Tanith and Ebony

Tanith on the Left. Ebony on the Right

After The death of Dutchess I returned home carrying her collar. I don’t really know why I removed her collar, but it just seemed the right thing to do at the time.

As soon as i walked through the door of our house Apollo knew we had lost her mother. Apollo and myself just cuddled each other in utter sorrow and cried together. Anyone who has ever lost a member of the family because that is what Dutchess was will understand what it means to lose a dog after many years. She like all my dogs died in my arms. we both fell apart, but bad as it was I have always been with my dogs at the end of their lives. I feel it is necessary that they do not die alone and have people around them that they love. How aware of me being there she was, I will never know but I am glad she died in my arms. My partner said she knew I was there as Dutchess reacted to my voice,

But in the coming weeks Apollo was in Zombie mode and just going through the motions, We felt he needed a doggie companion but he didn’t want to know about any of the pups we viewed and we viewed a few. But eventually we ended up on a farm in Folkestone where we bought Tanith. this was many years ago and she was a pure breed white Labrador. she was on her pedigree papers classed as a yellow Labrador, but she never went yellow she remained white all her life. Apollo didn’t object to Tanith. and she came home in the care with us on my partners shoulder.

We expected a difficult settling in week or so for Tanith with Apollo and it so easily could have been, but i wasn’t.

On Tanith’s first day and night we were careful to give lot of a attention to Apollo and that night he came and lay on the bed with us which was unusual for him and as we began to settle down Tanith began to cry and we got a low growl from Apollo. and he looked at us. I still remember the conversation I had with Apollo at the time.

I said to Apollo just think, she has left all her brothers and sisters to be with us and i suspect she is feeling pretty lonely at the moment.

with that Apollo got of the bed and went nose to nose with Tanith and something passed between them. We can hazard guesses of course to what passed between them, but we can only think if it in human terms. But Apollo returned to the bed lay down and slept with us and we didn’t get a peep out of Tanith all night long. It was the start of a great friendship which developed rapidly between Apollo and Tanith. Tanith and i in particular became very close and she turned out to be an exceptional companion for all of us. All 4 of us became a very close knit pack. My father was also very close to our pack and i think he loved our dogs almost as much as we did.

Apollo developed severe prostrate problems and all credit to the vets they performed an operation and bought Apollo about another 18 months, But eventually he went down hill and we had to say goodbye to him. on this occasion while i was present i took an backs seat and let him pass in my partners arms. and she was closer to her than me.

Eventually we bred Tanith and she had a beautiful litter and all the puppies were quickly spoken for. but the people who wanted Ebony never returned and we kept her

These 2 dogs were with us for many years

We were involved in a move, using the laziest solicitors on the planet and unfortunately Tanith developed a womb infection and we lost her only shortly before we moved I was devastated by her death and so was Ebony