A letter to my dog

Phoebe,
10 days since we said goodbye and I miss you more and more with every passing day. Whenever I would tell people about you, I would refer to you as my dog. You weren’t so lucky, and did well not to have an identity crisis with all the affectionate and ridiculous names I had for you, each one lovingly treasured in my heart. In that heart, which hurts so much for you now, you will always be alive and present.


No more will we be at home together waiting for Mum, with me knowing when she has arrived by sudden excitable squealing and a fresh assault on the front door. Never again will we share a car journey with us all in bemusement at the amount of noise you would make, until we were travelling at a speed that matched the pace of your mind (our theory anyway). I will never hear you half way up the road as we came back from some outing. Yet with the smallest amount of effort, I can relive it whenever I want. And though it’s bringing me to tears, I will, because I love you and I can never forget you.

They do say you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. Thankfully, that wasn’t quite true for us. Our special bond wasn’t instant. Simba had come in to our lives 20 months earlier. Our search for a small pug for my sister ended up in us accidentally acquiring this vast, slobbery bullmastiff. I had gone to look for another older bullmastiff, Viking, that we had seen a few weeks before, armed with some bacon. I can only hope Viking’s destiny was a happy one, as instead, in Viking’s cage was a younger bullmastiff, Simba, who had paid little attention to anyone else but howled every time we walked away from his cage. It was love at first sight.
You know very well how wonderful Simba was. He was gentle, kind, and after our first dog Sid’s awful end at a young age from cancer, he healed our broken hearts and brought the special friendship of man and dog back in to our house. He was playful too. I remember Mum once remarking that before she would never have thought I’d take to a dog so messy and dribbly, but dribble and mess are things you quickly learn to live with.

Simba was good at tricks, including finishing (going around your back for food), and speaking on command. They were never your thing, I remember, though somehow, I managed to train you to give paw – your only trick. That was our special thing together. I was proud as punch every time you did it.
Simba’s skill gave my sister and I the chance to take him to RSPCA fun day shows, he scooped the dog of the year at one of these and went to a national final in Shropshire. Though eliminated early (who cares!), he returned to the same local centre where he had won the next year as guest of honour. A throw-away joke that he was the pug we had gone looking for led one of the wonderful ladies there to ask if we still had an interest in a small dog. She thought this small Yorkie cross – a new arrival called Layla, whilst not what we were looking for, might be just the ticket. So, the sight of this hairy fluff ball, somersaulting and leaping in her cage was the first we saw of you. A meeting with Simba was arranged and it was agreed.

It was Mum who collected you on her own while Dad was at work and we were at school. Maybe that’s where the most important relationship in your life came from – you and your mummy. I cry as much for not being able to witness that friendship anymore as I do for all we used to share together. Whether you were sat in the armchair together, or you were following her everywhere, tripping her up whilst cooking or treading paw prints in to the freshly cleaned floors, she knew how loyal you were and called you her shadow. I will try to be as good to her as you were sweetheart, but I’m not as good as you.

I remember your first night, you launching yourself at my sister and I as we came in from school and Simba getting a bit jealous, not that this lasted. Your bond was incredibly beautiful. My mind’s eye pictures him lying down, and your tiny little body snuggled right in to his big frame to get the warmth from him. He loved you too. He never complained when you used to nick his toy bones from him, though neither did you when I tried to take them back for him. You played nicely together, even sticking your entire little head in his huge, gaping mouth with no fear at all. Either you would win by screaming and fooling him into backing away and thinking he had really hurt you, or he would win by eventually batting you flying away with his gigantic foot.
In the last months of his life, you never complained or got jealous when we were so devoted to his somewhat complex care needs. Sometimes I wondered if you felt neglected, but when I went to pick you up once for a hug, you growled at me, unwilling to leave your dying partner in crime’s side. You were so good to him. I hope you brought him comfort. I think you did. The night he died, I remember you running away as he rapidly deteriorated and lapsed in to rattled, laboured breathing. I remember hugging you and telling you it would be all right. Not that you were fooled: you knew where our tears came from and grieved terribly when we took him to the vet to say our final farewells and put an end to his suffering. We were determined that you would be centre stage for the rest of your life: our beautiful boy was gone; our precious little girl was still here.
One immediate change was that where Mum previously held you and I Simba on our walks, I took over holding you. I even walked without support from Mum or a cane, just to feel what it might be like being led by a dog. You did such a good job steering me around, though your career as a guide dog might have floundered given that you were always in charge of where we were going and the sight of cats could see me taken anywhere.

You were so wild and fast when we first got you. You didn’t stay still long enough for me. Simba and I had more similar, placid temperaments. You and I grew on each other and in confidence around each other. You twigged quickly that I was blind, and that large blind people treading on little dogs doesn’t usually end well for the little dog. You learned to move off the stairs when I was coming down, and would bang your tail on the ground when I asked where you were, until I had located you. Mum helped me get over my nerves of hurting you and I learned to pick you up. Holding you in my arms became my way to spoil you, and though I had so many special things with Simba, this was uniquely something I shared with you. You would sit in the chair with me, head nestled under my arm, lifting your front feet in the air like a human. You were the baby I loved to cradle most. We found more things together that were special to us as you got older, and with the pain of arthritis being picked up for ‘picky uppy’ and ‘hugglebugs for Phoebe time’ became less enjoyable for you. We know what those are, they are special to me and to you.

Today I found an old recording of you I forgot I had. You ruined one of my musical performances by squawking for Mum at the front door over my backing track. It brought me to fresh tears and laughter. I would give anything for you to ruin another one. I try desperately to cling to the memory of your shape, what you felt like, whether it was carrying you, you climbing all over me in the car, or me stroking your head as you slept increasingly often, soundly in your bed in those precious final months. That’s what I was doing on that final day as, with a quietness and calmness that had evaded you in life, you passed peacefully from this life to whatever awaits us beyond death.
I don’t even want to forget the horrible bits towards the end. Holding you as you were gripped by the epileptic fits whose cause we never established, and which eventually overwhelmed you, with Mum trying to medicate you, are some of the worse memories. I wish you didn’t have to go through that, much as I would sooner we didn’t have the constant worry each time we left. But to be able to comfort you, I hope, made it a bit better. For all you did for me, that was the least I could do.

I wish I had recorded you more, but I can enjoy the photographs with the family and still look back to the wonderful moments they captured. I still see Dad getting you ready for a walk, Mum sitting in the chair with you and my sister giving you an excitable hug when she came back from somewhere. You are still so vivid in my thoughts and mental pictures. I still recall how different you felt after being groomed for the first time, and Dad commenting what a beautiful face had been hiding itself under all that hair. And I am not sorry I took you for granted. If I had lived in constant fear of the end, I would not have entered fully in to those precious moments. If I had been selfishly trying to capture every detail of the occasions, I would have been holding back. I would take every second of the pain of losing you a thousand times over, rather than not have had you in my life.

A lot of people say that loss of a dog is so hard because their love is unconditional. That may be true, but it’s more than that. It is a love that is so pure and so unspoiled. It cannot be expressed in words. There’s no message to leave you with, no promises to do better when you fail. This letter is more for me than you, because words are such a human thing. I said my goodbye, but maybe this is my very human way of doing it for ‘closure’ whatever that glib word is supposed to mean. It helps me understand how I feel. I’m sharing it because, if anyone sees any good in me, they won’t fully understand where it comes from unless they know about the little lady who shared 14 years with us. That’s because I will try every day to be the person you thought I already was.
We couldn’t enrich each other’s lives with words. That love needed to be fully present in every moment. It needed every hug, every walk, every experience we shared together. That’s why I missed you so much when I was away, and why I miss you so much now. Your joy was in simply being with us, in our home. It didn’t matter what was going on, so long as you were there. How blessed I feel to have been loved by someone who cared so little about my successes and failings, and who asked for such simple things.
I am thankful for the many times you made the world seem a bit brighter for me. A kiss when I was down, or just letting me sit with you. Your undiscriminating welcome never took account of my worthiness. In our last weeks, I held on to the bigger picture and hope that could surpass the world’s gloom, watching the unfolding Brexit drama or hearing the latest discussion on LBC, whilst observing with delight, you snoring obliviously next to me.
You made me laugh so many times, whether it was conning an extra evening walk from Dad by pestering when he came in from work, even when you’d already had one. Or attempts to surreptitiously feed you a prawn cracker failing miserably as you made so much noise you gave it away every time. Or the time you got paint all over your nose by appointing yourself supervisor of the decorating.

I will try my best to find equally simple joys and pleasures in life. And if that love still needs to be experienced in the present, I will keep its flame very much alive by never forgetting those wonderful memories, telling your stories or thanking God for such an amazing friend.
I love you for all that you were, are, and ever shall be.
Goodbye Princess!