Farewell to a characterful companion
I’VE had to be parted with my oldest dog ‘Gyp’ this week, which was a wrench as he was 16, and has been a big character. We’ve kept a dam-line of collies here since I was a wain, my Dad having bought a little welsh bitch off a pal. She was one of the many ‘Fly’s I’ve known, and was as nice a sheepdog as you could wish. Her descendants have been the dogs I’ve lived and worked with all my days. They went through various guises of cross-breeding, and degrees of competence and sanity. Under my parent’s regime, some bearded collie crept in, so they were usually rough coated, and often brown. A home bred entire was kept once, which was hardly going to deepen the gene-pool, although, to be fair, the subsequent inbreeding turned up some of the hounds I’ve loved best. I then sent one or two of them off to visit neighbouring farmyards when the time came, and kept the dam line going. Repayments for stud fees have ranged from a favour to be returned, the pick of the litter – a time honoured measure – to hard coin of the realm, and/or a day’s shearing.
But there came a time when I happened to have kept a bitch who was a bit shy when it came to telling me when she might need to make such a trip out. She was a good dog, but before I knew it time had slipped past, and she was getting up there in years. I missed getting her to a dog twice, and scared I would lose the line, I decided to short circuit the system... and bought a dog in.
It’s the only time I’ve ever bought a collie, but he was a beaut. My selection criteria was to ask a friend at the local farm store if anyone had a card up in the window advertising such creatures. As it happened, her fella had just bred a litter from a useful bitch, and perhaps I should look at them?
So we duly loaded up the kids and trundled off to buy a pup. And after the soppy lovable pup stage, he soon grew into a bright bold young dog. He straightaway did the specific job required of him, and my old bitch was soon disappearing off to a burrow she’d dug in a bank in which to whelp. The bloodline was safe again, although misreading his instructions, new dog Gyp set off trying to impregnate every bitch in the parish. The vet soon dealt with that – Alison had to take him for that trip out. I couldn’t look him in the eye for such a journey. He was, however, my regular travelling companion, either in the back of the landrover, biting branches that came with reach, or in the cab of the tractor as I was feeding of a winter’s morn.
He matured into a big strong dog, working well, top-dog around the yard, and generally being everything I’d want of him. I’d only ever worked bitches before, and dogs are different. While a good bitch will sit outside the backdoor waiting for the boss to put his boots on and go to work, faithful to the last, a dog will have his own agenda, and is just as likely to want to be off doing his own thing. Gyp’s own thing was often hunting roe deer... I never saw him get one down, but by golly he gave it his best shot! He was a willing worker once you’d got him on the case though, albeit with an edge of belligerence I put down to his gender. In fact, I notice some of his female descendants have had the same bone-headedness.
He was as tough as a boot. I saw him run over twice without taking the least harm. One of them was the front wheel of a pick-up turning in the yard. As he bit its tyre, it ran right over his body, and he kept biting. On another occasion though, we didn’t see what had happened, but found him one morning with a small hole in the front of a paw. The vet extracted several chips of bone from the hole, and warned us the dog would be lame forever more. In fact, although it cost me a grand, Gyp recovered perfectly, and went on to work for several more years.
But time catches all of us in the end, and he eventually grew to a doddery old gent, who tottered about the yard in a lengthy retirement. And these last few weeks, he’d become increasingly unsteady on his back legs, so I’ve closed the last page on a chapter of our lives here. Bless him.
He was as tough as a boot. I saw him run over twice without taking the least harm