We lost our dog Dexter yesterday. He was the absolute cutest dog, a tiny thing who always gave off the air of ‘puppy’ despite his advanced age (he was 15 and a half when he died). Last summer he stayed with me and my partner in Dublin, and I wrote this tribute to him then. He will be so missed.
Dexter
Dexter has two teeth and terrible breath. He snores at night and when he wants something, really wants it, he makes these high-pitched, whiny noises that sound like a baby crying. He takes up too much room on the bed (because yes, I always allow him to sleep on the bed), even though he’s small. He dawdles terribly on walks.
But he’s the sort of dog that it’s hard not to love. For starters, he’s absolutely tiny, a Bichon Frise who must have been the smallest in his litter when my sister Steph got him many years ago. He’s 15, but people always refer to him as a ‘puppy’, because that’s how he looks and that’s the air he gives off.
Because of the aforementioned lack of teeth, his tongue permanently hangs like a little pink flag out of his mouth, which adds to the cute effect. Once, he was outside my house in his dog bed when a stranger passed by and exclaimed: ‘He’s like a little lamb!’. He was, on reflection, like a little lamb.
This cuteness balances out the fact that he can be incredibly annoying. His favourite things include wanting you to lift him onto the couch before deciding a second later he’d rather you put him on the floor, then repeating this 10 times in a row; barking his head off if you leave the room for more than a few minutes; and staring at you incessantly for no obvious reason. Visitors to our house know that his form of greeting is a heavy round of barking, as though you’ve disrupted his precious day with your appearance.
When you bring him on walks, he mostly ignores other dogs. Even the big dogs don’t really bother him. I’ve seen huge canines look incredibly frightened of Dexter, because he must project a doggy air of absolute authority, despite being so small I can scoop him up in one hand. That’s actually a handy thing to be able to do, because when you take him on walks he stops every two seconds to sniff what another dog has left on a pillar, or wall, in bushes and the middle of footpaths. His black button nose is constantly trying to sniff out something disgusting.
He’s not the type of dog to eat strange things, like shoes or remote controls, but Dexter’s one vice is chocolate. The unfortunate thing for him - and us - is that chocolate is deathly to dogs, so though he can sniff out a chocolate wrapper from feet away, he has to be kept far away from the illicit substance. A few times I found ripped-up wrappers for chocolates taken from the depths of my bag, and Dexter sitting nearby with a queasy yet satisfied look on his face. He must have a stomach of steel, because he not only survived, he still goes straight to any bag of mine when he sees me put it down, sure that there’s a bar of something inside for him.
Dexter and my stepdad Kieran had a strong and bafflingly intimate relationship for many years. Dex went everywhere with him, sat in the passenger seat of his car, next to him on the couch, and would stay in his arms even at dinnertime. My mum got barked at if she hugged Kieran in Dexter’s presence. You didn’t mess with Dex’s man.
‘Hello Scrunch!’ Kieran would shout as he arrived in the door, and Dexter would bound over with a disgusting small teddy clamped between his almost toothless gums. That Kieran might walk in the door multiple times a day didn’t matter to Dex; he was always treated as if he had been away on a decades-long adventure. When Steph, who lives abroad, comes home he always knows who she is, his original owner. He hops onto her shoulder so she can hold him like she did when he was a puppy.
A few months ago, my mum, with whom Dexter lives, noticed that he was doing some strange coughs in the morning, and had little episodes where he appeared to fall over. This was unusual for our little fella. Despite a bout of pancreatitis, he’s remained pretty hardy all his long life.
A scan at the vets brought us some news we weren’t expecting, including that he had lung fibrosis. Though he had a great quality of life, we were told his health would only continue to deteriorate. The vet didn’t realise we’d gotten similar news before in our family. For the few days after Dex’s diagnosis, we treated him gingerly, afraid that he would start to deteriorate rapidly now that we knew what was wrong.
But right now, Dexter is snoozing next to me as I write, and in a little while I’ll bring him for his first of multiple walks today. While my mum is on holiday, myself and my partner have been minding Dex, and our initial trepidatious belief that we would be caring for a sick, elderly dog has transformed into a delightful time minding a hilarious, loving, slightly annoying, energetic dog.
So far he’s defying his medical prognosis and acting just as he has for the past few years - like a completely confounding yet adorable creature.
I’ve often joked that Dex will outlast us all. How I wish that would be the case.
Sleep well Dexter, 2009 - 2025.
Oh Aoife, such a beautiful tribute to the lovely Dexter.
Oh that’s beautiful Aoife , Dexter really was the best.