Clancy has asked me to write about our best friend Hamish.
Hamish used to work at a puppy farm, before he was rescued and went to live with Åsa’s friend Annie. We like Hamish because he has, to quote Clancy, no tickets on himself. We like it when he comes to visit with us. I especially like going on walks with him. He is a big dog, and between Hamish and Clancy I feel very safe.
Sometime he stays for a sleep over. The last time he stayed Clancy and I were asking Hamish about the puppy farm. He doesn’t like talking about it very much. He is a naturally reserved dog, but Clancy thinks he worries about his puppies, and that makes him feel sad.
Clancy is particularly interested in his work on the puppy farm. But surely some of it was fun, he asked with a particularly goofy look on his face. Not really Hamish said, it was just a job, and looked away sadly. What are you talking about Clancy, I said, how could working on a puppy farm be fun? But I bet some of it was, said Clancy, elbowing poor Hamish. Clancy’s eyes started to bulge, and his tongue lolled out, like it does when he’s chasing Bree down at the park. A lot of the boys are very keen on Bree and say she‘s a hot girlie, but I can’t see it myself.
Clancy, I said, what are you talking about. By now Hamish had pointed his long elegant nose the other way, and was gazing even more sadly into the distance while Clancy was starting to pant excitedly. Something was bothering me about the conversation but it took me a while to put my paw on it.
Then I realised what it was. Clancy, I said, where do puppies come from? But Clancy was now far too excited to answer me.
So I picked up ’chidna, and tossed him about for a while, then lay down with my nose pressed into his tummy. At least, I thought, I know where ’chidna came from: Åsa’s bag. I must have a rummage in it, next time she’s not looking, and see if some more echidnas have hatched.
Bye for now,
Zac
From Åsa. This is Zac's last blog. Our dear boy died from a snake bite, while we were on holidays down the south coast on December 5, 2007. It was at least a quick death, and Zac had just had two very happy days. He just loved the beach.
Zac had a wonderful ability to enjoy himself, and a very well developed sense of fun. In the two years and two months he lived with me he came such a long way, from a disconnected, nervous little dog who was scared of people and most other dogs, to a confident boy who would run up to people he liked and gaze up at them and smile his crooked smile and wag his tail. His affection for his echidna was particularly endearing: the joy with which he would pounce on echidna when they had been separated for a while; his great sense of fun when he would drop echidna near my hand so I could hide it and he could seek it out; and his refusal to go to sleep at night until he had echidna close by. We learnt a lot about getting the most out of every day from Zac. We miss his happy smile, his sense of fun, his determination to alert us to any danger, real or imagined, his companionship and his cuddles. Vale Zac.