Conked Out

Eddie the whippet conked out this morning at home. He will miss his family and walks very much.
Eddie 22/02/2002 - 27/10/2016

Eddie, my whippet, died on Thursday. He would have been 15 years old early next year which is a good age for a dog and for the most part he kept himself active until late last week when I could tell that he was struggling to keep up during his walk. He had been getting gradually slower and creakier over the course of the last couple of years and had needed lifting into the back of the car for a while. Occasionally, he would slip on the vinyl floor in the kitchen and struggle to get up but over the last week that had become a constant feature. I took him to the vets on Monday and tried some anti-inflammatory medication for his back legs but it was also obvious that he had lost quite a bit of weight since he was last measured in July. He spent most of his last few days sleeping. Once it is time, old dogs seem to go downhill very quickly.

Eddie - the puppy shot

Eddie - 2D dog

In some ways it feels similar to when my cat, Emma, died five years ago but I think cats and dogs age differently. Both will slow down and become less active and both will be less agile. However, dogs never seem to quite lose their puppy mentality and the slowing down can become confusing to them as their minds want to bounce around whereas their bodies are less willing. Cats also slow down and sleep a lot but then that is typically what they enjoy doing anyway so it doesn’t come at such great loss – they simply wind down naturally.

For me it is odd. I still have our other dog, Sam, to take for walks but there is now a strange ghostly void. The one thing that Eddie was always prone to do was to be distracted by a combination of bad smells (and the woods are full of them), various wildlife and the inevitable attraction of other dog owners and their invariably more appetising treats. This meant that we were often stopping to catch up with him and ended up chatting to other dog owners who were always very fond of him. He was also quite vocal, at least when he was younger, and would make the most peculiar noises often at the bemusement of both other dogs and their owners alike: “want one” was a favourite noise when pestering for treats or conning the local park ranger out of his picnic basket. All this made for great companionship and whilst Sam will obediently stay at heal whilst out walking he doesn’t really say very much.

Eddie having just won the dog-food medal at the London Olympics

We got Eddie as a puppy so he has been a constant presence for over 14 years. The children haven’t known a time when he hasn’t been there. It is difficult to explain this to them. I frequently see references on the likes of Facebook to the “Rainbow Bridge”, a kind of afterlife for pets, but I really can’t be bothered with that. The phrase I used was “conked out” which was the self-chosen epitaph of John Le Mesurier who Eddie somehow seemed to resemble in canine form: quiet, gentle and good humoured.  I suppose that we all live in a bubble of time and once that time is up all that remains are memories. At the moment, those memories are very raw but over time the mind has the habit of screening the painful ones out so that only happier times remain.

The best place for a whippet to sleep - somewhere soft, warm and drunk.