The Dog Days Are Over

Sad news at the farm as we say goodbye to Dogmael, the tricoloured sort-of sheepdog. He had a minor stroke last week and died in his sleep on Saturday afternoon at the grand old age of fourteen and a half.

Dogmael – or just Dog for short – came from a farm near Trecwn in Pembrokeshire, in the southwest corner of Wales. Born in early 2011, he was an unexpected arrival. His mother was a New Zealand Huntaway, and it was assumed his father had been one of the neighbourhood collies. He was ‘free to a good home’ because the farm belonged to the parents of a work colleague of my partner, Barbara. While I had moved north to take on the farm, she was still in Wales at the time, trying both to sell our house there and find a suitable job in Scotland. We probably didn’t need another dog at the time – we had three already and I was living in static caravan – but the Huntaway/Collie cross should have made a good sheepdog, and I’d just taken delivery of fifty New Zealand Romney sheep that would form the nucleus of my flock.

I happened to be back down in Wales for a few days celebrating a friend’s 50th birthday, so Barbara and I took a short trip down to Sîr Benfro and came back with a small tricoloured puppy.

The route from Trecwn to Cwmystwyth goes past St Dogmael’s. We had by then gone through a few possible names for the new pup, but discarded them all as soon as we saw the road sign. Dog had a couple of days at the house before I headed back north, and soon enough settled into life in the caravan.

I worked out early on both that his father hadn’t been a collie, and that he wouldn’t make a good sheepdog. There had been an elderly Jack Russel running around at the farm. ‘Too old to father any pups’ we’d been assured. I should know better, really. Huntrussel or Jackaway, whatever he was, Dog proved more keen on chasing than rounding up, and I soon abandoned any hope of training him.

It was around about the same time that Natural Causes and The Book of Souls, both self-published as eBooks, exploded onto the scene, followed by the Inspector McLean series being bought up by Penguin and many other publishing houses overseas. My focus switched from building up a large flock of sheep and fold of cattle to writing as much and as quickly as possible. Dog, along with Mac, Haggis and Tegid, became my muse, although often quite a needy one. He loved to sit as close to a person as possible, often actually on top of them even though he was not really lapdog sized. He was also very fond of the cats, Smeagol in particular.

Dog quickly settled in and became part of the gang – four dogs two cats and me in a static caravan. Cosy! Barbara eventually moved up to join us and we set to work building a house, running the farm and writing books. When I look back on those years now, it’s often a bit of a blur. But the dogs were always there when I needed them, Dog sometimes even when I didn’t.

He wasn’t perfect, by any means. He hated anyone touching his ears, and had to be sedated for every annual vet checkup. The Huntaway in him meant he was very vocal – often painfully so – whilst the Jack Russel in him led to a certain wilfulness. He sometimes came when he was called, but only if he felt like it. He was the fussiest eater I’ve ever known – sometimes turning his nose up at anything offered for days, despite the loud noises of his empty stomach gurgling away. Usually the only way to get him to eat was to open a brand new bag of dog food, which he’d tuck in to with gusto. Then a couple of weeks later, when the bag was maybe still half full, he’d decide it was too stale and beneath his dignity to even think about eating. In short, he was a character. Always part of the gang and happiest when he was running with the pack.

Time’s a right bastard though, and like everyone else, Dog got old. In his later years he became very deaf – not just obstinate – so much so that I had to lean in close and shout before he would relinquish the ball for throwing again, even though he loved to chase it. He was only a year younger than Tegid, the Patterdale, and took Teg’s death hard. He went into a bit of a decline for a while, until Taylor the Guide Dog reject arrived. For the past year and a half he had a new lease of life, although his back legs weren’t up to much running any more.

And then last Wednesday he started stumbling on his front legs too, walking in big circles and bumping into things. I took him to the vet, who diagnosed a stroke – dogs quite often get them in the balance centre of their brains. The prognosis wasn’t good – there’s no real hope of a long slow recovery when you’re that age – but he was a bit better after an anti-inflammatory injection. I had to go down to Suffolk at the weekend, knowing full well I’d probably have to make a difficult decision once I got back. Barbara stayed behind, and came in from taking Taylor for a walk on Saturday morning to find Dog had died in his sleep. My first task after a nine hour drive north yesterday was to bury him alongside Mac, Haggis and Tegid. The last of the Welsh crew.

Taylor is a bit subdued, wondering what has happened to his chum. Fortunately he met up with one of the neighbours dogs for a long walk yesterday, and spent some quality time playing with my brother’s new lurcher puppy Wilf.

Deaf as a post, every time I let Dog out to go for a walk or just potter around the garden his bark would echo off the hills. It’s feeling very quiet right now.