Copain

Copain, our first dog, our mascot, the instigator of our great adventure, a bit like a never-ending story. He was the one who adopted us. One day he came into our garden in Guadeloupe where we stayed for nine months. I went up to him and stroked him, he was beautiful, a little skinny but beautiful. He came back every day and then settled down, except for a few hours daily, like a mysterious date. One day he brought all his friends from the neighborhood, we thought it was very funny but we had to tell them no sorry but we can't take you all in. Another day he walked through the garden with a white female but they didn't linger. One night I heard a strange sound that woke me. When I went to the garden I saw a little white ball running under the car. Copain just brought us his son. It was only later that we understood that the female was most likely the mother of Alwinn, this little puppy of about a month old. End of the mystery, Copain was just going to feed his baby every day by vomiting up the food we gave him. I saw him vomit several times in our garden when we welcomed his son Aldwinn, motherless. He just saved his baby's life. Copain quickly made it his mission to protect us all. If someone came in on foot or in a car, he would run and sit next to the person, growling and baring his teeth. Every visitor would freeze as I would shout, 'It's all right, don't worry' and send Copain home. Copain had a flaw, if I can say it that way. He was suspicious of black people and afraid of tools with handles because he has had a black owner who used to hit him with a stick. Copain sometimes took Zion and Aldwinn to play in a field below the banana and pineapple plantations. We would walk to the river and they would love to take off in the convertible car and go running in the forest. Copain knew everything about human emotions. He was so protective that he bit people several times when they came in angry or without permission. Always the same bite, he would grab the wrist and a fang, only one would enter the flesh. It was not good but it was always understandable because the person was in the wrong somehow. I took him for a walk with Zion an hour before departure so that he could relieve himself, but no, there was an hour and a half late on the flights from Guadeloupe to Paris and then from Paris to Santo Domingo because he pooped in his box on the way out of Pointe-á-Pitre. He was our friend and the thousand and one anecdotes I could tell about him... So much affection, so many good times until the summer of 2019. He started to limp but the vet told us that it was nothing, that it would pass. But his left leg started to swell up. In September he had an x-ray and the diagnosis was made. Osteosarcoma. It was possible to amputate his leg, but that would only give him about a year of life. It's a big surgery, the healing will be long, the pain intense. The children and I made a difficult decision, but it seemed selfish to put him through so much pain to keep him for another year. So we decided to give him lots of attention, to put him next to Mummy on a comfortable mattress on the floor. We were able to stabilize the tumor's evolution for a while with artemisinin and periods of intermittent fasting. I measured the circumference of his femur every day and when it became apparent that the tumor was growing again, we decided that when we saw him in pain and having too much difficulty getting up and moving, we would make the decision to euthanize him. So, on November 1st 2019, the vet came to our home and we said goodbye to our good Copain just a few days before his 10th birthday. Copain will always be our number 1. Our mascot, he is the reason why we do what we do. Maybe he already knew that from Guadeloupe when he brought us his friends and the mother of our little Aldwinn. We dedicate this website and our work to the memory of our magnificent protector Copain number one.