Every dog has its day

When I see an old black-and-white photo with a dog in it, there's a special kind of poignancy to it. There's something about how the human in the picture may well still be alive, or at least still vivid in the memory of those living. But the dog is long gone, as are its successors. Many short dog lifetimes fit into one human lifetime, and yet the impact of these little 'people' is profound in their time. Those 10-16 years mark enormous changes within our human lives - when a dog dies, we are left to think about how much has happened, and where we were when that life entered ours. Yet their stories are lost quickly in time, there is almost no textual documentation of who they were beyond the oral tradition.

Last autumn, we lost our beloved springador, Pan at 15 and a half. I'd dreaded it for the last couple of years, and none of us wanted to see it was about to happen, even though the signs were there to see. She died on the floor of the vets, surrounded by love. At the moment the vet's injection put her to sleep forever, my son and my wife had left the room to wait together as it was too much to bear for my son.

I knelt on the floor with my daughter and we held each other and Pan tight and wept openly, pouring every drop of love from our eyes into her old body as she faded away. It feels perverse somehow to admit that this moment could hold any happiness for me, and yet it does. As a neurodivergent man who has spent his life holding in his tears to the point that I can never release tears, even when I feel I need to, the catharsis of sharing that moment of release with my daughter is a bonding moment that I will always cherish. Funnily, music and films do make me cry, and one of my favourite films is Pixar's 'Inside Out.' By personifying feelings like Joy, Fear and Sadness as real characters in the control room of our minds, it follows the seemingly cataclysmic destruction of the temples of one's inner world when we go through great changes, such as growing up. It shows happy core memories being infected into sad ones. But there is a scene near the end where at the height of this cataclysm we understand that in moments of apparent deep sadness, we create new core memories, sometimes bittersweet, that forge and strengthen the love we feel for each other, and bring us to the closest moments that we will ever have together. These moments are perhaps the greatest moments of our lives, bittersweet, both sad and joyful as one. And I will always remember that moment with my daughter, because it brought us closer together, and she saw that her dad is someone who can cry, and we shared the burden of loss together.

When Pan died, we took her home before burying her some days later. I took a photo of her on the floor of our utility room, holding a little knitted version of herself created when she was a puppy. In the photo she looks like she is sleeping peacefully. Its a sad, yet incredibly beautiful photo of someone who made my life richer, and taught me about unconditional love.

Below is my requiem to Pan that I posted after her death... "Rest well, our love forever, Pan (2010-2025) aka. Pan Paniscus Edelweiss Narewski Scullion. The goodest girl in the whole world, we thank you for making our lives brighter, you were our true best friend - we are all going to miss you so much. Thank you for always being there, and teaching us that the best thing you can be is loving and kind.

We picked you up from a remote farm on the Scottish Borders, one of a big litter, but we knew you were the one because you were running from puppy to puppy licking them, keeping the peace. You were a great peace keeper in our life and our home.

We'll never forget your little puppy form as we would practice 'stay' and walk off into the distance until you were a little black dot, and see you bulleting towards us when we gave the signal. You loved the walk all your life, to swim, to play on the beach, the sea, the river, and to chase sticks and balls. You even had a special screaming sound when you were just too excited to wait for us to throw. You got the cutest injury when you were young - 'swimmer's tail' - an injury from wagging your tail too hard underwater.

You had a brush with death in the middle of your life - we were walking and you suddenly remembered you had left a stick, and you ran back to cross a road. A car hit you, but you were miraculously completely unscathed - I'm so glad that fate decided it wasn't your moment. You were always careful of cars after that.

You have been the most wonderful sister to our children. From before the moment their consciousness awoke, you were there - your smell, your sound, your loving presence. When Tolly was born at home, you were one of the first people to meet him. Thank you for loving our kids and taking care of them with us.

You went on a big adventure with us in our campervan from Plymouth all the way to the South of Spain and back. We walked with you through the Bois D'amour in Pont Aven, through the pinewoods near Bordeaux, in the Pyrenees. You got stung by a bee and your face puffed up like one of those fancy wrinkle-faced dogs. Back then it was just us and the campervan, and you were our first baby. You were all black then , but you started going grey when the kids arrived.

We've been on so many adventures since, Wales, all over Scotland and England. You were like a spirit of the woods, so fast and free, you could outrun a greyhound. You could even defy gravity and run up trees to catch a squirrel. That's where we see you now Pan, running free in the woods, all those achy joints soft and supple again. Run free, and catch those squirrels.

No words can decscribe the love we have for you, and the pain we feel to have lost you. It all felt so sudden, but I guess no amount of warning would have made it easier to say goodbye. A tiny irrational part of me couldn't help wondering how I could have let you get sick enough to die. But in these last few days I've been looking over all the old photos and videos of you, and in doing so I've realised something. Vicky and I have lived an amazing life, full of wonderful moments and memories, so good they are bittersweet to look back on. And you were there the whole time, always, our whole adult life. And I realise that you were a very old dog indeed, and your time had come, as all our times must. We were just kids when you entered our lives - if not technically in age, certainly in our hearts. We have seen so many changes and phases of life with you. 15 years is so very short, and yet it is also so long in a human's life.

It hurts to go down in the morning and not have you there to greet us, to get so excited about your little treats for your joints, to hear the gentle clicking of your claws following us around, waiting for a cuddle or a little bit of food.

Everyone thinks they have the best dog, but you were objectively the best one, loved by so many people.

I am so glad you got to be in Scotland this summer, the place you spent your first few months, and spend time with a family who love you. You had a skip in your step again and I don't think you wanted to say goodbye. Precious memories of taking you to the beach at Mothecombe just over a month ago, and seeing you running around like a pup. You always did love the beach and the sea.

I don't think we can ever bear to say goodbye, so we won't. In time, we'll learn to let go, but we'll keep on walking with you, talking to you, and we'll never forget you, our darling baby girl. Run free, we'll take you with us through our lives."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWcGWkXiIvc