With the passing of Topsy it really is a Black Friday

        There are dog people and there are others, right?! Some people just don’t get what the fuss is all about. It’s fair enough. There are cat people, too. There are reptile people. There are people who keep scorpions and stick insects as pets. I wonder if they grieve as much for their deceased scorpion or stick insect as I have this week for the loss of Topsy. She was eleven years old. I’d known her since she was a tiny puppy. My mother, Kate, living in the south of Spain, took her from a friend who had taken in a little stray dog which had subsequently given birth to ten pups. Initially rejected by someone else for not being “pretty enough” my mother and Topsy “found” each other and it was, I suspect, love at first sight. Certainly devotion at first sight from this little pup who would be named Topsy. A vibe that can’t be explained. It just is. Ex-pats in Spain understandably get a bad rap at times, but we forget the work some of them do in saving and re-homing stray dogs. Granted, it’s not generally the ones with skin like lobsters who drink beer or scotch for breakfast who are doing the good work. In any case, it’s an entire industry of benevolence, but I digress. She was a tiny, little, black bundle of fur. A mix of Lurcher and Spanish hunting dog, she grew up quickly and was, until relatively recently, a true athlete. Fast and agile. But she was first and foremost a great personality. Cheeky, intelligent, sneaky at times, especially when it came to food or the sofa, fun loving, low maintenance and utterly devoted and giving. Her vibe calmed the room.

            My first real memory of her is of around ten years ago, when spending some time in Sotogrande, Spain, as I was, I returned to the house to find her hanging helpless, upside down by one leg on some wire. I don’t what she’d done but my mobile phone was broken, there were magazines, knitting needles and cushions scattered everywhere (it wasn’t my house, it was Kates). This is no ordinary dog, I remember thinking. Slightly insane perhaps, but one of a kind. I think she grew into herself. That early madness and boisterous energy seems like a long time ago.  Christmas of 2010, I was going out to spend a week on my own with her at the family Finca in the mountains. I missed my flight and couldn't get another. Topsy had to spend a week on her own in her kennel outside, in the wind and rain. Someone fed her but she was alone. That was my first memory of being aware of loving this dog. I was worried, upset and angry with myself. She had also just lost her friend,

our other dog, Honey in horrific circumstances, a month before. I guessed she would be fine, just a bit lonely and cold for a week, but it was a terrible feeling. She brought that emotion out in me, as dogs do. A maturation, if you like.

            She came to London in 2015 - via an unorthodox route, including being pointlessly quarantined in Calais, due to the incompetent and twisted machinations of the shameless spiv who had been paid to bring her over – to be with Kate who was living in London at the time. She spent the summer here. She adapted perfectly, charming everyone she met; people in the street, in the pub, in the school where Kate worked, with my young nephew who would walk her.

            In the last year, tragically, she’d been very ill at times. Emaciated, with tumours eating away at her, the prognosis was very poor but with the help of a pioneering treatment called Bicom Bioresonance - which I can’t claim to understand but I intend to try – and her indomitable spirit she lived longer and better - and without pain killers - than anyone, vets included, had imagined. One more anecdote sums up her spirit. Back in the summer, Kate was driving back, late at night to the village. Coming up the hill she was confronted by a pair of eyes. Those eyes accompanied her, alongside the car back up the hill to to the house. The eyes belonged to Topsy, who on hearing the car’s engine had jumped down the ten-foot high garden wall and made her way towards the car to welcome her back. All this while at death’s door. A truly extraordinary spirit. A lesson in giving unconditional love and joy. I hope if her soul goes somewhere it goes into a future powerful politician or the like. That strength and spirit should not be wasted. The world is in dire need of more of those vibes. She was more than just a dog, more than just a little scruffy mutt. She was Topsy. I’ll stop now, my glasses are steaming up.