Last updated at 13:09, Monday, 07 December 2009

I AM sad to report that the Hextol Hound appears to be literally on her last legs.

The ancient alsatian has become a victim of the curse of her breed – arthritis in the back legs.

The majestic gait which won her a red rosette at Elsdon Fete some years ago has become a painful shuffle, as she shambles along like some sway-backed cayuse from a 1950s Western.

She still attempts to chase cats and rabbits, but while the front legs are willing, the back legs simply refuse to co-operate, and she ends up in a puzzled heap on the floor.

We have of late been spending much time looking after number one son’s German Shepherd puppy, which is at the all legs and ears stage of gangling awkwardness.

The pup, when not having regular incontinence issues, regards the creaking canine occupant of the house as her very own plaything and cannot understand why the old girl doesn’t want to participate.

She bites her ears, sits on her head, pulls her tail, swings on her collar, and pulls out great chunks of body hair while the senior citizen looks piteously at me, imploring me to rid her of this turbulent pest.

There was a time when she would have simply swatted the youngster away with one bat of a frying pan sized forepaw, but in her dotage she simply can’t be bothered.

Every morning, I take her for her morning constitutional along a lovely little path where stoats bolt, grasshoppers hop and there are 1,001 interesting smells which a dog can snuffle up to her heart’s content.

There are impenetrable brambles to penetrate, rabbit burrows to endeavour to squeeze into and puddles to splash joyously through.

Most of all, there are sticks – lots of sticks – to be ferreted out of undergrowth and dragged home.

Now there are those who say that dogs should never be allowed to chase sticks, in case they become lodged in the throat or damage delicate membranes.

Try telling that to a bright-eyed jougal who has dropped half a tree at your feet, and insists that you throw it as far away as possible for her to bring back again.

Sometimes, I would hurl her stick/ball/rubber ring down a steep precipice, into the heart of a veritable jungle of interlocking brambles, sticky willie, rose bay willow herb and nettles, where there could well be a band of Japanese soldiers waiting for news that the war was over.

Without hesitation, she would launch herself after it, and I could rest on a rustic bench, watching the golfers hacking hopefully away on the other side of the valley.

There would be growls and yelps, and the undergrowth would thrash extravagantly, before the dog would always emerge triumphant, with the stick clasped firmly in her jaws.

Bristling with assorted twigs and greenery, she would then drop it at my feet, and defy me to give her a more testing challenge next time.

Never was there a dog so keen to fetch, as I almost found to both our costs when we were walking by the North Tyne after heavy rain.

Absent mindedly, I picked up a small log, and hurled it into the raging waters – and to my horror there was a black blur in my peripheral vision, and the dog went in after it . . .

Sick with horror, I watched as she was whisked round a bend in the river like a cork – but as I prepared my eulogy for Mrs Hextol, the dog came jogging nonchalantly back along the footpath, with the log clamped firmly betwixt her teeth.

She then dropped it beside the water’s edge, poised to plunge back into the foaming torrent all over again.

Now, if I gently lob a ball five yards in front of her, the poor old soul simply looks the other way.

She had several teeth out last year, so can only suck her Bonios, and to add to her woes she has also become profoundly deaf.

The ears that could once hear the susurration of a Kit Kat being unwrapped three rooms away now only respond to a two-fingers-in-the-mouth whistle from two yards away.

Mrs Hextol and I have been wondering why she has taken to staring intently at us for long periods, and have deduced she is lip-reading.

Happily, she’s not bound for the knacker’s yard. There’s still life in the old dog yet – just!

First published at 09:38, Friday, 04 December 2009
Published by http://www.hexhamcourant.co.uk