Bye bye Ben-pup

Alas,

No more Ben pics. I just got off the phone to the mum and dad (a good natter was had, although the visitation is being held off for a week or so) who let me know that the Old Aged Pup had signed off.

Poor fella.

What wasn't usually apparent from the many photos I would take and post of Ben was that amidst the bounciness, the life, the love shown by this amazing fella over the years was sadness that he was obviously getting older and older.

Five minutes of bouncing would be followed by an hour's shut eye to let him catch up. There was also that dodgy paw of his that I'm sure was causing him a lot of pain. He never showed that pain though. Not like the classic thorn in the paw where the animal would try and bite the person trying to heal it. Nope. Ben was all love.

And a bit of play. That play was only about 5 minutes or so though before he had to take himself off for a bit. Very gentle play but I think he appreciated it. Definitely came back for more when his batteries were recharged.

Definitely a protector.

A bit of the cheeky. See that tail raised high ? That's one of the rare moments that tail was captured on camera. It usually disappeared into motion blur.

Loyal cook's helper too. That steak in that there barbeque thingy definitely passed the sniff test. I think old Ben was levitating as it came back into the house.

Definitely liked his treats that Ben.

But. The eternal sadness about pets is that they don't last as long as we do. The family has had 3 dogs that I remember (and one dog that I barely remember - too young). There was the Old Gent Scruff :

The adventurous Goldie, king of the surprise slurpage :

And finally, Old Ben :

He was still showing occasional liveliness at Xmas but come to think of it, I don't think he was showing any bounciness. He'd become quite an old dog, although I don't think he realised that. Still a pup at heart.

The thing about dogs (and cats!) though :

They're part of the family. I'd like to think Ben had good people that he loved. The other thing is that you only have a dog for part of your life but you are all of theirs. So it's good to be able to pass a little bit of that love back. The dog ends up being a reflection of its master. And Ben-pup was full of love.

It'll be sad not to see the old fella again and be greeted when he's got some energy back from an evening's slumber (it took him a bit of time to wake up when I'd get to the parents place at 11pm ish).

I'll miss him but he's in the memories now, like that ever faithful, ever loving, ever grateful, hugely intelligent Scruffy-dog and the quicksilver Goldie. I was a quick runner but it was good to give Goldie a walk because it would end up with us racing each other. It was good to see that athlete of a dog run Fast. We waited too long though with Scruff and Goldie. It broke the heart to see Scruff give a broken "Do I have to ? Things hurt" look when someone mentioned Walkies. We'd previously have had to peel him off the ceiling at the mention of that word. With Goldie, he was having real trouble getting in and out of his chair. His back legs gave up on him and got very painful.

Bye Ben. And may there be many treats where you are now.