Those of you who have been following Poorpaws since God was a boy will recognise Bracken. A fabulous Brittany Spaniel adopted by Brian and Elizabeth many years ago. Brian has a lot of experience in dog training/agility and started to train Bracken who absolutely loved it. They would travel together all over the place and even though Bracken was not a superstar he and Brian had great fun and proudly brought home trophies from time to time. The thing with agility is that the human part of the two ‘man’ team has to do a lot of running too and has to remember the course, not always easy as some fabulous video clips of the two of them have shown me. Bracken, a great favourite of the Cahors agility team retired a couple of years ago when the competing became a bit too much for him …….. and perhaps for Brian too !! Well I am sure you can guess what is coming next, dear Bracken’s last bit of agility was to jump over the rainbow. Desperately sadly missed by Brian and Elizabeth, and Fern his adopted sister who didn’t take to agility so well, Bracken so readily gave back the love and happiness he received and deserved. A wonderful dog.
Another Poorpaws loss in June was dear Douschka who left us whilst I was in England with my pal Susie. Douschka came to us as a puppy just two months old, but strangely she wasn’t your usual loving, tumbling affectionate pup. She was very reserved and was returned from her first home as she would not connect at all with her new family and would have nothing to do with the children. She was then adopted by the lovely Leeanne and Mike of Twilight as part of their clan but sadly had to come back from them also when she turned out to be rather a bully towards the other dogs. I soon realised that all these theatrics were just ploys to get back here as she was as good as gold with us. Okay, she would climb over our two metre fencing to go and play if she saw a dog outside and the first time we had someone to come and live in whilst we went away, she ruined his New Year’s Eve – and in fact the NYE of very close friends – when she escaped and had people looking all over for her instead of enjoying the parties they were supposed to be at !! Yes, she was indeed a very reserved dog with people and would always stand away up the hill in the garden when anyone came visiting. I was in England when Ernst called to say he had found her not at all well and she then died at the vet’s during the night. I was heartbroken not to have been there to say goodbye but luckily my very close friend Gaynor happened to call by when Ernst was leaving for the vet and she gave Douschka a big hug and kiss from me just in case. Lucky she did.
Gosh this is turning in to an obituary column !! Let’s think of some good news. WIMBLEDON !!!! The television has been reconnected and after watching hours of Roland Garros whilst in England, I came back to watch hours of Queens, Eastbourne and intend to do exactly much the same over the next two weeks !!
On the dog front, Marvik has gone down to Monaco, Helton has gone with another Setter from the Cahors refuge up to near Luxembourg, Fifi has finally found a forever home and from the way she leapt in to the car when she left it is clear that her days of actually living in a car had not had an adverse effect !
I’m off to make up a fortnight’s dinners/sandwiches now to put in the freezer and to make sure we’ve got enough Schweppes Zero (my new tipple) in the fridge before I batten down the hatches !!
Have a great month,
Sue xxxx