Dogs

Dogs have featured largely in my life lately. I have had a very doggy weekend at the Western Cape Agility trials with Luke's Jack Russell, Beemer. I didn't run him myself. I am lucky enough to have a good friend, Yolande, who is an excellent handler, to take him round the courses. It was a very good weekend although he only managed one medal. But the overshadowing event lately was the death of my old dog, Dipstick. She was the first dog, actually the only dog, that was my very own. All my life there have been dogs in my home, but they were never really mine. When I was a child, whatever  dogs we had. attached themselves firmly to my mother. Even though my parents said they had bought them for me, they never took much notice of me. After I was married, all our dogs gave their allegiance to my husband, the Alpha male in the household,  It didn't matter that I often fed them, that I walked them and groomed them daily and was the one who took them to the vet for their check-ups and shots, he was their lord and master and I came a very poor second.

So it was that Dipstick, who came to me after Mike died, was very special. She was not demonstrative, she would greet me with a casual wave of the tail when I came home, but she always knew she was mine. She liked to be close to me. Whatever room in the house I happened to be in, she would be there too.  She would never go walkies with anyone else, even friend or family members that she knew well, unless I told her to do so, and then she would go very reluctantly.  She would walk nicely to heel with the other person, but look back often to see if I wouldn't change my mind and come too.

It is now more than ten days since she died. They happened to be very busy days, which has perhaps been a good thing. But now I am really missing her. Little, Jack Russell, Beemer seemed, at first, to be almost more affected than I was. He was off his food and rather distracted during the show last weekend, Now he seems to be back to normal, but I have been sad and depressed all week. It is only now that I can bring myself to write about my old dog. She was a great companion and we had so much fun and so many adventures together. I know  have been blessed in having had her company for so long. No other dogs we have had, have lived as long as sixteen years. She was getting rather slow, but looked good and was in good health until the day before she died. Poor old girl, she had a severe stroke and by the time I realised how bad she was and Luke came to take her to the vet, she was only semi-conscious and didn't really know what was happening.