My dog, my best friend, is no more — I can't and won't pretend that I'm okay

Daily Maverick

20-05-2025

After euthanising her beloved hound, Sukasha Singh can't help but feel like she murdered her best friend.
I don't know who to blame for this indescribable pain that I'm feeling, so I'll blame my mother, because she was the one who initiated my first relationship with a dog.
I was a couple of months old when my mom, Surya, would leave me in a carry cot under a tree in the back yard while she hung the clothes. Our German shepherd, Dino, would lie beside me and watch over me. He wouldn't let anyone come near me, except for my mom. She says I would fall asleep and because she didn't want to wake me up, she would go inside and watch us through the kitchen window, knowing that I was perfectly safe with Dino at my side.
Dino was my first friend and like most babies growing up with dogs, I fell asleep on him, shared my food with him – whether I wanted to or not – and grew up with him as my constant companion.
Fast forward many years, many dogs and lots of heartache to 2001, when we bought a house in Johannesburg north in a formerly white suburb.
Voetstoots
The family from whom we bought the house had a golden Labrador retriever they no longer wanted. Xena was three years old, had never been to a vet, and she wasn't spayed. We said we'd adopt her if they had her spayed. They said it was a 'voetstoots' deal – we take the dog as is, or they'll put her down.
So Xena was the first of the dogs in our new house. Before we adopted her, a 10kg bag of dog food was dumped into a huge plastic bowl and she would eat whenever she wanted to, so she was quite overweight.
After getting her spayed, we started to feed her one cup of food twice a day and we took her on long walks. She hated us and tried to run away many times.
She calmed down after about a year and that's when we adopted Mishkey, a boerboel ridgeback pup who was terrified of storms and fireworks, and who quickly grew to be a 45kg scaredy cat.
After trying about 10 different remedies to calm him down during thunderous Highveld storms, the vet said: 'Just throw a tot of whiskey down his throat, maybe that'll make him sleep.' I did, and it worked, but not for long. The vet called him Whiskey after that.
My nephew, Sachin, has lived with us over the years and always talks about the adventures he had with Mishkey, and how the two of them spent endless afternoons playing together during Sachin's formative years.
Then my sister did some volunteer work at an animal rescue organisation and came home with one of the pups that had been abandoned on a highway in a box. That was how the perceptive boerboel Staffie, Bella, entered our lives.
My mom lives with me and we share a decently sized main house, and my sister lives in the cottage in the back yard. My mom and I fight often – the kind of fights that were louder than our famous rock star neighbour's band practice.
Three days after a particularly vicious fight, my mom still hadn't apologised – I am never to blame for any of our fights, obviously – so I decided to needle her a bit.
I said: 'Did you know that after you shouted at me, stormed down the passage and slammed your bedroom door, Bella was right behind you and you slammed the door on her nose?!'
We were in the kitchen, and my mom was chopping veggies. She immediately turned around and walked over to Bella, who was lying down and watching us. She patted Bella gently on the head and examined her nose. She said: 'I'm sorry I was so angry, Bella, but if you had a pup like Sukasha, you would've eaten her a long time ago.'
Character
There's a meme in the dating world about how you can judge your date's character by how they treat the service staff in a restaurant, but in our house there's a belief that you can judge a person's character by how they treat their pets. We are all incredibly wary of people who have never loved a dog (or any pet, for that matter). The FBI agrees with us, and a few years ago it started to keep track of people who have been convicted of animal cruelty, since the link between animal abuse and human violence has been well documented.
A few years later, another rescue pup, Yoda, arrived, and then 10 years ago, we adopted Ripley, a rottweiler staffie rescue (whom we named after the Sigourney Weaver character in Aliens).
Xena, Mishkey, Bella and Yoda filled our lives with the kind of inexplicable love that only dogs are capable of, and our hearts broke when the time came to put each of them down. But none of them loved us and filled our lives with joy the way Ripley did.
Bella had to be put down just before Covid and since then it's just been Ripley. When Covid hit and we started to work from home, Ripley inadvertently became our emotional support dog. We unknowingly relied on her to cheer us up every day as she divided her time and love between the three of us.
Best friend
When my mom had Covid and had to isolate in her bedroom, Ripley would sleep in the passage outside her bedroom door. When my sister, Sandy, was diagnosed with breast cancer shortly after Covid, Ripley wouldn't leave her side, especially after chemo sessions. When I almost died two years ago, Ripley somehow reminded me of the importance of being grateful for every moment and helped me find a way through the darkness, anger and confusion that engulfed me at that point.
When I tried to meditate in the morning, she would lie across my bed, snoring and farting through the dulcet commentaries. Years passed as we'd fight for the sunny spots on my bed during winter, play in the back yard, share my food, have deep conversations about the meaning of life and go for walks in the park.
Her tail would waggle from dawn to dusk. Even when her vet administered that lethal injection two weeks ago and she was in excruciating pain, her tail waggled as I cradled her in my arms and told her how much she was loved as she took her last breaths and her heart stopped beating.
She looked like a fierce dog, but she was the gentlest soul and never showed any aggression to other dogs or people.
Everyone who spent time with her has been affected by her death. Even our domestic cleaner, Precious, cried and asked if she could have one of Ripley's toys as a keepsake. She said: 'It's like the child in the house has died.'
I know most people who think that dogs are just animals won't understand why we're feeling so bereft and lost without her, but we are. And no, we're not getting another dog, because none of us wants to endure this heartache again.
I feel like I murdered my best friend – the one being in my life who was always happy to see me, who loved me unconditionally, who cheered me up when I felt sad and who somehow made me a better person is gone and I can't and won't pretend that I'm okay.
Adopt, don't shop
All our dogs were rescues. We're firm believers in adopting because we know that the breeding industry is filled with many unscrupulous and heartless people who lie about the conditions in which allegedly thoroughbred dogs are bred. Even accredited breeders have been found to be fronts for puppy mills where dogs are kept in appalling environments, so we've never bought a dog.
And we always sterilised our dogs when they were six months old because the old wives' tale of letting dogs have one litter to ensure they stay healthy through their lives is absolute twaddle. Any good vet will tell you that there are hundreds of thousands of strays in this country and there's no need for your dogs to have puppies.
Despite the fact that all our other dogs were cremated, we decided to bury Ripley, in accordance with municipal bylaws and under the vet's advice.
And so, on an entirely unremarkable morning, with the humdrum of traffic in the background and the sun poking through the tall palm trees, we laid my best friend to rest with a few of her favourite toys in the front garden, as we continually struggle to find meaning in her death – as if death ever has any meaning. DM
This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.