Bye Bye Benny

Alas, today after almost 16 years of happy doggy life, Mum's dog Benson passed away.

It was quite sad. The poor little thing had been going downhill for a time, having lost his teeth quite a while ago, and then slowly but surely losing his ability to get up and go - but he was a friendly, chirpy little thing. For the most part anyway - he did have a tendency to be a bit vicious when he didn't like being left in the house by himself for any length of time. He certainly was Mum's dog, following her absolutely everywhere - if she got up and left the room, so did he. He was never more than a few feet away from her.

I'll have to dig out my favourite video of him, which is he and Dad singing "How much is that doggy in the window?". He would get really wound up by Dad's incredibly elongated (and not necessarily tuneful) "hooooooooooooooowwwwww" that he would often start singing himself anyway just to shut Dad up. Never worked though.

Benny was not really a fan of me - not that he didn't like me, but for 11 years of his life I wasn't here, and he was much more into Mum anyway. But a year ago Mum and Dad went away to New Zealand or something, and rather than subject the poor little thing to a fortnight at the kennel (he never would have lasted, he hated the kennel), I agreed to go over and dog sit him. And after about 3-4 days he forgave me for being there, and started to be quite friendly. If there's one thing, he certainly did have a licky tongue.

I will dig out a better picture, but for now, here's a pic of Benny. RIP mate.