Declan Kiely has immortalised his beloved dog Millie in a wonderful new children’s book that celebrates her life, adventure and friendships.
Millie Lost Her Sausages came about as Declan’s way to feel connected to Millie, after she passed away at 15 years old. Our pets are a huge part of our lives, and losing them is a heartbreaking experience.
Millie came into Declan’s life after the end of a relationship. He had thought about getting a dog as he always loved them, but the change in his life following the break up made him feel he was ready to take on the responsibility.
After visiting a farm, he found a woman there who said she had a basket of five Shih Tzu puppies, and to take a look and choose one. “I looked and there were only four puppies in the basket,” he recalled. “I could see out of the corner of my eye something moving, a tiny ball of fluff. She was trying to rip the curtains off the wall! I called out to her, and she looked. The minute she saw me, she ran over and I looked into her eyes and said ‘I’ll take this one, please.’ And that was it.”
Millie was full of the zoomies, but later in life, loved to lounge around and had a very calming and peaceful presence. “She was very, very affectionate, very loving, up to the very end. Every single morning, no matter what day,she would call me exactly half eight to come in and get her. If you’re having an off day, or maybe you’ve got some bad news that wasn’t very nice, she had this calming effect. And she was always, always by my side, always leaning on me.”
Millie had been Declan’s companion for 15 years when she passed away, with Declan taking her to the vet after she had a series of difficult seizures, and being told it was time to say goodbye to her. She had only been to the vet with issues twice in her life before the seizures began, having been a very healthy girl through her years.
“She was having very violent seizures and was put on medication to stop them. It would stop it for a few days and then the seizures would come back and then eventually they got so bad that she had three seizures in one night. It was awful. I ran into my neighbour because my neighbour had just lost her dog in the months before and I didn’t know what to do. So she ran in and she was like, ‘look, I think it’s time for her to go.’ And so, the next day I took her to the vet and he said it was time for her. For selfish reasons you want to keep them for longer, but we had to do it for her,” he said.
As a pet owner, the decision to let your dog, cat or any animal go is horribly tough. You love them and you don’t want them to go but you know it’s the right time and it would be wrong to make them stay longer for yourself. “It’s because we love them. We love them so much that for them we have to let them go,” said Declan. They’ve reached the stage of their life, and they can’t suffer like that anymore for us.”
“The day she passed was very hard, but the day after was worse. I woke up and I forgot that she was gone. Then it hits you and you physically feel the pain. For two or three months it was very hard. I wouldn’t be one for missing work or anything like that, but I took a little bit of time off because I tried to go to work, and I would end up getting upset and sad. It was just so hard to focus and concentrate. I needed some time to get it together,” he said, reflecting on that time.
There have been calls for employers to offer compassionate leave to employees dealing with the death of a pet, which Declan supports. “I think unless you’ve had a dog it’s very hard to understand the pain of losing them. And a lot of people losing a dog need time to get themselves grounded again because it’s very hard to focus and concentrate during grief. They’ve just lost something very special to them. So they need a bit of time, whether it be a few days or even a week. But because as you know, it comes in waves, You might be fine for hours and it might hit you again.”
The grief of losing a pet is distinct, as it can leave people feeling displaced and completely out of routine. You’ve built a schedule all around them because dogs, cats and all pets rely on us totally for everything. You expect them to be there when you come home and open the door, and when that’s taken from you, it can be horribly tough.
“It’s actually a new life really, because this dog that you were responsible for is no longer around and you’re kind of adrift. I nearly felt I had nothing to care for, I wasn’t responsible for anything. I felt kind of lost in a way that this beautiful little angel that was in my life was no longer there,” he reflected. For those who are grieving now, Declan admits it is a difficult tightrope to balance, but there is hope and you will be able to celebrate their life. “It is a difficult thing to get your head around. Because if you’re trying to sit there and think that they brought such joy and love, then you realise that that’s gone though, and then you feel sad again. But if you can keep them alive in some way, it does lighten the load of grief. No matter what it is, and I know it works differently for everybody, but if you can find a way to lean into it and don’t push it aside. Always feel things, because they’re always with you anyway. Find a way to keep their spirit alive somehow, and that really does help.”
Writing Millie Lost Her Sausages was an act of therapy for Declan, as he wanted to feel connected to Millie and continue the legacy of joy she had left in the world. He says that anybody who met Millie would fall in love with her instantly, and he felt “proud” to be able to introduce her to the world through his children’s book. The book will resonate with anyone who has experienced pet loss, and the story itself is a warm and touching tale of a dog on a journey to discover what she has lost, ultimately finding what is important along the way. He has converted his grief into a sweet and uplifting tale.
“It literally just flowed out,” he said. In the final scenes of the book, Millie is surrounded by all her friends and of course, her favourite sausages. “I didn’t intend to write something philosophical, but I ended up saying at the end ‘look how happy Millie is, she is in heaven.’ And at that moment, I went ‘woah.’ I didn’t even mean that [the double meaning].”
Declan was inspired by the beauty of children’s imagination, remembering his own childhood when the cartoons he watched and books he read felt so real in the limitless space of a young imagination. “I wanted to come from a real place, and I wanted it to come from the heart. I looked at the work through a child’s eyes and nothing is impossible when you’re writing on a page, you can make everything a reality.”
Declan’s lovely book, suited to children of all ages, is available from Amazon HERE and from Midleton Books and Fermoy Books.
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