There's a championship show in Weston-super-Mare, just for Border Collies tomorrow, Bank Holiday Monday. I really want to go. But I have mixed feelings about it. I feel sometimes that I have not really said goodbye properly to Flash. Since he was buried, I have not been back to the grave. If I had had my way, he would have been competing at this show tomorrow. As it is, he's found his resting place out near Salisbury and I am going to dog shows.
What do I think I will find there?
It's just that I don't think I can live much longer without Border collies. I am facing a house move so I don't think I could get another one yet even if I was not still missing Flash. I need to be settled in life before I get one, settled enough to give one a really good home. But in the meantime I don't think I can live without them.
I remember Flash's parents and family, all his showdog relatives. The breeder got me to meet all of them to see which puppy I would fit best with. Kind of, where in the pack I fitted in. As a result, I thought I was one of that pack. When he died, I wanted to howl like a distressed Border Collie as if I had been deserted by my pack.
It was a bit cruel of the breeder to get me to meet this family of fifteen Border collies, complete with Flash's stud dog father, give Flash to me and then drop out of sight, offering me no support with him either through his lifetime or now he is dead. If anyone breeds dogs, can I make a request? Please don't do this to people, particularly if they become an owner of one of your puppies. Please do not put them through the vetting process, sell them a puppy and then promptly disappear. Particularly at the end of the dog's life. I found out they were still living at the same address. They simply hadn't bothered to answer any of my calls. I don't think they realised I had bonded strongly with both Flash as a new puppy and with the rest of his family. When he died, I really needed to contact them. They would have remembered me all right. All I wanted was a quick chat to say what had happened and that I could not have wished for a better dog. Also that he had died suddenly of prostate cancer. I wanted to grieve with their help. But despite contacting several other breeders in the area who say they know them, I can't find them to even talk to and say what's happened. They don't breed any more and they don't want to be found. To me this is cruel, although I am sure they have their reasons.
It's cruel to make a dog unhappy but it is equally cruel to cut ties with a human being to whom you have sold a dog, who has bonded deeply with that dog, has lost that dog but originally bonded with that dog's parents, family and breeders.
Sometimes breeders are so anxious to make sure the puppy goes to the best home they can find, they don't take into account the owner's feelings and needs. It's a classic case of respecting dogs but not really respecting fellow human beings.
I am pining so much I would do anything to look at some border collies. No one near me owns one so I surf the Net looking at competition and agility trials pictures just to be able to see one.
Last weekend I had a kind of vision. I was walking along London's South Bank and suddenly I felt that a giant Border collie was in front of me. It was as if I was a tiny puppy lying between Flash's front paws and nestled into his chest. I felt huge feathers of Border Collie fur against my cheek and on my forearms. I had to hang on to some railings by the water for support. Then I tried to walk to Waterloo station to get home but couldn't. I had to take refuge in the BFI theatre foyer. Once I had rested on the sofa there. I got up to go to Waterloo. But I was in such a state that I got on the wrong train and wound up at a completely different destination to home. It was a nightmare journey back to my place. full of crowded buses and cross people, which would not have happened if I hadn't got on the wrong train at Waterloo.
I can't work out whether to get another dog before I go potty, or to continue to grieve for Flash, let the process play itself out.
And why I am going to practically the other end of the country tomorrow to see a Border Collie of the Year Show? All I know is that it is an honour to be amongst this magnificent breed of dog. They are part of this country's pastoral past, and are very much a part of its present and future. I felt this honour immediately I met Flash's pack when he was a puppy,, and I feel it now. But I don't know if going tomorrow will upset me more. I don't want any more hallucinations involving giant Border Collies!
