Vale Snowie

Our little Snowie was killed on Sat 6 Sep by one of a neighbour's great danes/cross? She was thirteen and a half years old and had a wonderful life. She's the third dog we have buried in our garden over the 33 years we have lived here, and another, Pip Mk2, a blue heeler German pointer cross, simply disappeared one night at 14 years old and was never seen again. She must have gone off to die, knowing her time was up. She was arthritic and incontinent and I was almost to the point of taking her to the vet for our final goodbye, instead waiting as she was still enjoying her food and basking in the unseasonable sunny August days. But the nights were cold with heavy frosts and it was on the third of these in a row that she took off.

That would have been 2003 which I know because we got Snow in October in 2001, on Robbie's 14th birthday. We did this because Pip was twelve tears old and looking like she was nearing the end of her life and we were concerned that losing her would be a body blow to the boys who had grown up with her as a rock solid reliable companion. I saw an ad for JR /Japanese Spitz cross pups in the supermarket window and she was six months old when we picked chose Snow, the runt of the litter, and brought her home.

Snow settled in instantly and got on great guns with old Pip, who became rejuvenated. It added some valuable time to Pip's life I'm sure. After Pip disappeared we were a one dog family until Lib brought Pip Mk3 home as an eight week old pup on the 2nd August 2007 ( That's a good thing about blogging, you can go back and check things like I just did).

The two little dogs have been very much a part of our lives since. Snowie was never any trouble other than going AWOL a couple of times during severe thunderstorms when we weren't home, both times she was taken in by kind hearted people who cared for her till they could locate us. She was an outside dog, she didn't ever really want to be inside (except during thunder storms or on fire cracker nights or when shooters were discharging shotguns fairly close to our house).

She was a free spirit who stayed close to the house but did take a little walk in the street most days, harmlessly. In later years she took to visiting our friends Steve and Ann across the road regularly, a habit which contributed to her demise. Steve and Ann moved out last January and the new owners have two massive dogs which are usually confined in their back yard. On the fateful day last Saturday week these dogs were with their owner in the front yard when Snowie wandered in. The large dog grabbed her before the owner had realized what was happening. I was out. When I came home there was a note on my front door to ring my neighbour's mobile. They had had to go out but he told me the bad news and I went and collected Snow who was in a cardboard box at the top of their drive. We gave her a ceremonial burial in a beautiful place in our garden and I'm forever grateful that we were blessed with Snow as a family member for 13 years.