To a Friend

Yesterday I lost a very good friend. She was a dog who had not quite reached 10 years of age.

A working dog, she soon inveigled her way into the house and from there burrowed her way into all our hearts. A few months ago she had a leg amputated for a bone cancer, and made an excellent recovery, able to make a dash across the countryside to round up a straying dog, thereby beating all the four legged dogs in the chase.

On one occasion she was over to visit and her owner (hah! Who owned whom?), TBSITW, left her with me while she popped out to the shops. I went through to the computer for a couple of minutes expecting her either to stay put or to follow me, but when I went back, there she was up on my settee lying with her head comfortably on its cushioned arm. When her owner came back she said she didn’t believe that it was possible for her to jump up like that, but I certainly did not help her!

Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

I could tell you so many stories; she had no interest in dog toys, and when the other dog (a puppy) tried to get her to play by dropping a toy in front of her, she would studiously ignore it and, literally, give it the cold shoulder. Off he went for another toy and the whole sequence would be repeated until she had a semicircle of toys in front of her.

Over the past few weeks she started being sick but was afterwards fine and still wanted to go out for walks, but gradually she became weaker and weaker and latterly had no interest. TBSITW and her partner took her to the vet today, after blood results had come back abnormal, for an X-ray and scan, but she was found to have a large palpable mass in her stomach and sadly the decision had to be taken to have her put to sleep.

She had become an important part of our lives.

We shall all miss her.

There is a dog-shaped hole in my heart.