Hector

I would like to introduce you all to Hector the whippet.

He is the sweetest little things you could ever wish for...or at least he was when we brought him home all the way from Suffolk. A warm, cuddly, shy, sweet smelling pup. Now 2 weeks on he has found his feet and his teeth and my slippers, shoes, toilet rolls, cables, remote controls, teddys, knitting, door frames and anything that basically moves or looks as if it might!

Can you see the glint in his eyes, he is watching and waiting and ready to pounce. He loves the garden, and eating the flowers and the leaves and the shrubs and the bulbs, not to mention the wheelbarrow and spade, the broom, the fence posts, oh and the washing on the line!

He is the naughtiest dog in the whole wide world and we love him to bits already. He in no way replaces Hamish, how could he? Hamish was part of our family for nearly 15 years, but he does fill that huge gap that was left in our lives.

The house is a mess, the garden has had to be fenced off in parts to protect delicate new plants, we are absolutely exhausted as he thinks that 5 am is playtime and we have spent an absolute fortune in Petsmart!

Oh dear, bad puppy!!

He is just so darn cute and wiggly and cuddly and bitey and chewy and mischevious but he has enriched our lives and made us happy again.

Hamish

We finally did the right thing by our beautiful boy Hamish. He was just short of his fifteenth birthday. I could no longer bear to see him suffer. He was blind and deaf and had arthritis in his spine. He fell over things, bumped into things, was very disorientated and sad. I told myself that he was still eating his food, so he must be okay. He still wandered around the garden, so he must be alright. But, in my heart of hearts, deep down in that place where your conscience whispers softly but persistently, I knew that he was no longer enjoying his life. It had become a struggle for him, he was old and tired and had a way of looking at me when curled up on the sofa that said he was ready to go. Fifteen years is a long time to be part of someones life...our life, and his passing has had a profound affect on us all.

Oh, "it's only a dog" some might say, and too be fair, if you are not a doggy person, then maybe it is hard to understand the attachment, the hole in our lives that he used to fill with his gentleness.

I can still hear him sometimes in my head. I still look for him on the bed in the patch of sunlight that used to warm his old bones, I still get up to let him in from the garden...


Now he is at rest in a beautiful spot in the garden, beneath the daffodils and the shade of the apple tree. His favourite spot in the garden.