A tribute to the original and best blue merle boy

One cold November evening in 2004, a couple went to look at a litter of Border Collie puppies, in a bid to find their next working sheepdog. There were (I think) 8 puppies. One hung right back in the far corner, and one of the couple wanted her, but then the other (that would be me) looked down and saw a tiny little pink nose shoved through the mesh of the puppy pen, half the rest of the litter piling on the head of the nose's owner. On asking to take a closer look at the rest of the dog behind the nose, she was confronted by this bundle of cuteness.

Seriously, that nose was utterly irresistible!

That little face did its work, and there was no other option: he was coming home with us. He was settled snugly in a box with the fleece I'd been wearing as it was a cold night. He refused to sleep on anything other than that fleece for the first few nights.

Other than crying on the first night until I went to sleep in the living room with him, he really was the easiest puppy I've ever known. I slept on the sofa next to him for two or three nights, but after that he was happy to sleep in the kitchen. House training flew by with no trouble, and we even passed that pesky chewing stage losing nothing more than the tiniest corner of a wooden shelf and the back of one trainer.

He loved playing with our older working dogs and, when he was a few months old and we judged him big enough to have a look at some sheep, we took him out in the field with one of them. He stood with us watching as she started her outrun around the flock then, thirty seconds later, decided he was bored and took himself back to the garden in search of a ball. That was in the end the closest he got to being a sheepdog. I have NEVER known a dog with as little chase drive! Rabbits could erupt from right under his nose and he would barely give them a second glance. The only things he would ever chase were toys.

He gave us a worrying time around when he was a year old, when he kept getting persistent bouts of vomiting. He seemed completely fine other than the being sick and our vets were completely perplexed. We had weeks of syringing medicines down him several time a day, which left him for the rest of his life a bit grumpy about being handled - grooming was something that, no matter how hard we tried with positive reinforcement, we couldn't get him to relax with. In the end we reached a compromise where he would sit still long enough for any dreadlocks to be cut off then would give a mighty 'WOOF' in our faces and accept peace offerings of cheese. The mystery of the vomiting episodes was resolved a few weeks after it started (and just as the vets were starting to talk about x-rays and exploratory surgeries), when he brought up an entire ear tag that had obviously come out of a sheep's ear and which he had swallowed. To this day I have no idea how he swallowed it without choking! It was the only non-routine vet issue that he ever had in his 14.5 years of life, so he got the worrying stuff out of his system early on.

He always believed in making his voice heard

For various reasons, we left the farm when he was three. He stayed there in familiar surroundings with my mother. We lived just a few minutes away, although in a rented house where pets weren't allowed. Obviously we saw him all the time, even more so when Mum left the farm as well and bought a house just around the corner from us. When we moved from rented into buying a house, as soon as all of the furniture was in place, we brought Red to his new house, and he began his career as a lorry dog, going to work with his dad.

Red denying the assertion that he was sleeping on the job!

Over the years I've lived with a number of health issues that are the result of a bad accident I had back in 2002. In this town we'd moved to - or to be more exact, right around the edges of this town - is a beautiful walk, on the edge of farmland. It took a while to work out the fitness and get the pain levels down enough to enjoy much of the walk, but it became a habit. Every evening, after he came home from the serious work of sleeping in - sorry, I mean guarding! - the lorry, I'd clip on the lead and we'd go stomping along these paths. Just me, Red, whatever audiobook I was listening to at the time, and the birds and wildlife we could find along the way. I'd get twitchy if I missed a night, and Red would start dancing and sneezing with excitement as soon as I moved towards where his lead was kept. Those are and will always be some of the best hours of my life.

He was the absolute easiest dog to take anywhere. We took him to medieval fairs with cannon being fired less than 50 feet from us. He just looked around when they went off the first time to check what the noise was then resumed sniffing around. Nothing fazed him, with the exception of people that were scared of him. I remember at that same fair there was a little girl who stepped from one side of her parents to the other. I could hear her taking that sharp breath in as she spotted Red, and sidled away against her mum's side. Red noticed it as well. He sat down and kept repeatedly looking between me and this girl. When neither of us moved, he flopped down and started rolling in the grass, rubbing over his muzzle and eyes with his front paws. I didn't think much about what he was doing until I realised he kept stopping to peek around a leg at the girl to see if she was watching him. Gradually, the girl started to relax and Red sat up next to me. I was watching him rather than the display now, and I noticed the girl edging closer and closer until she touched his ear with the tip of one finger. When she moved away again, Red stood up and shook the last of the grass out of his coat and looked at me to see where we were going next. Job done in his mind. I'd write it off as just one of those things, but I saw him do similar with scared children more than once. If I could have my time with him over again knowing so much more as I do now, I think I'd have worked towards training him as a therapy dog. He'd have suited it so, so well.

Behold, a collie dog and his giant tennis ball. He got so excited on this day when he saw what I had for him!

Over time he started to slow down, as we all do. We moved house again, back to our original village. Our walks started to get shorter, although we both loved them being so much more rural.

I will never forget his expression when he first met the bundle of fluff and cuteness that was Finn at 8 weeks old. He looked at us with a face that clearly said "Really?!" They were never particularly close, definitely not as close as Finn would have liked to be early on. He flatly refused to allow Finn to snuggle up, although he would permit him to lay nearby. He liked Finn in his own way, and would look for him in the house when he came home from another day as a lorry dog. We made sure Red still got plenty of one on one time with both of us and that kept him happy.

One of these is far more impressed than the other!

In the last few months, changes at work meant that there was less chance for Red to go and spend his days in his lorry (and never doubt that as far as he was concerned it was HIS lorry!), so he spent his time at home with me and Finn. As much as I know he would have loved to be at work, part of me is selfishly glad as it meant I had time with him. It became very obvious that he was really slowing down, reduced from 2-3 hour walks down to a 20 minute bimble around the local bridlepath/country road block. He always enjoyed it and was always ready to go, but the days of taking him up on Ashdown Forest with the youngster were definitely over.

Something he'd enjoyed in earlier times

The older he got, the more soppy and cuddly he became. His hearing was almost totally gone and off-lead became a thing of the past as his recall obviously disappeared and he'd bimble off to say hello to anyone. As someone with a reactive dog who can't tolerate others approaching, that one time it happened was absolutely mortifying, and it was never allowed to happen again. His eyes weren't what they were. We suspect there was an element of dementia starting to creep in as he would sometimes kick off barking at nothing in particular. We took the decision some months ago that we'd pick quality over quantity when it came to time with him. Any medical problems that would require any length of treatment would result in the call being made. So long as he was happy in himself, we'd let him potter along as he wanted, being totally and utterly spoiled along the way. At 14.5 years old, he'd earned it!

All a collie dog needs is his squeaky pink pig!

The end came quite quickly. He'd been picky with his food over the weekend, but that was something that he'd do from time to time. He could be incredibly fussy and would only eat what he fancied at the time. Monday night he was sick a few hours after eating. As a one off, no big thing. He'd still take some treats, so we hoped it had just disagreed with him. I cooked some chicken for him on the Tuesday which he ate with enthusiasm, but returned it again late Tuesday night.

Wednesday morning he tried to take himself outside for his morning wee but tripped getting up and wouldn't try again. My husband carried him outside to the garden, where he did his usual toddle down the garden for a wee, so Daniel went to work (I was still in bed at this point as Daniel goes to work at stupid o clock in the morning). When I got up a couple of hours later, Red was in his accustomed place, laying at the bottom of the stairs. He lifted his head when I came down and I started to see it.

That look. The one that those of us who have had to make the call and say goodbye to our animals know. The one that says 'I'm tired. I'm sore. I don't feel well. I can't do this any more.'

I didn't want to see it, but I did. It's the last great responsibility we have for our animals. I made the call, we took him to the vet. Daniel was still at work but my brother came to drive us (and he was one of Red's favourite people as well which was a nice part to it, he was happy to see him). My comfort is that, as we made our way into the vets, he had a good sniff and peed and looked wobbly but normal. I hadn't left it too late for that. I sat with him waiting for the sedation to work, I was stroking him and talking to him as he went to sleep. It was incredibly hard and I was a soggy mess, but I was there with him for the very last time he needed me. Just writing this has me in floods of tears again, but I know in the future it's going to be a comfort to me that I did right by him. (I know not everyone feels they can do this last part and I make no judgement on that. It's something that I feel I owe to them and so I do it.)

And so now he sleeps. And in my mind I picture him on the other side of the bridge, running with those that have been and gone before him, forever pain free and in his prime. I will never not miss him, like I have never stopped missing Cass and Dillan, the girls we had before Red, and Wimps, my childhood dog. Red was truly a one in a million dog, a character the like of which I doubt I'll ever see again.

One of very many happy hours spent watching that jaunty tail trotting in front of me.

September 2004 - 20th March 2019

Sleep well boy, until we meet again 😥