Tess

18/03/13,  I lost my best friend.  Yes she was a dog but she meant more to me than anything else in the world. 
I loved her to pieces. :'-(

She had 13 years in this world and I like to think that she was happy. 

I could write a book full of stories about her but I'm only going to share a few.

When she first came to live with us she was so tiny, so tiny compared to our other dog, a West Highland Terrier looked like a giant compared to her, you wouldn't think that a Labrador would be so small. I remember once someone split something in the sitting room. The guilty party said the dog had done her "business" on the carpet.  My mum shouted at her and she ran and hid under the sofa. Poor old Tess! The guilty party did finally admit It wasn't the dog but it took ages to get her out from under the sofa. She seemed to love me and brothers, when we were younger and had "paint time" she would sit on the chair next to mine and watch us paint. I did once paint her nose red because I wanted her to be Rudolph.  I also used to draw "make up" her face using chalk, she looked ridiculous!! She was happy to go along with anything that we would do to her. When I played dolls, she would let me put her in a bib and feed her water from a baby bottle. When she was quite young she mastered climbing the slide, which I was very proud of her for. She used to hear the school bus coming down the road and she would always see us off on it and met us coming back.

At the same time she was also an idiot. She was meant to be a gun dog but she was terrified of loud noises. Anything that made a loud nose resulted in her becoming a shivering mess and running to her bed, where she would stay for the whole day not moving and you couldn't talk her out of it. Tess though that the point of fetch was to catch the ball and not give it back. She had a run in with an electric fence, she some how managed to catch her bottom on it. She was running that fast that her back legs were in front of her front legs. Both Mum and Dad were wetting themselves at the site of her. She didn't stop until she reached her bed where she wouldn't leave. This resulted in her being scared of the fields as well. Poor dog.

I called her Spud, I've got no idea why or how that came about but it stuck. I think its lucky she didn't understand English as I used to moan to her about everything. She just sat there and "listened". She would look at me with this look that let me know that things would be OK.

Even when she started to turn grey she was still the most beautiful dog in my eyes. Anyone that met her knew she was special and made a lasting impression.

Love You Always Spud  xxx