Very very sadly Maggie our spaniel died at the beginning of this month…..she was 13 and life was becoming increasingly difficult for her, she had increasing canine dementia which was beginning to impact on her quality of life (and Cwtch’s!).  In many ways we were very lucky, she died very suddenly here at home jumping up for her tea – I console myself that her last thought was “yipee tea time!” She had the most amazing life and we did not have to make that decision to take her to the vet.

She was a wonderful dog and going through all the old photos has reminded us of the good times we had with her. The first half of her life in Kent surrounded by woods and lovely pheasants to chase, the second half here in Pembrokeshire with Cwtch to torment!

We have so many stories to tell but just a couple of my enduring memories:

Our holidays previous to living here were hiking and wild camping taking Maggie along too which she loved.  Her favourite time of the day was setting up the tent – the minute we started (before any tent pegs were in) she was in there waiting for our sleeping bags.  She was never allowed upstairs at home so the joy of sleeping in with us was just unbelievable for her.  Not so good for us as she would never stay at the bottom of the tent but would always migrate to sleeping in between us – lots of horrible close loving dog breath ALL NIGHT!!

There was also her inability to realise (thank goodness!) that dogs can chase sheep/cattle/horses.  She seemed totally oblivious to any of the larger animals and would happily wander around a field in between them as though they were rocks.  The day she spent 20 minutes staring down a rabbit hole oblivious to the 70 sheep stalking her is seared on my memory particularly when she looked up, saw them and ran away as fast as she could followed in hot pursuit by the whole flock….!

As they say, gone but not forgotten.