Tribute to a great dog

Barkley is too upset to write today and has asked me to step in on this sad occasion. I usually leave all the writing to him as it is his blog. I just stay out of it and get on with all the hard work of organising the agility classes.

The reason Barkley is so upset is that our dear old Nalle (Mr. Bones) passed away on Sunday. He had become very old and frail, and then late Sunday afternoon his old body gave up, and mum decided to do the last act of love and take him to the Vets Now surgery to assist him on is way to prevent any possible suffering.

I hid under the bed, and Barkley watched through the stair railings as Nalle was carefully assisted out of the house by friends whom he'd known and loved for much of his life.

Nalle was a truly gentle dog who only ever had three fights, and they were with his old partner in crime Lotte - and the cause of the fights? left over curries!!! Apart from that, he never had a cross word for anyone or anything. He battled years of suffering from an undiagnosed thyroid condition, where the two very greedy vets who 'treated' him knew full well what the problem was, but milked the insurance company of every last penny at poor Nalle's expense. Poor Nalle got to the stage of suffering fits, and mum almost had him put to sleep there and then. Fortunately, we were directed to a really good group of vets locally, who cared very much and helped Nalle right up onto his feet, even to the point where, like us, he could enjoy agility and come to shows. These same vets cared for Nalle to the end in a very thorough and sensitive way. Mum thanks them very much for helping Nalle to have a good end to his life. Thanks in particular to Steve Bonthorne MRCVS who took Nalle through his final year.

Nalle helped in mum's behaviour practice whilst she was able to carry out that kind of work. He helped many nervous dogs find their confidence, and also acted for a long time as a stooge dog to help rehabilitate dogs with aggression problems. He was such a confident and gentle giant that many of these aggressive dogs would immediately calm in Nalle's presents. Some of these dogs ended up at the University of Lincoln with Professor Daniel Mills MRCVS, and Daniel would always ask mum "how did this dog react to Nalle?" and the answer would always be the same... "they would run up to him, stop, sniff the ground and then potter around taking the calming signals which dear Nalle would give them.

Nalle dog was one in a million. He will be greatly missed by us as he was our mentor.




He now joins Lotte and is running free, probably chasing squirrels, or racing Lotte around an agility course somewhere.

Finally, mum saw that there was a shower starting as Nalle was lead into the vets consulting room, the shower continued as she came out without him. The sun was shining through the rain and the light was gold. Indeed, our boy went over the Rainbow Bridge.

Thinking 'bout You

Arooooo woooooo I am very sad without my grandfurther :-(