Goodbye to LTD. Welcome to Ringo

Unfortunately Blogger's functionality is getting worse, which is a big shame for this particular post. Anyway, I will try to soldier on and see what is produced in the end. The preview suggets that the pictures are all over the place and one has randomly disappeared.

Fans of LTD (Lucky The Dog) may well be upset that he had to be euthanised in July. I noticed, sometime in June that he was getting lethargic and just after a routine visit to the vet he was collapsing and fitting. Various medicines were tried and, in the end some steroids returned him to normality for a few weeks. But the fits began again and he became very fragile and unable to walk very far.

We had a final wild camp to Druridge Bay but in the morning he was clearly struggling to walk back to the car. 

After more fits, he made the final journey to the vet.

LTD had been my dog since August 2014. He'd bagged more than 1000 hills and been on many backpacking trips. He specially enjoyed the bits of camping that involved snuggling in his woofbag and not really doing much else until it was time to pack up and go - and he was often a bit reluctant to leave his bed.

He was a friendly dog, except to other dogs, who sometimes got too close. And he hated water and would walk around puddles. There was never any chance of him swimming other than by accident. Apart from attacking other dogs, he was no bother at all.

And then came Ringo. Ringo is a border collie and  a failed farm dog. He came from a farm in South Tynedale, just a bit North of Alston. I don't know why he failed. He's very playful and inquisitive and we're slowly forming a team. At the moment his walking on a lead is hard work but he's very friendly, even to other dogs, which is a Good Thing and a nice change.

One of us will die first. The nature of these things is that, if you have a dog, and you get attached to the pooch, that almost inevitably the dog will be the first to go and that you will grieve. Grief is the tax to be paid on love. I'm beginning to believe that it isn't a negative emotion at all, no matter how uncomfortable it is at the time. 

I hope that, in time, I will grieve for Ringo, although at my advanced age, there's a chance that it will be the other way around. Maybe we can both slip into dotage together and neither of us will be capable of recognising that one of us has gone.

Or perhaps we will be rewarded by the honour of being the subject of somebody's grief.

In the meantime, Ringo has had 3 tent nights, bagged 24 hills , and walked a couple of hundred miles with me. I think we'd best try to get on with stuff whilst we can.