This is the column I never wanted to write. Here goes.
Saturday 16 May, 3am. I woke up, all was silent. And then I heard a yelp from Mini downstairs. She has never made that sound before.
‘All right, Mini?’ I swapped her dog bed for a clean one, then grasped her harness straps: no longer able to stand alone, that’s her cue to scrabble up. This time, nothing. I sat with her. Eventually, she slept, but I noticed her breath was gurgling in her black-and-white chest. At 5.30am, I texted Nic: ‘Mini let out a horrible sound. She’s had a biscuit. I can’t leave her.’
By 7.43am, I had hand-fed Mini warm organic chicken. By half ten, she still hadn’t got up, but then she let out a ‘woo’: my signal to run to her.
I managed to lift her, but she leaned, as though drunk, against a wall before going down. She then made a weird shape, like a comma, her snowy front paws contracting, clenching. I called the emergency vet. She said she would be with me in 35 minutes. It was both the longest and shortest half an hour of my life.
The vet came in, telling Mini that she’s the oldest – she would be 20 in July – collie she has ever treated. She listened to her heart. Mini’s blood pressure was low, and there was water around her lungs.
‘What do you want to do?’
I want Mini to live forever. She has been with me through everything: losing my house, moving, renting. She was dumped at my farm in Somerset and turned out to be the naughtiest dog I’ve ever met. She would chase tractors, birds, planes. I once put a tracker on her for a feature (she must be the most photographed dog in the world) and it turned out she regularly crossed the river at the bottom of my lawn before taking off at 40mph.
The only blip came in 2023. A routine dental check uncovered a tumour in her throat, and further scans found a tumour on her spleen: even though she’s insured, I still had to find £24,000. She recovered, but her world has gradually grown smaller: no more zig-zagging on the moor, no more visits to the stables. She could no longer climb on to my bed, then she couldn’t manage the stairs, get on the sofa or even step into the garden.
When the vet arrived, Mini gave a watery wag with her poor, raggedy tail: it had been shaved for hygiene reasons. Mini loves everyone: if she saw a person in the distance, she would wiggle. You could leave Mini with a newborn and trust her 100 per cent (unlike Pissy Missy, who if she spots a pram gets a glint in her eye). I never once told her off, and if I ever yelled at the other dogs to please stop barking, I would always whisper the proviso: ‘Not you, Mini.’
So, when the vet asked me what I wanted to do, I mumbled, as though a contestant on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, ‘Can I phone a friend?’
I called Nic but was gulping so much the vet took over. Nic, who has known Mini since the day she arrived, was gulping too. I had to make the decision. Mini was already on a cocktail of drugs, monthly pain-relief injections, supplements, beef from M&S. Her eyes seemed sunken.
She had been there for me (though she developed a fear of mobile phones, hiding if anyone called: a relic from me being made bankrupt, when even my own lawyers would threaten me and I’d be in tears, begging), so I had to be there for her.
She was given two doses of sedation. When the vet shaved her little arms so she could administer the lethal dose of anaesthetic, she didn’t flinch or notice. The vet tried repeatedly to find a vein, but it was no use: she would have to inject Mini in her chest.
As the yellow liquid went in, I held Mini’s velvet ears, telling her she was so brave. Her body vibrated: this was the drug taking effect, reaching her heart and her clever brain (Mini knew that I’m deaf, fetching me if anyone came to the door).
‘She’s gone.’
‘Are you sure?’ When I was little, my rabbit was put to sleep, but I wasn’t allowed to see her. I grew up terrified she’d been sold to a vivisectionist.
‘I’m positive.’
I kissed my Mini. I must have said her name hundreds of times a day: ‘You OK, Mini?’ My life revolved around her. She was always cheerful, warm. Now she was starting to grow cold.
Today is my first without Mini. I keep going to check her, only to find she’s not there. I can’t believe the worst has happened to my little girl.
Not you, Mini.
