One Sunday morning in 2004, my then partner and I found ourselves driving to a terrace house in Southall, London, where a dog breeder led us into his back yard. There, two jack russell puppies quivered, the last of the litter. A smooth-haired white one with a brown head and big button eyes cautiously wandered out, while her sister, the runt, held back shyly. We chose the former, naming her Pepper after the dark spot on her back.
I was in my 20s and unused to responsibility. Freaking out at this tiny furry bundle, I quickly bought every canine behavioural book I could find. But I needn’t have worried: we soon learned that Pepper was a gentle, intelligent but opinionated soul, taking a contemplative approach to life’s ups and downs. She would sit and stare at me from the sunniest spot in the room; on walks, she stayed close. Her cuteness made meeting new people easy, both in the park and at work. She shared a birthday with Madonna and, like the Material Girl, absolutely adored a photoshoot.
There were, however, some hair-raising moments. Once Pepper took fright at a boisterous beagle and sprinted home across four main roads, followed by a string of people, including a police officer on a bike. On a narrowboat she disliked being afloat so much she made a leap from deck to towpath – but missed. Landing in the murky water, she barely escaped the lethal swirl of the lock.
A more serious incident was to come. On a cold March afternoon, two rottweilers came out of nowhere on the Kent coast; one took her neck, the other her leg, and the two pulled her like a rag doll. The resulting injuries were so bad she lay dying on the vet’s table. But miraculously, the emergency operation was a success, and she lived another decade. A true survivor.
Old age, however, is a tough time for both dog and owner: that benign tumour hanging off her chest, the loss of hearing, increasing hesitation and declining confidence. With cloudy eyes she grew more worried about us not being nearby – but every day I’d tell her I loved her more.
For the last six months she suffered regular seizures. By now we’d moved to a garden flat, where she dozed all day under a palm. But our fears of a brain tumour proved to be justified: on a hot Saturday afternoon in the 2020 lockdown, after queueing outside the emergency vet hospital, face-to-face appointments banned, and advice only via a socially distanced phone call, we realised it was time to let her go. It was two months before her 16th birthday and – in an intense twist – the day after my dad’s funeral. But that’s another story.
Of course you move on: there’s even the unfamiliar, at times exhilarating, realisation that life no longer revolves around a four-legged companion, as it did for such a swathe of my adulthood. Hell, you can be devilishly irresponsible, if you wish. And deaths precipitate other changes, too: in my case the end of a long marriage – and a new chapter sans husband or hound.
Three and a half years on, things are good, but I still miss the biscuit smell of her paws and that unspoken, yet constant, communication. I like to think she’s looking down on me: as the Queen of Pop once sang, you may be my lucky star.
