RIP Paddy – he was a good pup.
The realisation that I have seen Paddy for the last time has come true. I do not know if you remember, but in my post Xmas 2k16 Mk. II I mentioned that I thought I had seen my dog for the last time – well, he is now buried next to Mutt in the garden.
On the Sunday evening of the 12th he suffered what appeared to be a stroke – he could not stand or move his head, according to Dad who found him. The humane thing to do was to put him out of his misery and send him to sleep.
It must have been difficult for the vet. Paddy always brightened up his day when he went for his health check – indeed, the vet described Paddy as a twelve year old puppy not so long ago. However, Paddy had been starting to wane over the past eighteen months and arthritis had taken a grip – he was getting confused and his joie de vivre had left him.
However, he was still a very loving animal.
He was happiest when he had something truly smelly to eat – dead carcasses or poo – you name it. He would then come and try and lick my face with his offending tongue and breath that could strip wallpaper.
We got him as a puppy from the Stockman on the farm – he came from working stock so had good instincts. You could not ask to meet a dog who was so full of beans. But, as I mentioned, he waned in his final years – age was not kind to him and he gradually lost the plot.
However, he never harmed a fly – bees on the other hand, he ate bees. He would try and catch them mid-flight and they would sting the inside of his mouth so that we would have to rush him to the vet so he would not go in to anaphylactic shock.
His sex drive was the stuff of legend – regularly he would wonder down to the village, from the farm to have his way with the lady dogs of the village – whether he fathered any pups I do not know, but it is nice to think there is a genetic remnant of him close at hand.
Indeed, his first venture looking for love nearly cost him his life at the age of eight months. He strayed off his hunting ground and wondered on to the main road – he got hit by a truck and thrown in to the hedge. The driver of the SUV, the head chef at the Black-A-Moor Inn, thankfully stopped and went to look. We were told that if he made it through that night then the vet would be shocked – that was thirteen years ago. He carried with him a piece of dislodged bone in his face and a dent in his skull the shape of a Mercedes car headlight until his final trip to the vet.
So, RIP Paddy – gone but never forgotten; you are now re-united with Muttley, chasing bees and smelling the flora in another place.