Jakes Story

The Captains Cabin

This story starts with a holiday in cornwall on the river Tamar. Alison and I rented the “Captains Cabin” a tiny rennovated building on the site of Okletor mine at Calstock. We had Boots our deerhound lurcher with us.

We had been out walking for the day, and as we approached a left turn in the road which crossed a bridge over a stream, we saw a skinny black and white setter / pointer standing in the road. To his right was an old traditional devon long house. We approached him and realised he was very old and frail, he had a large oozing welch on his ankle, and he looked at us dispassionately through the frosted lenses in his eyes. We wondered if he was a stray, or perhaps lost or something. Then from the long house his owner appeared, and told us that this dog was 15 years old, frail, but still determined to get out each day and patrol the lane.

He admired Boots, and enquired as to what breed he was. I explained that Boots was a Lurcher, more specifically a Deerhound, Bedlington, Whippet Collie cross. Long haired, with lanky long legs, four white paws, a white tip to his tail, and white blazen chest. He was what’s termed a broken coated blue lurcher, which is a little confusing because his coat colour was actually grey.

Our new associates were only to pleased to spend time with us, and Boots and the old pointer were surprisingly congenial. I wonder if Boots had a sense of respect for the elderly as he was very gentle, and non-confrontational, although Boots had a temporament that was always pretty laid back.

Our pointers owner, explained to us that he knew of a woman in the next valley who also had a Deerhound lurcher, but a female. She apparently had been looking for some time for a Sire with whom her lurcher could have puppies. Well, I was excited at the prospect that Boots could have children.

Boots had been a very important part of my life, dumped on me, without notice by Alan and Caroline. However, that story and the early years of Boots will remain a tale for another time.

He asked if he could take some contact details from us, so that he could pass them on to her. He explained that he would tell her about Boots and pass on our details.

The Journey Home

We returned home from our holiday, and forgot all about this interaction, such chance passing and conversation happen frequently and never amount to anything, why would this one be any different. A few months passed, when one morning a call came through to my office phone. It was a rather confused “Trevor Eddy” our finance director. He explained that he had a woman on the phone asking to speak with Rick, and that it was about a deerhound lurcher, I think that Trevor was concerned that there might of been an accident.

Well low and behold, it was indeed the woman, mentioned by the man, who owned the old pointer from the next valley. She introduced herslef as Sue, and she had this sweet pitched tone to her voice. She explained that her friend had given her my details, and asked if I had a deerhound lurcher. She had a female lurcher named Jade, and she was looking for similar to Sire a litter of puppies. We agreed that it would be a good idea for us to meet up, and also for the dogs to meet too. With that in mind we arranged to meet that weekend at the Rising Sun Inn at Gunnislake, she would bring Jade, and we would bring Boots.

The First Full Moon

It was late summer, with a big full moon in the sky when Jade came into season and we got the call from Sue and her partner Chris that they would like to bring Jade to us for the first of two mating meetups. I know! How very clinical, no romance amongst dogs it appears. 14th November the call came from Chris that Jade was in labour, and her first puppy “Jasper” had arrived. Chris called again the following day to announce that Jade had delivered 9 puppies in total, the last being a boy who was a little delayed and had arrived in the early hours of November 15th, and they had named him “Jake” after their son, who was also late for everything. We travelled down to visit the puppies a few days later, and Jade was a proper proud mum, fussing round her litter and trying to attract everyones attention to her little bundles of joy! Jasper was a brown brindle with black brindle stripes, Buster was jet black all over, and Jake was tiny with white feet, a white tip on his tail, and a white blazen chest. He sat shaking in my hand, so tiny that he would fit easily into the my palm. As the owners of the Sire it is traditional for us to have the pick of the litter, and the choice was all too easy, it was going to be Jake. I had always hoped and dreamed that one day circumstances would conspire for Boots to have puppies, and in my mind I had thought of calling it Gelert, or Gandalf ( mostly be cause of the Grey colouring ). Alison and I decided that Jake was a great name, and that it already carried a story with it, and that it maintained a connection between our two families, and so Jake was to be ours. At about that time Alison announced to me that she was pregnant with our first child, who was also conceived under the light of the big full moon of late summer.

The New Arrival

We collected Jake in the January of 2004,and our first daughter Rhiannon was born in the June of that year. The detailed stories of Jakes antics will come a little later, and there are some first class tales, “The Doe and Fawn”, “The Lizard and Penzance” and the “Robin and the Stag” are three that I will write down, and share in due course.

Jake was a character in our house, he ate a box of Rhiannons formula milk and it went through him like a dose of epsom salts. He spent the next 2 days drinking bowls of water, and wandering round the garden with his tail up squirting milk streams around the garden..

Whilst we were out at work he managed to jump up to the cooker and switch the gas on, fortunately when we came in we could smell it, and so we took great care to open the windows and doors to disperse it, and avert the imminent explosion that would have occured should there of been a spark.

Then there was the overdose incident, where Jake had managed to get hold of a box of 16 Ibruprofen tablets and ate them all. We had begun starting to wonder if had was depressed, perhaps with suicidal tendancies! We called the vet and were told to try to make him sick, and that if that was not successful then to bring him in and they could give him and injection to make him sick. No problem said I, and so I fed him a couple of slices of bread which he greedily wolfed down, and then took him into the garden with a litre of salty water in squeezable pop bottle. Popped the bottle in his mouth and filled him up, and what would know 10 minutes later Jake was once again wandering round the garden, but this projecting a stream of Salt water, white bread and ibruprofen into the flower beds.

These are just the tiniest sample of tales we could tell you about the tremendous joy, love, affection, fun and adventure that our family has had as we walked along the road of life with Jake.

The Last Full Moon

For the last few weeks, since Jake was no longer able to safely negotiate the stairs, he and I had been sleeping downstairs in the conservatory, with its starlit glass roof. The night of 12th December under the final big full moon that would shine on Jake, was the last night that we spent together. I made sure that I was at home and by his side.

Jake had become progressively less and less mobile. In the early phases we helped him up to his feet, and back down again. we bought a camping trolley, and fitted a dog bed in it so that we could trolley him round with us whenever he got tired, which of course had got sooner and sooner into our walks. However, Jakes back legs had completely failed, but the sun was shinning brightly in the garden and there was a wonderful breeze. So I picked him up and we went out into the garden, I took his nappy off and we stood together, as I supported him at the hips so that none of his weight was on his back legs. He stood looking into the garden, ears partially up ( although he’s been deaf for a while ) his nose sniffing the air, with his head swaying from side to side as he took in the view. It was one of those really special moments, that you take in because you know that the sands of time are running low.

Ed from city vets has good knowledge of Jake, having already used his excellent surgical skills to save Jake from a ruptured prostate absess a few years ago. So it was a comfort knowing that Ed was there with us as we said farewell to Jake as he turned his back on this life and stepped forth into the next.

A Broken Heart

We are heart broken and we will miss him so very much, and the pain and sorrow that we feel is overwhelming. It is however the cost of a family relationship that lasted 16 amazing years and brought us so much joy each and everyday.

God bless you Jake, we’ll meet you again on the otherside.