Association I Love My Island Dog, Saint-Martin

GOOD BYE BILOUTE

I met you one day, when Elisabeth, the guardian angel of the doggies of the Dutch side found you wandering around on the dump, looking for food. She picked you up and was going to bring you to the Vet Clinic…… may be you would have been put down because of your high age…… But she had this great idea to call me on her way, to tell me that she caught an old German Shepard Lady, abandoned on the dump. “What a shame”, I said, ”but  I can’t take more dogs, I have so many already.” But another voice inside of me made me said “No; take her, you will love her! I told Elisabeth: “ok; bring her to the Vet Clinic for a check up, I’ll pick her up there”. Something funny happened inside of me. I have so many dogs already and there I just said “I‘ll take her home?”

I finished my working day and went to the Vet Clinic to pick you up. They told me that you are quite old; you had almost no teeth, heart worm, tick fever, hip dysphasia etc. But when I saw you, I immediately loved you. You jumped into my car just as we knew each other forever since…. you were wagging your tail and were so confident. I was watching you, sitting on my passenger seat while I was driving and wondered who you could have belonged to and who could be so heartless to throw you out at the dump! Such a friendly and beautiful German Shepherd….. Then we reached home.

I introduced you to all your new doggie friends, 4 cats, 5 goats, geese, chicken, ducks; turtles etc. I was watching you to find out if you had any hunting instinct because I did not want anything to happen to all my feather friends. But no, you were just endless happy, wagging your tail each time I was looking at you. You had a lot of fun, chasing lizards in my yard, that’s how you spent your days. You even followed lizards outside of my yard, as soon as you found a hole in the fence!

One day I came home from work and you were not there. I was so worried! That day I understood that there was something really special between you and me. I went to look for you in the neighbourhood, I didn’t find you. I almost could not sleep that night. That is when I understood how precious you were to me. At the sunrise, you were still not home and I went to work without having found you, my mind was far away, you were so fragile, anything could have happened to you. Finally, when I came home, you were standing there, just like always, and I was so happy. We had such a nice time together; you used to sleep on the carpet beside my bed, happy to be so close to me.

Last week end you stopped eating. I brought you immediately to the Vet Clinic and you spend the day there. You had tick fever, you always had it and we could not get rid of it. The same evening I took you back home, I wanted you to be around me and also I wanted to feed you with chicken bouillon as you refused the chicken meat I usually gave you. I used a syringe to feed you several times that night, but in the morning, it was obvious that you started to get really weak. You started to refuse to drink…. I was so unhappy and brought you back to the Clinic. Then I went to work, but my mind was with you, poor girl at the Clinic. Suddenly a little voice inside of me told me; that I should go and see you and that it was important. I closed my shop much earlier and drove to the Clinic .There I asked how you were doing, and I got explained that two minutes ago, you were still resting, you even had drank a little bit….. It made me happy to hear that. Then I opened the door of the room where you were on your cushion. With a last effort, you managed to lift up your head, you looked at me, then closed your eyes and you were gone…… Biloute, this was terrible!

I loved you so much for what you were…. An old gentle lady, always wagging your tail; always happy, as a guard dog you were not useful at all, because you loved everybody. You were waiting for me to go over the rainbow bridge and I will never forget your eyes. You died on a Christmas Eve, probably the saddest one I ever had. I will miss your friendliness my dear Biloute. Rest in peace, I will never forget you.

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