12 June 2021 (Saturday) - Goodbye Sid

For various reasons “Daddy’s Little Angel ^TM” hasn’t been able to have her dogs with her for a while, and we’ve been looking after them.

I found myself laying awake listening for Sid this morning. Yesterday he had taken a serious turn for the worse. He’s been as deaf as a post for ages, been incredibly unsteady on his legs for some time now and had pretty much no control over his poops for months. He’s been struggling to get up (without help) more and more recently.

Yesterday his bladder control went, and he had been peeing blood too. This morning he was still laying on the puppy pad we’d settled him on last night, and it was rather sodden in blood-stained pee. I helped him up and helped him outside, but he was leaking blood-stained pee as he went.

I made a few phone calls.

 

I drove down to Folkestone to collect “Daddy’s Little Angel ^TM”, and we spent the morning sitting with Sid waiting for the vet from the dog crematorium to arrive. She agreed that his time had come and she did what vets from the dog crematorium do.

 

We shall miss Sid. He was quite the character. I first met him on Tuesday 27 September 2011.Wanting to feed him, “Daddy’s Little Angel ^TM” had found a tube of dog meat in my fridge. She didn’t realise that the stuff was six weeks past its best and that I was saving it to use as fishing bait, and consequently Sid ingratiated himself into the family by dire-rear-ing all over the lino.

Unlike other family dogs Sid didn’t like water; Sid couldn’t swim. Amazingly he was heavier than water and on two occasions I actually watched him sink when he fell into ponds. “Daddy’s Little Angel ^TM” pulled him out of our garden pond, and I can remember pulling him from the depths of Singleton Lake when he was two feet deep and slowly going down. Mind you he liked the beach (keeping away from the sea) where he would eat sand if left unsupervised.

He would come on walks with family and friends, but when he was tired he would stop. He would stop dead and refuse to walk another step. On several occasions we ended walks carrying Sid as he simply would not go any further. He was quite a heavy lump to carry about.

Sid was an accomplished camper and came along on family camps and to kite festivals where he made the most of the holidays – on one occasion when some key lime pie was dropped he spent over an hour licking a patch of grass.

He used to come tunnel-ratting back in the day (when we used to explore the various tunnels in the chalk cliffs near Dover); when our attention was on clambering in and out of where we weren’t supposed to be, so Sid would take the opportunity to eat the poo of whatever animals had been nearby recently.

He *hated* having his paws touched which was a problem as his claws grew so fast. I would take him to the groomer for claw clipping and listen in frank amazement at the horrific screams coming from such a small dog.

He had a stop-watch stomach; on the stroke of six o’clock he would go into the kitchen and start shouting for his dinner.

He even featured in two geocaches (much to the disgust of the most recent fruit of my loin) 

He was never my dog. He was only ever having an extended holiday with us. I will miss him…