Last week my beautiful Sandy spaniel had to be put to sleep. I never got to say goodbye as she deteriorated too quickly for me to get home. It was only fair to end her suffering. Sandy was fifteen, so I knew it was coming. The last couple of times I had been home I would make sure that I said goodbye to Sandy. I would kiss her and thank her for being such a lovely dog.
So I am going to tell you a little about my beautiful Sandy:
My parents had always wanted to get a dog to complete the Neville family. My mum had always had spaniels and she thought a cocker spaniel would be best because of their lovely nature and temperament. My mum also decided that we were on the hunt for a lemon roan cocker spaniel because of how pretty they look!
I remember going to visit several litters of pups. I was so excited. I was going to have a doggy!
We travelled quite a distance to visit one litter. I think there were about six puppies. My dad, sister and I were playing with the more playful ones. There was a wee lemon roan girl at the back but she was much quieter than the others and less playful/excitable. My mum said she was the one. So that was that.
We went to pick up our little puppy a couple of weeks later. She had got bigger and had just drank lots of milk so she had a swollen tummy. I wanted to hold her for the journey home so we put a towel on my lap as the breeder said she might pee because of all of the milk. She did and I didn't mind. We named our puppy Sandy because of her colouring. She was white with sandy patches and she had a white button batch on her forehead.
Her kennel club name was Arryantra afore ye go. We would later call our house Arryantra House.
As a puppy Sandy was quite naughty. She was absolutely obsessed with slippers. I remember walking around the house with her attached to me via the foot. She went absolutely crazy for them. I also remember that she loved sleeping on me by the fireplace. Sandy's ears were fricking massive.
Sandy loved walks, she loved the water and she loved...duck poo! Rolling in it was one of her specialities. She loved ears, especially my dads. She loved chicken, cheese, rich tea biscuits, chocolate, peppers and mushrooms. She loved her belly being rubbed and her ears being massaged. As Sandy got older she liked her chin and nose being stroked. She liked carrying things and hiding them. Her favourite toy was a duck.
Sandy would frequently squeeze herself into tight places like behind the sofa. She would get stuck and have to be rescued!
Apart from us, the post was also another love in her life. She would go crazy when it arrived and she seemed to be able to smell it a few miles off. She would bark and jump and then shred it to pieces. It got to the point that the postman and paper boy had to leave things outside the front door for us.
Sandy also used to run home if we took her out for a walk and she would frequently escape out of the house. It was sometimes really hard to get her back!
We mated Sandy when she was five years old and she had eight puppies. The first one she delivered herself but he was stillborn (we named him Moses). The vet then had to deliver the other seven of them by caesarean. The vet said the pups were so large that Sandy would not have survived if she had delivered them all by herself. We named the four boy pups Issy, Rolley, Dandy and Louis. The two girl pups we named Molly and Daisy. We kept Daisy and found homes for her siblings. Sandy was such a good mum. She did everything perfectly like it had said in our breeding book. Having Sandy's puppies is one of my fondest family memories.
Sandy had a heart murmur and we used to say that she had it because her heart had too much love in it. A couple of years ago Sandy's nose skin started falling off. My sister and I would rub Vaseline into it daily and eventually it grew back. Sandy also lost the hair on both of her ears for a while. The vet could not explain it, but again, the fur grew back on its own accord.
I hope that Sandy is in doggy heaven. I hope that she is running and playing and swimming. I hope there are hourly deliveries of post and newspapers, lovely lakes, duck poo in abundance and chocolate, lots of chocolate.
Sandy spaniel, I will love you forever.
