Our chihuahua Diego’s favourite time of the day is when I tell him, “we watch TV!” He looks up expectantly and runs into the living room. We’ll sit down on the couch and Diego will jump up on one of us and settle down for a sleep and gentle rubs.
We’re going through the 1978 series of All Creatures Great and Small right now. It was prompted by the appearance of the new series but my wife prefers the old one so I bought her the box set for Christmas, ripped all the DVDs so we can play them through Plex on the TV. Watching one episode a night, this will keep us going for quite some time!
Last night we watched Tricks of the Trade, an episode where James Herriot finds a tiny black kitten at the side of the road. He brings it to the farm he’s visiting where the kitten is cared for in a wonderful way.
However, before the kitten comes home he is loud in his attempts to gain attention, meowing for all to hear, and that includes Diego. He sat up straight, looked at the TV and watched for several minutes!
It’s not the first time he’s watched All Creatures Great and Small. In other episodes the sound of dogs barking and people calling after them has grabbed his attention and he’ll look up sleepily at the TV, I’m sure wondering where those dogs are.
If you like the new series, you’ll love the old one too. If you haven’t seen the new series but have fond memories of watching it in the past go out and buy the box set and enjoy it all over again!
The box set is on the Golden Discs website, but can also be found on Amazon. However, Golden Discs was much cheaper. YMMV.
Today is the day I first heard actor Jimmy Stewart read his poem about his dog Beau. You should hear it too. It’s beautiful.
A dog named Diego
I can’t post something about dogs and not include a photo of my dear little Diego. His muzzle is a little greyer than in the photo above but he’s still a puppy at heart, loving to play and go for walks. He’ll also happily accept cuddles, sit on your shoe for comfort, or curl up in a ball on top of you if you’re relaxing on the couch.
Any time we go out Diego does his best to let us know that we can not possibly go out without him. This is why I’ve been spotted carrying him around supermarkets in a special carrier bag, or been booted out of other supermarkets for having him in that bag or in town where life would really be much less stressful if he wasn’t with us.
The Cosy Cafe is a small cafe in Kinsale with seating outside where, even on a cold day like this, dog obsessed customers can come for a bite to eat and their dogs can have a meal too.
Diego enjoying some doggy kibble at the Dog Bar. The food and water was originally on the raised platform but it was too high for my little chihuahua. I’m sure it won’t be a problem for most dogs!
I’ve said goodbye to two dogs in my life, and neither time was easy. If you’re a dog owner watch this only somewhere where you won’t mind being seen bawling your eyes out. It’s a beautiful tribute to a dog called Denali and his owner.
Well, you’ve probably seen this already but it’s still worth posting here because it’s so amazing. A cat defended a young boy from a viscous dog that was attacking him by ramming the dog and chasing him off. It’s incredible to think the cat flew at the dog like that.
I read last night that the dog has been put down but can’t find that information anywhere now. That was one lucky boy, it could have been so much worse. More on the story here.
BAKERSFIELD – A cat came to her best friend’s rescue Tuesday when a young boy was attacked by a dog in his driveway in Southwest Bakersfield and it was all caught on video.
The surveillance video shows the boy, 4-year-old Jeremy, playing on his bicycle. He was coming home from school when he wanted to fly a kite. Jeremy has mild autism.
The neighbor’s dog, an 8-month-old labrador/chow mix, sneaks up behind him and bites his leg.
The family’s cat, named Tara, rushed the attacking dog and chased it away.
(Quoting the news story because I guarantee the link will die and in a few years time I’ll be wondering about it.)
Some of you, particularly those who think they have recently lost a dog to “death”, don’t really understand this. I’ve had no desire to explain, but won’t be around forever and must.
Dogs never die. They don’t know how to. They get tired, and very old, and their bones hurt. Of course they don’t die. If they did they would not want to always go for a walk, even long after their old bones say:” No, no, not a good idea. Let’s not go for a walk.” Nope, dogs always want to go for a walk. They might get one step before their aging tendons collapse them into a heap on the floor, but that’s what dogs are. They walk.
It’s not that they dislike your company. On the contrary, a walk with you is all there is. Their boss, and the cacaphonic symphony of odor that the world is. Cat poop, another dog’s mark, a rotting chicken bone ( exultation), and you. That’s what makes their world perfect, and in a perfect world death has no place.
However, dogs get very very sleepy. That’s the thing, you see. They don’t teach you that at the fancy university where they explain about quarks, gluons, and Keynesian economics. They know so much they forget that dogs never die. It’s a shame, really. Dogs have so much to offer and people just talk a lot.
When you think your dog has died, it has just fallen asleep in your heart. And by the way, it is wagging it’s tail madly, you see, and that’s why your chest hurts so much and you cry all the time. Who would not cry with a happy dog wagging its tail in their chest. Ouch! Wap wap wap wap wap, that hurts. But they only wag when they wake up. That’s when they say: “Thanks Boss! Thanks for a warm place to sleep and always next to your heart, the best place.”
When they first fall asleep, they wake up all the time, and that’s why, of course, you cry all the time. Wap, wap, wap. After a while they sleep more. (remember, a dog while is not a human while. You take your dog for walk, it’s a day full of adventure in an hour. Then you come home and it’s a week, well one of your days, but a week, really, before the dog gets another walk. No WONDER they love walks.)
Anyway, like I was saying, they fall asleep in your heart, and when they wake up, they wag their tail. After a few dog years, they sleep for longer naps, and you would too. They were a GOOD DOG all their life, and you both know it. It gets tiring being a good dog all the time, particularly when you get old and your bones hurt and you fall on your face and don’t want to go outside to pee when it is raining but do anyway, because you are a good dog. So understand, after they have been sleeping in your heart, they will sleep longer and longer.
But don’t get fooled. They are not “dead.” There’s no such thing, really. They are sleeping in your heart, and they will wake up, usually when you’re not expecting it. It’s just who they are.
I feel sorry for people who don’t have dogs sleeping in their heart. You’ve missed so much. Excuse me, I have to go cry now.
I realise the entirety of this post is copied from elsewhere but I have nothing else to add. From this Reddit comment but I think this post is the original source.
The source is a friend of mine, whom I asked if I could share it after he posted it on facebook. I share it because I think it is beautiful and helps those who have lost a pet.
Edit: Spring, the dog pictured above, was our family dog growing up but she died 11 years ago leaving a huge gap in our daily lives. As with any death, time is a healer but it never fully mends.
The happy and sad story of Goofy, a dog rescued from Greece, who took over Belinda Harley’s life.
If you enjoyed story of Goofy’s rescue, look for the book, “Marley and Me”. It’s a lovely story, and you’d need to have a hard heart not to shed a tear by the end of it.
The only time that Mark Birley, that quintessentially reserved Englishman and ruler of the nightclub Annabel’s, sent me a love letter, it began: “Darling Belinda, I know I only saw you last night, and will see you again in a few days, but there is something I wanted to put in writing. I want to tell you how much I love and admire you” (here, I caught my breath) “for rescuing that divine dog.”
The rest of the letter was not about me at all. It was all about Goofy, the mixture of spaniel and scamp with the wonderful, intelligent eyes that I had brought home, after nightmarish battles with official-dom, from the Greek island of Paxos.
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