Almost seven years ago I wrote about a dog that I had been caring for when her owners were away when I lived in France.

It was a huge house that they lived in and I lived in it to care for the dog and the cat many times. That dog was Boo Boo and I fell in love with her. Although the house was grand it was a cold house and spotlessly clean. I was expected to wash Boo every time she came in from the garden – I never did, it would have been cruel.

Over the eight months I cared for her I rolled biscuit rolls down the cavernous kitchen for her to run after, a game called Roly Poly that I played with Wiglet and play with ours’ now. She would look at me as if to say ‘Oh my we are being so naughty.’ And we were, and I didn’t give a shit!

If you read my previous post, when I came to say goodbye to Boo Boo you will see how I cried buckets for that beautiful dog. It used to break my heart when her owners were due to return, and she would sit at the glass door watching me leave with a look on her face pleading with me to take her with me. I wished I could.

Life took over, Serendipity stepped in. Her owners were held up at a time that my dear friend Mary was coming to visit. She came to stay at the house with me and I told her that I thought that Boo was going to get the blame for things and that they were going to get rid of her. Boo had already come from a shelter, and shelters in France ain’t great. I was so worried for her. But Mary stepped in immediately. She had fallen in love with Boo’s soulful sad eyes and said that if they wanted to get rid of her she would have her. The scene was set and in May that year, 2016, Boo made her way to England to live with Mary and Den and their naughty little puppies. She had not only a family but a dog family, and they all embraced her. Especially Den.

Boo became Den’t dog, she worshipped him and he worshipped her. They were inseparable. She lived by the seaside and then moved to Lincolnshire to live in a big house with lots of land. It didn’t stop her escaping and running wild as she always did (I stayed up all night one night waiting for her to come back.) But Den just bought her a tracker and sat for hours patiently waiting for her to come back to him, he accepted Boo for who she was, and he loved her for it. She lived in a chaotic (I know Mary won’t mind me saying that) loving house, which she loved in contrast to the house she had come from; and she knew love like she had never known it before.

Sadly in this last month Boo became unwell and yesterday took a turn for the worse, and had to be carried in from the garden. Mary and Den had to let her go. I am crying now. She was loved so deeply that they took her to the crematorium from the vets, and laid her in their Chapel of Rest, that is how much she was loved. Her ashes will be laid on the field beside their house, a place she loved to go, and she won’t be far away.

Boo will be running like the wind, as the wind now. And I have no doubt that there will be two Welshie tails wagging like mad to welcome her back into the fold. They loved her too. I will think of their spirits running all over the Sperrin Mountains, and Wiglet will show her their favourite places. But in line with other faith’s I have no doubt she will return to that place that showed her the most love, and although Mary and Den won’t see her, she will be there. Because love never dies you see.

Run like the wind Boo Boo Bear. We were meant to meet to save you, to give you the fabulous life you had and my heart goes out to those you leave behind. You have left a huge dog with sad eyes hole in their world.

Rosie