“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” 

 For all of my teaching career ~ which ended recently after 36 years in the classroom ~ I’ve heard some version of this quote in some version of a traditional classroom setting.  While the specific origin and speaker is lost to time, the species of the speaker and listener is not ~ the teacher and student are just assumed to be human.  I made the same assumption for many years, but I realized one day this past December,  as I watched Betsie struggle just to get to her feet, that I’ve lost that assumption somewhere among the decades in which I’ve worked with injured and frightened animals. That morning, it was stunningly clear that my next lesson in care was going to come with Betsie as the teacher. 

The thermometer that John had screwed to the wall of the little barn said the temperature inside was 23 degrees Fahrenheit that morning. The blessing was that the wind was all outside.  I stood at the gate to Betsie and Wilma’s stall, just watching them. They were both laying down as I walked into their view, but as soon as my being registered with Wilma, she scrambled to her feet and backed up against the stall wall.  Then she just watched, the pupils of her eyes huge and round and black. 

Betsie didn’t move for several minutes, although I could see her muscles rippling under the skin along her back and down her sides. Over and over the ripples flowed until at some point that I couldn’t see or understand, she decided to stand.  She was half way up when she suddenly reared back on her hind legs, her front legs coming off the floor. With her entire weight on her rear two legs, she shuffled backwards until she gained some balance, then she lowered her front legs to the ground. Her front two knees were swollen to over twice their normal size, and as she stood, she alternated raising one hoof, then the other, never having both hooves on the ground at the same time. 

Betsie had not tolerated one of her pain medicines well. Actually, that’s an understatement. Every time I tried to get her to take this medicine, she would scramble to run away, or slam her head against me, or bite my fingers, or step on my foot, or all of the above. Neither one of us had any fun, and our connection was definitely suffering.  I tried everything to hide the pill’s taste, from graham crackers mixed with molasses to peanut butter. Nothing worked, and clearly, taking only one medicine wasn’t working, either. 

As I watched her, though, I could see that while she was in a lot of pain, she wasn’t ready to give up on life. She’d rise and hobble to the hay basket as soon as I walked in with a new flake and pull out a mouthful to chew. She was drinking water, eating her grain, and walking to me everyday just for cuddles. The line between this life and the next was clearly her space, but she hadn’t given up just yet. I called the vet that day.

As soon as Dona saw Betsie, she knew we were at the next stage in our care for her. We had talked about the new medicine we were going to try.  I knew that it was injection form only, and I also knew that I needed to be the one giving the injections. This was totally new territory for me ~ in all the years I’ve given animals medicine, the most complicated situation I’ve ever faced was putting cream into one of our dog’s eyes. The option for Betsie, though, was euthanasia, and I did know that was the wrong choice in this moment. So I learned how to give sheep injections. 

Dona walked me through the first one. Find the neck muscle, stick the needle straight in, push the syringe plunger, pull the needle out, put the cap back on the needle so I don’t poke it into anything else. I did it. I didn’t throw up, I didn’t pass out, and Betsie didn’t fall over in a faint. I was shaking really badly, though, and she ran away from me as soon as I released her. 

We’ve gotten better at this, Betsie and I, as the four weeks of the loading dose has come to a close. I’ve learned how to draw calm around myself as I walk into the little barn. She’s learned that if she pulls away before I finish, I’m just going to push the needle in again. I hold her tight; she lowers her head; Wilma still moves to the wall at the other end of the stall. 

We decided to move through the first month of the medicine, giving her two shots a week. If she responded positively, we could move to one shot a week, then progressively more infrequent injections until we’re giving her less medicine in shots 4-6 weeks apart.  Every day, I watch her closely, using all the sensory information she can give me to try to discern whether she’s ready to say goodbye. Thankfully, at this point, she still wants to stay. Her knees are back to their normal size, she’s rising much more easily, and the other day, she spent several hours outside in the pasture nibbling at the grass that’s no longer covered with snow. The best moment, though, came when, on New Year’s Eve day, she walked quickly to me as soon as she saw me, moved in for cuddles, and as I stroked her face and neck, she wagged her tail. 

 I know that this is just one more span of time on our way to saying goodbye. I also know that this time, she’s my teacher. Every day, I wake up hoping I’ll still have an A as the sun sets.