. What the vet said chilled me worse than Charlie had.
“I guess so… but that dog is dead.”
Charlie was discharged from hospital for the second time later that week. Nothing we did helped him. He was still refusing any of the food we gave him, didn’t pass anything, and stayed just as horribly cold as he was when we first saw him. Worse still, the same vet that had been treating Charlie became obsessed with him. Not with finding a cure for him or finding out what was his deal… no. It was stranger than that. The vet began to mutter his name when he thought nobody was listening. I heard him one day on our lunch break. He sat motionless, staring into his untouched food murmuring things like “Charlie’s dead…” and “Nothing can bring him back”. I thought maybe he was trying to start a conversation at first, so I replied optimistically. No answer. They were the only phrases I could make out fully, as he started whispering gibberish to himself again. He was seriously losing it. Some of the nurses told me that he had walked out on several of his shifts, only to return the next morning saying that there had been an ‘emergency’ at home. Personally, I suspected that this case had seriously depressed him. Losing a patient was always hard, but knowing nothing you were doing was making any difference? That takes a serious toll on someone. I couldn’t even imagine how he must be feeling. What if Charlie’s owners were blaming him for his condition? Were they threatening him?
None of my questions would be answered. A few days later, the vet quit his job. He said he didn’t want to be in this profession anymore, that he couldn’t deal with the guilt and the suffering. We were all heartbroken, we’d lost what had been a vibrant and supportive co-worker, and the practice had lost one of it’s key workers.
As a result of him leaving so suddenly, we were obliged to call up all of our customers who had regular appointments with this certain vet to tell them the bad news. Most were very sad, claiming he was always so enthusiastic about his job and he’d always treated them with kindness. One however, was a bit different. Mrs Murray had weekly appointments with her cat Lincoln, and told me that she was just in last Monday. Her voice was shaky, the same way someone is when they’re holding back tears, and in that voice she told me how cold and unmoved the vet was that day. She said that he had told her there was no use in holding on to Lincoln. He would only die. There was no use postponing the inevitable.
My stomach lurched inside me. I didn’t know what to say for a good few seconds. In the end, I could only apologise for his behaviour. We couldn’t discuss internal matters with customers, so I couldn’t even tell her that he had been depressed. She thanked me for my concern, but regretfully announced that she would not be coming back. After an appointment like that, I couldn’t blame her. I would probably take my pet out of there as fast as I could if a vet, a person who was supposed to help pets live as long as possible, told me my cat was as good as dead.
Around 2 weeks later, we’d hired another vet. A lovely Dutch lady in her mid twenties who’d just finished a PhD. We learnt soon through her ramblings that she was obsessed with British Folklore, and we listened as she talked about Kelpies, Wil O’ Wisps and other things that I can’t remember. All in all, she was a lovely lady. Eccentric, but lovely. We got on so well that we were even arranging nights out and lunches together on our days off.
If only I’d known… God, if only I’d put two and two together and realised, I could have saved her. She’d still be here. I could have told her not to see him. That horrible, wretched dog.
As you’ve probably guessed, she was booked in for an appointment with Charlie’s owners. As she brought him through to General Practice for what would be his third time, we all heard the talk she’d had with the owners. I remember how shocked and horrified she sounded as she told us that the owners didn’t even seem to care about the dog. We were all dumbfounded as she said that when the topic of euthanasia had been brought up, they had suddenly shouted up a firm “No!” and growled that their dog could not die. If an owner doesn’t want to believe their dog is sick, there’s nothing we can do but carry on treating it until natural causes take it.
I knew that they wouldn’t take this dog. Something inside me snapped that day, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that this dog wasn’t normal. I was beginning to lose hope that Charlie would ever get better, or even die. I would have asked to not work with that dog again, but my placement ended that week, so I was spared those cold, dead eyes for 6 months while I went back to University. Me and the new vet, still kept in contact. We texted back and forth about random stuff, like if there had been any angry patients in or any weird cases. I heard nothing about Charlie, so I’d hoped the owners had just given up and taken him home for the last time.
I was wrong to be so optimistic. In July, my curiosity got the better of me and I just had to know if she had seen him again
Here’s a few texts we sent on the subject:
[18:06] Me: Anything else on Charlie? I’m so glad I don’t have to work with him anymore
[18:08] Antje: you are lucky! him and his owners are a nightmare. he’s like the lean dog of tring, he just will not die.
[18:09] Me: Lean dog of Tring? Isn’t that like, 3 miles from here?
[18:10] Antje: yes! it’s old folklore, i learn it at school, he’s a black dog who people say is the spirit of a chimney sweeper and he roams around the streets
[18:10] Me: That’s… really f***ing strange, I always thought that dog smelled like soot
[18:12] Antje: me too, his owners said he sleeps by the fire to keep warm so i thought it was just because of that.
[18:13] Me: With how cold he is I’m not surprised he likes the fire. God, this is creepy.
[18:15] Antje: dogs are a mysterious animal! he is booked in for a laporotomy on friday, wish i had my favorite nurse here to help me!
[18:16] Me: A laporotomy on a 22 year old dog?!
[18:17] Antje: yes, we all advised against it but blood results came back with no indication anaesthetic would be dangerous, so the owners wanted to try it. is it bad that i hope this puts him out of his misery? i am a horrible vet!
[18:19] Me: Not at all, Ant. I hope so too.
2 weeks later, after my end of module exams, I was getting no response to any of my texts to Antje. I was burning with curiosity over what happened to Charlie, and whether she had found anything. Most of all, I was worried as hell. I resorted to texting one of the vet nurses and asking if she was ok. Thankfully, she replied with a yes. The surgery found no foreign objects, no cancer, nothing. Charlie had been dismissed and they hadn’t heard from him since.
Not even 20 minutes after hearing from the vet nurse, my phone rang. It was the number of the main surgery. Upon picking up, I heard the familiar Scottish accent of the practice manager. The sombre tone in her voice immediately gave me a feeling of dread.
Michael, the vet who had left during my last placement, was found dead in the River Colne in the south of the town.
Everything fell into place after that. This was Charlie’s fault, everything that god damn dog touches is as good as dead.
After giving my condolences and quickly promising I would drop in soon, I immediately called Antje’s phone. My whole body was shaking so much I could barely type in the number. I tried three times before finally I heard her pick up, and when she did I started sobbing uncontrollably. I cried that I had been so worried about her, that I was so afraid something horrible had happened to her after what had happened to Michael and that I thought this was all related to Charlie. When I calmed myself down, I waited for her response. What I heard from her sent a shockwave through my body.
“The Lean Dog has come for me. I have to go.”
Just like that, she was gone. No amount of my screaming stopped her from hanging up. I never heard from her again, nobody did. I got a call from the practice manager only a week later informing me that Antje had been found dead in an alleyway not far outside the practice. Nobody told me why or how she died, but they didn’t need to. Antje is gone because of Charlie. I know she is. One of the only friends I had in this world, and she’s gone.
The police interviewed me a few days later. They asked if Antje had shown any signs of depression before her death. What could I tell them? That I believe a dog had driven her to suicide?! I only told them that I’d tried to call her and she sounded down, but I didn’t say anything about the Lean Dog. Sometimes I think that maybe I should have… Maybe they could have investigated the owners. Perhaps this was all one huge prank.
I’ve recently withdrawn from University. After everything that’s happened, both my parents and the course leader understood. Honestly, I don’t ever want to set foot inside a veterinary practice again. I don’t even want to see another dog in my life. Seeing them in the street makes me feel like I’m going to vomit, and I go out of my way to even just avoid going outside altogether now. Worst of all… I’ve been having these awful nightmares. A pair of red eyes, staring at me from every corner. No matter how fast I run, no matter where I look… They are always there. Staring. Waiting.
Charlie is coming for me. I can’t escape the darkness. It’s taking every bit of my willpower not to run out into the street right now. Hell, I don’t even know how I’m still alive. Nothing matters to me anymore. I guess the reason I’m writing this is… closure. Nobody would ever believe me if I told them that both Antje and Michael are dead because of some decrepit little dog they saw at work. My parents would think I’m going insane. The police would think I’m yet another mental case dregding up the past.
But maybe you will. Maybe you all can help me see some light in this situation, because god knows I can’t anymore…