Road trip: Best friends’ final journey
‘‘I had a really rough life, and I had no childhood, so I decided the one thing Honey would get would be a childhood.’’ Derrick Marshall
Derrick Marshall is proof there’s no better bond than the one between a man and his dog.
Honey, a purebred Boxer, will be the front passenger on Marshall’s upcoming road trip around New Zealand so she can see anything and everything, because the voyage is all for her.
They plan to head to the West Coast next week and, Marshall predicts, it will be Honey’s last road trip. Cancer that was cut from her mammaries has now shown up in her lungs.
Cambridge-based Marshall adopted Honey when she was 14 weeks old, and had no premonitions that they’d become fast friends.
‘‘I could never commit myself to a human, so I didn’t think I could with a dog,’’ he said.
It took a moment of compassion from Honey for Marshall to realise she was more than just a pet.
‘‘When I got sick, she stayed right beside me, and from then on, she became my little girl.
‘‘I had a really rough life, and I had no childhood, so I decided the one thing Honey would get would be a childhood.’’
The road trip isn’t Honey’s first with Marshall. She’s been with him on a trip to Northland in a 1971 Mini Clubman.
‘‘She’d never seen the beach; I was always too busy working.
‘‘When I took Honey up, [the Mini] had no air-con. I got three bags of ice, stacked them on the floor, and then put a blanket over that, and that was Honey’s air conditioning. It cost me more for the three bags of ice than it did to put the petrol in!’’ Marshall said.
‘‘Then I thought, I’d take her round and show her New Zealand one day, not really thinking she’d ever get cancer or get sick. So when she got cancer, I wanted to make sure she could see and enjoy life.’’
An avid traveller himself, Marshall has visited 28 countries and said if not for Honey’s companionship, he’d have already booked a one-way ticket back to Brunei.
Honey has been taking chemotherapy pills for three weeks. Her disease was discovered after a routine belly rub.
‘‘I took her down to the vets and they found a massive growth inside. They took out so much that even the skin wouldn’t pull over properly for six weeks,’’ Marshall said.
Mammary tumours are the most common tumour in female dogs, and life expectancy varies between size and shape of the tumour, as well as the dog’s age.
The vets have since discovered shading in Honey’s chest and lungs, so for Marshall, there’s no time to lose.
‘‘No-one ever sees Derrick without Honey, or Honey without Derrick,’’ he said.
‘‘So whether it’s the ocean, or the Pancake Rocks, or maybe the snow, the idea is, if people knew of Honey and that this was her one-and-only trip, then they might take heart and let her in.
‘‘Her country is more than just a house and a backyard,’’ he said.