Lucy's Newsletter

 

 

Subscribe to Lucy's FREE Newsletter...

Click here to send us an email
with your name and address!

 

August 2011

Dear Irish Terrier Friends,

This letter is long overdue simply because I couldn’t bring myself to write it. We have had a great sadness and even now I can barely write for my tears. Our beloved Beegie was put to sleep three weeks ago. She was reasonably well when I left for France and, although sleeping a lot, was eating and pottering around the garden.

But quite suddenly she had two inexplicable nose bleeds and the vet, after doing a blood test, prescribed antibiotics for a possible bacterial infection. I came home from France at once and for a few days she seemed to be improving. The following week however there was another nose bleed and she was refusing to eat. We had a dreadful night when she was restless and panting, unable to settle and wanting to stand up all night. I knew by the morning, although she was calmer, that she’d had enough.

It was a lovely day and she wanted to be out in the garden. We sat together on the bench in the sunshine quietly waiting for the vet. She decided to walk out into the street, standing at the gate and I had a sudden wild hope that she might recover. But I knew this would involve investigations and procedures, which for an old dog would have been unfair and made no sense at all. Tom, the vet, is a dear kind man and he gave us the time we needed. I held her close and felt her slip quietly away. She knew the score exactly and was calm to the end. She showed that extraordinary dignity with which animals accept death.

There wasn’t much dignity about me I’m afraid. One may despair about the famine in Africa; the young soldiers and every other calamity but in my small world this has been about as bad as it gets.

I was very worried about Zuli who took to her bed for days. She’s always been thin but she seemed more like a little crumpled bird than a dog. We’ve never had two dogs more devoted to one another than Zu and Beeg and, Tess I think, in their minds, was their puppy. Neither Zu nor Tessie would come anywhere near me and I began to wonder if they thought it was all my fault.

We have picked ourselves up with the help of Liberty Belle (Miss Naughty Face) but grief seems to follow its own unavoidable course and there’s nothing to be done but to live through it and survive.

I would hesitate to say that I have loved Beegie ‘above all others’ because that feels like betrayal of the rest of the wonderful pack who have run so joyfully through my life. No…not loved more, but perhaps needed more. Living alone for the first time in my life has meant that Zu and Beegie have been my closest companions. There’s nothing more we could have known about each other. I always laughed and said we are a household of three old ladies, Zu, Beeg and me in that order. I’m shocked to discover how much we relied on Beegie’s earthy warmth and generous spirit; her playfulness and sense of fun. But when the chips were down, Beeg always stood between me and despair. I have felt adrift in a strange space and that for me is a uniquely novel experience. I suspect that Zu has felt the same.

Imogen has been inconsolable, but with Libby and Tess now good friends I think we are through the worst.

Having pretty well missed my holiday in France, I packed up Zu, Libby and the duck (Celeste) and drove down to Lymington for a week. We had a house there for many years and the children and dogs have all grown up on the salt marshes. The quiet and familiarity of it worked it’s healing magic, and I feel Zu and I have come back to London more reconciled to life without Beeg…until the next bout of wailing of course.

We spent a few days with the Manners on the way home and Nonnie and Libbs became great partners in crime barging through the oil seed rape and across the stubble fields. Nonny is swift and athletic and Libby can’t quite keep up yet. She’s a beautiful puppy and already almost six months old. How quickly these first puppy weeks seem to pass. She’s no saint as we say, but charming and I think less of a hooligan than some I’ve known!

One last word about the old dogs. I do want to send great sympathy to Dermot whose beloved Florrie died recently. They were completely inseparable and Dermot with his wonderful Irish turn of phrase said ‘the world always seemed a warmer place with herself at my side.’ She provided some lovely pictures for the calendars over the years. Thank you dear Florrie…always to be remembered.

Now the duck – Celeste. Well, she’s a strapping girl and is opinionated and wayward as all the inmates of this house have ever been. She flies up onto the conservatory roof now and I feel may well fly away one day. She must do what seems right for her – I couldn’t possibly pen her in. The dogs are amazingly kind and they all trundle around together. In spite of being great hunters, Irish Terriers are quick to learn the rules and other house pets are off limits and they know it.

We’ve had two fun visits this month. One to see a beautiful litter of puppies in Hampshire. It was good to see a proper ‘pet’ litter giving so much pleasure to everyone. Rosie had seven pups and managed it all very well. I was impressed by how bonnie she looked as they sometimes, after whelping, look rather thin and out of coat. We did laugh to see her sneaking away with all the new toys Lisa had bought for the pups to play with.

We saw Bella Jacobi for tea and comfort over Beegie. She is a lovely, lovely dog. Not unlike Beeg and takes life as it comes. They are off to France for a month. Derek says, Bella’s the one with the fan club you know.

Please forgive me if this letter has been too sad but that’s the way it is, and sometimes hearing of another’s grief helps to illuminate the sad times in one’s own life, and no one of us escapes that.

Do send a blessing to my Beegie. I wrote a piece for them which ended

‘and when my darling friends must go

and when they go…after the tears

my life will forever glow with the joy of having known them’

With many greetings, do keep in touch and my love to the dogs,

Lucy