Mr. Blue Sky in Diary

When mam and dad’s dog Meg died on August 4th 2014 (her 16th birthday) they were heartbroken and didn’t want to get a new dog. But they’ve always had dogs and didn’t last long before they found Blue in a rescue centre, a 10 month old blue merle border collie with blue eyes and long legs like an antelope.

When he arrived, he was…difficult. He hadn’t had much training and no one was sure on his past. He HATED having his head touched, especially by children such as my niece Eleanor. He also hated other dogs. He constantly tested boundaries, tried to dominate everyone in the way that dogs do by humping everyone, but was big and strong and couldn’t be controlled. Mam was actually quite scared of him at times and considered taking him back.

But they persevered with him, mam and dad, they spent hours and hours over the next weeks and months and they turned him into a well mannered, well behaved dog who made friends with other dogs, tolerated his head being touched and became best friends with Eleanor (In the photo above, he had brought her his ball). He came so far with the head touching, his favourite thing was when you cupped your hands around his little ears and gently pulled your hands along them. He would have you standing all day if he could!

With dad.

They went through a lot together. When the house was flooded in December last year, the three of them were trapped upstairs in the house together, waiting it out for three days until the flood water went down. They took TWO trips to Spain together; dad driving down to Devon, 36 hours on a ferry and then the long drive right down to their apartment in southern Spain. I joined them for one week of their last trip in May this year.

I always sang the ELO song Mr. Blue Sky to him “Hey hey Mr. Blue, we’re so pleased to be with you, everybody smiles at you.”

They had to put suncream on his pink nose and he enjoyed crunching on ice cubes to keep cool.

He preferred to keep cool and loved climbing mountains with dad.

When they got back from Spain in June this year, he started being sick and had chronic diarrhoea. He was losing weight rapidly and lost his appetite. Mam and dad took him back and forth to the vet. They carried out so many tests and tried him on so much medication but nothing seemed to work. It was a celebration whenever he ate anything. On Saturday 3rd September, he was so weak the vet put him on a drip for 24 hours and sent him home on the Sunday. On Tuesday 6th September he went back to the vet for more tests and they finally found out what was wrong with him. He had a very aggressive form of cancer, lymphoma, and there was nothing they could do for him. Even if they had found it sooner, there is no cure. So the vet told them to take him home for one last night and day.

On Wednesday 7th September, my mam was sending me constant text updates with what he was up to and it was like he had a new lease of life. He was running about in the park, when he had done any running for weeks. He was drinking out of the river, when he’d had nothing to drink for about four days. It was like he knew it was his last day, and he was squeezing the last drops out of life.

After he had tired himself out, he went home and lay on his bed and the vet came at 7pm. Mam sent me this text right after: “Blue Boy has gone to sleep. Go chase crows little man.”

This was the last photo I took of him, on 28th August. He looks so majestic, you would never think he was riddled with cancer and only had a week to live…

It’s taken me a month to be able to write about this, and even then it took me three attempts to finish it. I feel ridiculous, he’s not even my dog. I lived 200 miles away from him and only saw him a few times a year. I think I’m more broken up because I know how broken mam and dad are about it. Blue wasn’t even three years old; as a border collie, he could have lived another 13 years. They had loads more love left to give him, he was their world as they’re both retired, they did everything with him. Mam said the first few nights after he died, when she was lying in bed just dropping off to sleep, she heard him coming up the stairs, walk around the bed and flop onto the floor next to her, making the little groaning sound he used to make when he lay down. They’ve just got back from a week in Malta which they booked at the last minute because they just “had to get away.”

There’s more that I still need to write in here from the last month, but a lot of it is tiring to write (I don’t understand this myself, but I feel tired just thinking about writing some of it.) With everything going on with Jay as well, my entries about other things are taking a back burner. But I’m tackling one subject at a time. I’ll get there.

Last updated October 05, 2016