Posted on behalf of Diana (via email)
Five years ago a Many Tears cocker, Irene, appeared on the Rescue section of cockersonline. I was the lucky one who adopted her, and renamed her Daisy. Once her true character emerged she was known affectionately as Dippy Daisy - always doing the unpredictable, always up to mischief. DD would scramble up the rocks on the beach, spending ages trying to unlatch limpets from them; she'd dive headlong into interesting bundles of flotsam, disregarding the incoming tide and end up surfing back on a wave. Dippy Daisy went to the woods everyday - never at heel for long. 'Where's DD gone?' said automatically every five minutes. Sometimes she'd be found in bushes, with her head peeping out from an eiderdown of feathers, more often she'd be racing after squirrels. There was another side to Dippy Daisy: She loved being groomed, and took great comfort from being touched. Her puppy farm days were long gone, the only reminder being the mad circling each time there was food on offer. Even when the frequency of her seizures increased, DD would bounce back and carry on as 'normal'. She had an episode of severe pain and was found to have a large, ulcerated pancreatic tumour; the tumour was spreading. Too much for her little body to endure, my Dippy Daisy was set free in June.
The house is so quiet without her; our wood walks are too sedate.
I am so lucky to have been 'the one' Daisy was with when she learnt how to be a real cocker spaniel.
I miss her.
