A friend of mine had to have her dog put down on Monday. Dogs, I think, are harder to lose than cats, but I’ve never really lost a cat, so it’s hard to imagine. Spookily, though, the one dog I ever owned, Mickey, was put down following a series of heart attacks and general maladies of old age, on 19th December 1985. Sometimes dates just stick in my head. My friend Candy and I had made my dad take us to Nottingham the night before to watch a concert. I’d been told to take Mickey for a walk before we set out, and he clearly didn’t want to go, but dad’s good grace was conditional on Mickey getting his walk, so I half dragged and half carried him down to the stretch of wasteland just before the beach, cursing him for being so bloody heavy.

In the morning, after the concert, he was lying in the sunroom, barely moving. My big old Mickey-dog, untidy great collie-cross mongrel with a stupid grin on his face, who had been in my life for longer than my brother. He always had terrible halitosis and weepy eyes, and matted fur under his chin, but he was still beautiful. The only time in my entire childhood when I approved of mum smoking was the time when they used a cigarette to burn off a tick that had attached itself to his silly pointy muzzle. I have a funny picture of him sitting on the gravel of my aunt’s house in Grasmere, with a pair of gold deely-boppers on his head. I reckon Mickey was the only member of the family to like living in Armpit; he loved the beach, he liked to roll in dead fish. One hot summer in Filey, he drank his own body weight in seawater, and then was so thirsty he drank about three times as much fresh water, as a result of which he had no control over his bladder and was sent for a walk on his own, because nobody would accompany the mutt that peed all the way down the street.

I notice that all my memories of Mickey are essentially revolting (ticks, dead fish, weeing copiously); but he was still the only dog I will ever live with. I claim now not to like dogs, but Mickey was a member of the family, so he’s excepted. When I knew he was dying I sat on the floor with his head on my lap and cried and cried. That was such a shitty christmas for so many reasons, and losing Mickey wasn’t the worst, but it did all come flooding back when my friend told me about losing her dog, so I’m sending lots of online sympathy to her and her daughter. Chocolate helps, and time heals.