Packham is heartbroken over death of his pooch
WHEN TV star Chris Packham’s beloved miniature poodle Itchy died in 2016, he was so bereft that he kept the dog’s body in the freezer to help cope with his loss.
Now, the Autumnwatch presenter has revealed he’s been nursing a secret heartache: Itchy’s brother, Scratchy, has also passed away.
‘He was the light and epicentre of my universe,’ Packham tells me.
Scratchy died two weeks short of his 16th birthday. But Packham’s zookeeper girlfriend, Charlotte Corney, and stepdaughter, Megan McCubbin, have since acquired miniature poodle puppies named Sid and Nancy.
‘They’ve got big paws to fill,’ says Packham. ‘ They are relatives of Itchy and Stratchy. I’m bonding with them, but I don’t know if they have helped me. It’s too early to ask that question.’
In his 2016 memoir, Fingers In The Sparkle Jar, Packham, 58, who has Asperger’s syndrome, revealed that he has endured depression throughout his life and experienced suicidal thoughts after losing an earlier pet, a one-year-old dog called Fish.
He said it was only his beloved Itchy and Scratchy who saved him from taking his own life: ‘They loved me, so I couldn’t do it,’ he wrote in the book. ‘ They kept me alive . . . I owe them my life. I always will.’
Packham frequently described Itchy and Scratchy as the loves of his life. ‘We always had a very close bond, the three of us,’ he said. ‘We were like peas in a pod.
‘It was a mutual love affair, very much so. We always shared our space and our food and our time.’
The naturalist also revealed he wants his ashes to be mixed with those of his beloved pets.
He explained: ‘Our ashes are going to get all mixed together and thrown out in the woods in a favourite spot in the New Forest so that we can be something together.’