On the 30th December our world was turned upside-down when we lost my much beloved dog, Tally.

I first met and handled Tally in the summer of 2004 when she was around two weeks old.  she was my friend’s dog, Pip’s, puppy, and she was smaller than the palm of my hand and her eyes had just started to open. At this early stage in life she was almost all white bar the black patches on her face and hip and she suckled on my finger.  At this stage though I could only hope this little one would be mine.

At four weeks I’d managed to talk my parents into letting me have a dog (at the cost of giving up my six years worth of horse riding to save money) and we went to see her  and her siblings again.  By now she was a little more lively and was very interested in meeting us all.  She was the ‘runt’ of the litter and we fell in love with her.

Sadly though before she was ready to come home with us, we had bad news; my dad was made redundant and we were unable to afford her.  I was heartbroken. Mum promised we would go to a shelter and get another dog and she phoned my friend’s mum Oriel to explain and apologise for any trouble this caused.

My mum ended the call and came to see me, crying, because Oriel had kindly offered us Tally for free, saying that she wasn’t in it for the money; it was more important for the puppies to have a loving home, which she knew we would be.  We were so grateful.

So at eight weeks we brought our Tally home and our lives changed. That summer I hardly left her side and I couldn’t wait until she was fully inoculated so I could take her into the forest behind our house.  I even used to walk her on the lead around the perimeter of the garden in the hope that she’d walk perfectly on a lead when we took her out for the first time (no such luck).

My brother and I pose with Tally (around 3 months?) in the garden

It wasn’t all perfect, as you can imagine, there were many ‘accidents’ as we were training her to pee and poop outside instead of on the newspaper as she was used to. We probably shouldn’t even go into all the things she did when she was teething – though I’ll never forget the telling off I got when she’d chewed a gaping hole in the upstairs landing carpet on my watch (in my defence, I did a very good job of disguising the damage).

The puppy classes we used to take her to were frustrating, we were always sat next to a very nervous fox terrier who used to used to bark a lot and once she started, Tally would follow and soon enough others would follow their example.  We also discovered cocker spaniels are not the most obedient breed of dog (that’s our defence and we’re sticking to it).

Around this time, too, my mother and I had a very long game of ‘catch the (dead) pigeon’ which was in Tally’s mouth.  The pigeon just appeared in our garden and we can only guess it just fell out of the sky.  Tally decided she liked this new toy and was not going to give it up.  I’ve never seen her run so fast around the garden, which quickly looked like a pillow fight had taken place In it.  She lost the game after she started choking on all the feathers – giving us time to grab her, pull the feathers out of her nose and throat- then shamefully call on our neighbour, Lesley to actually pick up the dead bird for us.

Miffed after her first groom

She was hardly alone that year as shortly after my dad found another job, my grandmother came to visit from England and suffered a heart attack whilst with us.  This  resulted in a long stay in hospital and an even longer one with us before she was allowed back on a plane.  She became very attached to Tally who spent most of the day next to her.  Both my uncles and my great aunt also came to visit my grandma and stay.  We also hosted another aunt and uncle with my two cousins prior to this so Tally spent most of her puppy-hood around people getting a lot of attention, something she always loved

Tally racing along Murlough beach

Less than a year after getting Tally, we moved to England. I have to admit, Tally had a bit of a better deal in Ireland with the large garden, the forest, beach and mountains all within walking distance.

She was a naughty little rascal most of the time and she loved to sneak upstairs, empty bins, have naps on the furniture and run away.  Mum was once mortified when Tally squeezed through to a neighbouring garden and dug the biggest hole Mum had ever seen around a poor little hedgehog who had rolled up into a tight ball.  Tally was covered I so much mud you could not see the colour of her.

She had her moments though and once stopped us from being burgled after a couple men came in through the back door one night and she chased them all the way up the street barking wildly until they jumped into an awaiting car and sped off.

She even “protected” us from the postman, the window cleaner, passers by, cars and most strangers who came to visit.!

Messy

She loved her toys, particularly cuddly toys and every day she would bring them in one by one until she persuaded someone to play with her.  She also loved dragging her blankets into the lounge.

Tally had a penchant for causing trouble, she was often found rummaging through the bin, stealing food (from someone else’s barbecue at one time) and she always lurked around people’s feet at dinner time – determined to consume any dropped morsels.  If she was told off for lurking, she would move about a foot away and continue lurking thinking this was now okay.

Smiling

She was such a character: so clever, funny and loving and her passing away has left a gaping Tally-shaped hole in many of us.