Goodnight, Artemis

We said goodbye to Arty yesterday.

Our dear dog was such a character. She was a gentle, loving soul. She was a clown – a greedy clown – who once co-ordinated a kitchen worktop raid with a compliant dog to wolf down a whole, freshly-baked apple cake.

She was the dog who’d get in the way when the kids played Twister. She only wanted to be in on the action. The look on her face was priceless when she won the game.

She was the dog who had to be rescued by Mr Grigg when she exhausted herself on a pond, swimming up and down, up and down, in a fruitless pursuit of the ducks that just took off and flew over her head every time she got close.

She was the dog that used to run along by my side and would get lost in the trees on my regular walks up Bluebell Hill.

She was a howler but never a growler, a gentle, kind dog who, in her healthy years, was full of fun – and pilfered food. She once legged it in France to a local poultry farm where she proceeded to guzzle down several dozen eggs.

She was the dog who, latterly, would snuggle up with my mum’s draught excluder, preferring it to sleeping next to Ruby, although when they came in the Shed of Dreams with me, they surprised me by cuddling up together.