A Eulogy for a Collie

A Eulogy for a Collie

To anyone that read my recent piece about Eric aka Skye the collie woofer my grateful thanks.

https://www.abctales.com/story/marandina/eric-viking

This was intended as an homage to my dog and border collies in general, what with him 16 going on 17 years old. Sadly, not long after writing it, Eric succumbed to old age and is no longer with us. I guess the point of writing this is that dogs don’t get funerals. It’s either cremation, pet cemetery or buried in the garden. So there’s no eulogies or written elegies and the like. So imagine I am standing at the front of a church, pews with mourners scattered about, listening.

I met Eric in 2006. He was a rejected sheepdog from Enniskillen, Northern Ireland. The first time I ever saw him was in a meeting room at the Dog’s Trust in Kenilworth. He was just five months old and had the face of a girl. As soon as his carer let him go he dashed from person to person like a rocket endearing himself straight away. It was love at first sight.

So what can I tell you about Eric the Irish, border collie-cross? Well, he wasn’t a lapdog. Fiercely independent, he was precious about his personal space. I once tried to cuddle up with him in his dog bed and he growled like he was about to rip my head off. I quickly worked out where the boundaries were and one was to not get too close to his face.

Eric was a typical collie in so many ways. His black and white markings and shepherd’s lantern tale marked him down as a herder of sheep but his small, brown eyes belied the fact that he was almost certainly crossed with a Jack Russell. They are often kept on farms to manage the rodent population so it’s highly likely that his mother had engaged in a doggy tryst with a different breed.

So Eric became Skye courtesy of a name change instigated by my daughter. I can still hear the children’s promises made in the back of the car to take turns with woofer walks etc. These quickly faded with the wind and I was left to carry the can with most of the walking duties. This became a genuine pleasure as I was soon inducted into the unofficial dog-walker’s secret society; one where fellow owners acknowledge you and yours each day on the various circuits navigated by the great and the good of the local canine world.  

I remember helping out with a games evening at a school I once worked at. I hadn’t known the games teacher long. As we strolled across the fields ready to round up the kids for footie practice, he turned to me and asked “So what kind of dog have you got?” I was nonplussed for a few seconds as I couldn’t recall mentioning that I had one. He saw the confusion on my face and looked down at my trousers. “You have a doggy poo bag hanging out of your pocket”. And that was the sure-fire way to spot another dog owner.

There are so many stories I could recount about Eric. He was such an amazing character, so full of life. I had planned to write more which I may in time but, for now, this is enough. Like the times I stood at the bottom of the stairs, child-proof gate guarding against madcap collies roaming where they shouldn’t. I enjoyed nothing more than unlocking and watching him blaze up the steps in a black and white blur and hurl himself through the bedroom door and onto our bed. That always went down well with the person sleeping!

Then there’s the time he finally made it to Center Parcs last year. At this point, he was getting on in years so the idea was to manage his workload and not go mad with the walking. At times, he acted like a geriatric, sleeping for long stretches in the lodge on his bed with his toy sheep to keep him company. Then on a Saturday evening when everybody was out, leaving me and my other half to keep a weather eye on him as we were watching “The Masked Singer” on tv. I had left the sliding, glass patio door close to the sofa and next to us, the tiniest bit ajar. Next thing we knew, mobile phones were ringing and it turned out that, somehow, Eric had escaped! He must have squeezed passed silently like a prisoner from Colditz or something. So a search party formed from the surrounding accommodation. After 30 minutes scouring the surrounding area in the inky darkness of night, a report finally came through that he had wandered into someone else’s lodge a few hundred yards further on. Distraught, thinking he was lost, I still vividly remember walking in to see him swanning about the kitchen, surrounded by young kids and adults who were fussing him and feeding him chicken.

I could go on and tell the story about the time he decided to go for a swim in an icy lake only to end up bobbing up and down vertically after getting stuck in the water or crazy tales of his ongoing battles with the vacuum cleaner and lawnmower (never at the same time) or stories about all the Christmases shared with Eric and his habit of sloping off with wrapped presents to disassemble them in his doggy lair in the hall.

So there you have it – a snapshot of Eric aka Skye’s life. It’s said that the death of a pet is comparable with losing a person. I can confirm that this is absolutely true. This collie woofer was my best friend and will be greatly missed. It’s been a difficult few days since last Thursday but I guess it gets a little easier with each passing day. As time goes by you end up with treasured memories instead of the pain of the aftermath of losing a loved one. He lives on in our hearts.

Thank you if you made it through this or listened in the imaginary church.

My tales of Eric aka Skye are at:                      

https://www.abctales.com/collection/eric-collie