Rest softly, my dear little girl

This morning when we woke up, little Sweetpea, the family’s favourite dog, was dead. She was still lying peacefully under Egg’s duvet. I doubt that she had any pain.

We have several pets – Nurr! the kitten, Rocky the minpin and Zuma the tortoise. But I think Sweetpea was everyone’s favourite. She wasn’t a pretty or bright little Boston terrier. Au contraire. But she was made of only three ingredients – five percent snoring, five percent flatulence and 90% love.

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Over the nine years we have had her, she survived a broken leg, breast cancer and several epileptic fits. Which made us believe that she would live forever.

Little Egg – it’s her birthday tomorrow – was in tears. But nobody was in as bad a state as Snapdragon. She went upstairs to make Egg’s bed and I only heard ear-splitting screams when she found Sweetpea’s body in the bed. She is devastated. Which is understandable – Sweetpea was officially her dog.

We reacted on an advert on the internet nine years ago and drove to Danville in Pretoria to buy a pup from a backyard breeder. I know people say you shouldn’t support backyard breeders, but Sweetpea and her siblings were there, living in conditions that aren’t suited for healthy animals.

They were fed pap, their breeder was the puppy world version of an anti-vaxxer and the entire litter was underfed and underloved.

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“Let’s take this one and give it a good home,” Snapdragon said. “The white and brindle one looks the most intelligent of the lot.”

She’s a cat person and it soon became evident that she’s a terrible judge of doggy intelligence.

But it was a great choice – over the years Sweetpea got spoilt rotten and paid us back in unconditional love and an abundance of doggy kisses. Yes, she wasn’t obedient. She was a born rebel who often sneaked out of the house to terrorise the neighbours and pick fights with other dogs through garden gates.

I can’t count all the times I had to drag a barking Sweetpea from someone’s gate, her muscular little butt quivering with excitement. But even at those times she was a joy.

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Over my many summers, I have owned several dogs. And I will probably get another. But little Sweetpea will always hold a very special place in my heart.

Rest softly, my dear little girl.