This dog will roam no more

I was going to write about, well, it doesn't matter what I was going to write about. My dog died. His name was Baz. He was six years old.

For the first time in 20 or so years I woke last Wednesday as a man with no dog. I did not know what to do. For 20 years I have got up and patted and talked to a dog or dogs. Then I have fired up the coffee machine, gone with the dog to fetch the paper, drunk the coffee, smoked a cigarette, gone to the toilet with the paper, then dressed and taken the dog out, or the dogs.
Whatever the season, whatever the weather, we have gone to the hills or the beach for a scamper and it has felt right.

Last Wednesday morning. I made coffee and fetched the paper and went to the toilet and then, well, nothing. Emptiness stood before me. It was like looking down the throat of a huge fish. I thought of going for a walk anyway, but I couldn't see the point. I don't walk for me. I walk for the dogs. It's my gift to them.

Now I have the gift of freedom. Freedom from buying dog food, from pulling on gumboots at seven in the morning, from making arrangements when I go away. But it's a gift I don't want. Freedom feels like imprisonment. In a vacuum of self.

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