Lost Dog


‘There’s been an accident’. A sequence of words, let’s face it, that you never want to hear. Wherever. Whenever. What made it worse for me – on this particular occasion - was that I had been more than half expecting the call?

I had certainly had my misgivings about leaving Buster in London. To be honest, it had gone against every single instinct, not to mention my better judgement, and here I was, about to be vindicated, in the worst possible way.

Harley had, unexpectedly, come into season and I was somehow persuaded that it would be more prudent all round to leave Buster in Bloomsbury, as far away as possible from her now patent - and rather pungent - spaniel charms. Patrick would look after him with his life and he would bring him back up to the barn in Oxford, just as soon as the reproductive coast was clear.

Whatever was I thinking? The last time our dear but rather flaky friend Patrick had had sole charge of our canine kids, he had taken Chippie and Cara to the Admiral Duncan pub on Old Compton Street in Soho, leaving mere minutes before a nail bomb exploded, killing three people and injuring scores of others. Could Buster possibly have fallen victim to a homophobic Neo-Nazi bomber or had he just run out blindly under a big red bus on Southampton Row?

Neither, as it turned out. The accident was in a way, far, far more prosaic, and yet it somehow still beggars belief. It was a hot afternoon in August and Pat had left Boo in the third floor flat, above the Queen’s Larder pub in Queen’s Square, where he did some casual work. The windows were all open. After all, the landlady’s three miniature Yorkshire terriers, couldn’t even get their paws up onto the sills.

Buster, however, soon worked out where the cool air was coming from, climbed up and poked his head out, to survey the scene below. Almost immediately, he spotted Patrick, sweeping the cigarette butts from the pub’s outdoor smoking area and, we now suspect, mistook Pat’s admonitory shouts as a summons. The rest is history and, of course, a rather large emergency veterinary bill to boot.

Now, with hindsight, it’s almost very funny. The idea of a chunky American Cocker Spaniel leaping from a Georgian garrett, bouncing off an ancient awning and onto the cobbled street below. Whatever would have happened if he had hit someone? It simply doesn’t bear thinking about.

Being Buster, he made us sweat, of course? Best part of a week, laying utterly immobile by the hearth, back at the barn, the vet unable to say, until she had seen the X-rays, whether or not he had broken his pelvis and would have to be put down, even though he was only six. He growled by the fireside for hours on end and made more than one spirited attempt to bite me, with the stumps that remained of his once Crufts’ champion dentition after the fall.

But he did of course survive to bite Tim another day and another few after that. He survived another six and a half years and, believe it or not, the Queen’s Larder Leap was not even his biggest adventure? You can read about how he was attacked by Staffies on the Common, not long after we moved back to London, here. Again, and once more, I really do mean miraculously, Buster managed to survive.




You will probably have worked out by now that Boo recently ran out of lives? He was a dog, not a cat, after all. Not long after Sidonie was born, we found out from the vet that the nasty lesion on the side of his mouth was the first sign of an oral melanoma which would, eventually, become inoperable and which is apparently the main cause of death for many male spaniels. There was talk of MRI scans and of experimental vaccines which might prolong his life by a few weeks but he was already 12 – a good age for an American Cocker – and we decided to enjoy what time he had left, without dragging him off to the vet every week for invasive and unproven treatment.

And we did enjoy. Sidonie, in particular, was thrilled to have her very own mobile teddy bear in the house and loved to watch him wandering around; his sight was going, his hearing too but there was nothing wrong with his sense of smell or appetite. Obviously, I’d love to think he was fond of her but I suspect it was tolerance rather than affection? He certainly looked rather raffish, trotting round the kitchen, in his colourful bandanas which helped (a bit) to cushion and swab the visible tumour.

A couple of weeks ago, the invisible cyst beneath his jaw, which had grown at an alarming rate since September, began to press on his windpipe and he was clearly in pain for the first time since diagnosis. My hopes of keeping the family together until Cyd’s first Christmas were not to be.

We took Buster straight from the vet down to the brother and sister-in-law’s place on the edge of the New Forest, where he had spent so many happy holidays with Harley, and laid him to rest under a tree, in sight of the house. It’s more than two weeks ago now but it still feels decidedly odd without him? The family dynamic is changed and we all, even Tim, never his biggest fan, miss him very much.

Especially, of course, Harley, who is the ‘lost dog’ of this headline. She arrived, as a puppy when he was about her age now and ragged him incessantly, from day one. She is as depressed as I have ever seen a dog and this is now compounded by Sidonie, chasing all over, puzzled as to why Harley doesn’t want a new friend.


So should we get another furry friend, if only to keep Harley company? Well, you know what they say: you don’t find the dog, it is the dog who finds you…

That was certainly the case with Buster, but that’s a whole other story for perhaps another day? I am starting to write up some family lore in verse for Sidonie so perhaps I will tackle it then. It will be called: ‘A Far Cry from Cruft’s’, in homage to Boo’s amazing dog show success before he eventually came to us, as a badly-treated rescue. We could never believe how anyone could have abused a dog who looked so much like an ambulant pyjama case.

One thing is for certain, there will never be another Buster! And if grief is the price of love, we certainly loved him very much. He was a funny, old furry friend, through thick and thin and, for many years, he was as close to a baby as we ever thought we were going to get.

The Dutch have a great expression – Hondjes Hemel – and soppy as it sounds, we console ourselves with the thought that our old friend Boo Boo Bear is now snaffling biscuits and woofing for attention up there in that there Hound Heaven. Happy happy memories!

1 comment:

  1. My thoughts are with you. Our beagle was put down at 5am this morning. Like Tim, I wasn't the biggest fan of our dog but she will be missed. The house may be more fragrant without her but it will be quieter.

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