My mother’s phone calls became stranger, but I couldn’t visit. A rescue dog helped me reach her

‘Even as a child I knew that animals were portals and metaphors,’ Carrie Tiffany writes. Her new novella, the Lady with the Dog, is out now, with illustrations by Noel McKenna. Illustration: Noel McKennaView image in fullscreen‘Even as a child I knew that animals were portals and metaphors,’ Carrie Tiffany writes. Her new novella, the Lady with the Dog, is out now, with illustrations by Noel McKenna. Illustration: Noel McKennaMy mother’s phone calls became stranger, but I couldn’t visit. A rescue dog helped me reach herConversation was difficult. But Sally, a dear old German shepherd, gave me a glimpse of my mother’s emotional state

My mother had been wanting a dog for years. She lived in Perth, on the other side of the country to her children and grandchildren who were all grown up. She had retired too early, had few interests, and didn’t get out much. She imagined a sleek little whippet curled up at her feet as she watched television. She imagined a pretty collar and a knitted coat. My stepfather was less keen. He stalled the dog issue for more than a year while he built a high fence around the property. Then there was a solar-powered, sliding electronic gate that took another six months of fine tuning. I would ring him up and berate him. “Please, why can’t you just get on with it. She wants a dog. Just get her a dog.”

What I didn’t know was that the forbidding fence he was building, the gate operated by keypad and code, wasn’t just to contain a dog. It was to contain my mother.

Read moreDogs became scarce during the Covid pandemic. There wasn’t much on offer at the local pound. In the winter of 2020, my mother and stepfather drove for several hours to collect Sally from a rescue shelter in a distant town. She was a chunky, ageing German shepherd, perhaps 10 or 11, with dense black fur and a grey muzzle, hard of hearing and stiff in the hips. Sally had been let go from a farm as she could no longer jump into the back of the ute. My stepfather lifted her on to a picnic blanket on the backseat of the car and they drove her home.

A few days later I rang my mother to ask about the new dog. “It’s a little yellow puppy,” she said. “It’s very naughty, but it might be better when its tapes have been tied.”

My stepfather had decided to wait to tell my brother and I about my mother’s diagnosis until the next time we could visit in person. Except there was no visit. The West Australian border closed in March 2020 in response to the pandemic and did not open again for two years. My mother’s telephone calls were becoming increasingly strange. Our grandmother had died of Alzheimer’s disease. We guessed, correctly, that now our mother was dying from it too.

We had always been a dog family. The men in my mother’s West Yorkshire childhood had tough little terriers. Soon after we migrated from the UK to Perth in the early 1970s, we acquired an Irish setter, later an English springer spaniel. Even as a child I knew that animals were portals and metaphors. My mother was often unhappy and struggled to show affection, but she would stroke the family dog and speak gently to it. When I was nearby, I understood that this was meant for me.

The dog had the ability to make each member of our fractured little family feel that it loved them the best. I hatched many plans to run away from home with him, but they foundered on the issue of the dog. I felt my loss would be barely noticed, but it was too cruel to deprive my brother and mother of him.

My mother’s condition worsened quickly. I spoke to her multiple times a day on the special dementia phone she wore on a cord around her neck. Sometimes she would call me by accident, and I would listen in as she chatted to the dog on their walks around the fence. Some evenings I would hear snoring, and I wasn’t sure if it was Sally or my stepfather asleep in front of the black stove.

Conversation was difficult with my mother. We spoke mainly about the dog. I would ask her how it was, what it was up to, hoping to glean something about her own emotional state. The dog, according to my mother, stole from her, told lies about her, could barely be trusted. It only liked men. It was 55 years old. It drove a Cortina. It had gotten a new job. It was a baby that had broken her best cups. Sometimes there were two dogs, or even three. They were always fighting. They didn’t get on.

View image in fullscreenCarrie Tiffany was finally able to visit her mother in March 2022. Photograph: Carrie TiffanyMy stepfather stopped attending his appointments with his heart specialist as my mother became too difficult to manage. She would open the car door on the highway at speed and once hit him in the waiting room when she thought he was too friendly with the receptionist.

I tried to get into WA to help look after my mother, but the government authorities refused my applications. Alzheimer’s is a terminal condition. They agreed that my mother was dying, but she wasn’t dying fast enough to risk allowing me across the border.

I finally arrived in March 2022, the day after the border re-opened, but it was too late. My stepfather had suffered a serious heart attack several days earlier. He’d managed to call an ambulance using the special phone that hung around my mother’s neck. They were admitted to different hospitals and were both dead within weeks.

A kind neighbour took the dear old dog into his home. After a difficult day of hospital visits – my stepfather palliative and struggling to die, my mother climbing walls and attempting to escape – I went across to the neighbour to finally meet Sally. I patted her and thanked her and pressed my face into her dusty old neck. She seemed confused. She didn’t know what she had done.

The Lady with the Dog by Carrie Tiffany, with drawings by Noel McKenna, is published in Australia by NewSouth Books, $29.99