Dog Tales - in memory of my beloved golden angels

Yesterday was the third anniversary of the passing of my beloved golden angel. His “brother” had passed on only six months before, so 2004 was a devastating year for me and I thought I would die of a broken heart. Everyone always referred to us as a family, Vanilla and Her Boys, and no one could imagine us as anything but together. I suppose people expected my boys to go on forever, though I, living with them, could see them growing older and frailer and their passing to the next dimension was inevitable. It took me a good long while to get past the grief and to realize that they hadn’t really gone anywhere, they’d just taken a different form. Love binds us together and is eternal and so I often wake up to sense one of them peering at me, muttering, “C’mon, Mom, when’re you going to get up?!” They’ve both been around since they left and now, as then, they continue to bring the most remarkable and vibrant loving energy into my life. Me? Flakey? Only in the best possible way!

And so I dedicate this post to Barnaby and St John, the best friends anyone could possibly have had and true, real, golden angels. And what characters they were and are.

Barnaby - 21/04/1990 - 27/11/2004

Barnaby had the most staggering zest for life. If there was a smell, he’d track it down. If it had wings or four legs, he’d chase it - rabbits, guinea fowl and squirrels lived in fear of their lives. He was the most alive, happy, friendly being I’ve ever known. His passion for life was boundless, his trust and his love unending. As the postman said to me one day, “Ma’am, mostly I’m scared of being bitten by dogs, but in this case I’m scared of being licked to death.” Barnaby had a mind of his own. He did things his way and laughed about it. He was stubborn but it was because he was on a mission of his own and there were things to do and places to see. He was also gentle and kind – he loved children even though he had little exposure to them and was delighted when small children came to visit, happy to have his ears and tail pulled, overjoyed to meet someone smaller than him. And he was inveterate gardener. I’ve plant the azalea bush, he’d dig it up. I’d plant it again; he’d dig it up again. He knew just how he expected his garden to be.

One of my most enduring memories of him stems from a spring afternoon in Guernsey… I was pottering in the garden when I heard a muffled peep, peep, peep. I couldn’t work out where it was coming from. The strangest thing was that it appeared to be following me. It had to be a baby bird but there was no sign of the small thing. As I stood there pondering, the peeping came closer. So did Barnaby - and he had a particularly pleased glint in his eye. I bent down. Yes, there is was. The peeping was coming from inside of my boy! I pried open his mouth, and there, wet, bedraggled and very annoyed, was a baby blue tit, perched on his tongue and totally unharmed. Oh yes, that’s a Golden Retriever in retrieving mode for you.

St John - 17/03/1991 - 17/04/2004

And then there was St John. If there was ever a dog with views, it was he. He turned sulking into an art form. He’d sit with his back to you and then turn slowly, to cast reproachful eyes upon you over his shoulder. You knew when you were in the pooh. But he was also a dog with the hugest heart. If you cried, he was there. If you laughed, he laughed with you – he had the most remarkable sense of humour. He believed, at 43 kilos, that he was a lap dog and loved cuddles and snuggles. He was, in many ways, the best kind of teddy bear. And he was a teddy bear because St John never met a bit of protein that he didn’t like. He was a vacuum on four legs, happy to steal food off the counter and even devoured an entire tub of margarine one day – an event which left both of us feeling decidedly ill. He also had a passion of Persian carpets. If in high dudgeon, he neatly nibbled off their fringes. You knew when you’d annoyed him – he wasn’t in the wrong, you were and that’s all there was to it.

St John also had a high leisure profile. If it wasn’t necessary to move, he didn’t. I remember the evening in Dublin when we’d returned home from a meal out. As I waited at the back door, my husband let the dogs out. There was rabbit in the garden - I spotted it and pointed it out to St John who’d ambled down the steps.
“Look, Singie, rabbit!”
Hmm, yeah, so what, he muttered.
“It’s a rabbit, Singe!”
Yeah, so…
“You’re supposed to chase it.”
I am?
“Yes!”
Oh, right.
He set off at an unenthusiastic lollop – traveling in a circle – going so slowly that eventually the rabbit was chasing him. It wasn’t until Barnaby bolted from the door that the rabbit realized it was in serious trouble and dived through the gate and bounded off down the driveway. St John meanwhile looked at me and said, And so, just what was the point of that? Huh?


Ah yes, they were characters, my boys and my life is rich and blessed with memories of them. Forever my angels are with me.