A 'doggy' tear-jerker from Japan

A very touching short film from Japan about a young girl called Mika and her dog Marimo:



- this did strike a chord with me as it will very soon be the first annniversary of the death of my own little dog Tara.
(thru Toby at Vividblurry)

'Tara' - Rest in Peace

Tara, my pet dog, had been in failing health for some considerable time and I took the painful decision this morning to have her 'put to sleep'. She did not quite reach her thirteenth birthday, but I think she had a pretty good life, marred only by the last few days when her health collapsed very rapidly. I shall miss her - she has been a good friend over the almost twelve years she has been with me. I was with her when she was euthanised and she went to sleep very peacefully; within 20 seconds of receiving the injection her body went limp, with a tranquil expression on her face, and less than half a minute later the vet was able to confirm that her heart had stopped. So at least I have the comfort of knowing that her final moments were peaceful and that she suffered no pain.

'Tara' 6 June 1994 - 2 May 2007 - Rest in Peace - Click here to read more about Tara.

It's not time!

I posted my Postal Votes pack today, having thought some more over the weekend about how to use my votes. I'm not going to reveal for whom, if anyone, I voted - except to reveal that I did not, ultimately, choose to vote for 'Alex Salmond for First Minister' (aka 'SNP'), nor indeed for the SNP candidate, in the Scottish Parliament 'List' or 'FPTP' votes respectively, despite what I wrote here. The 'hype' about the inevitability of the SNP triumphing on Thursday continues in the media, of course, but I wonder just how many hard-line traditional Labour voters are actually going to ditch a lifetime of voting for 'their' Party in favour of the SNP; I remain somewhat sceptical about this, although I accept that something does appear to be happening. As for the Local Government elections I have done what I usually do - I have cast my preference votes for candidates that I know personally.

I should really be out this evening in Inverness at a wine tasting (the first since my return from Spain), specially as it is one I much wished to attend (the topic is the Rheingau, Rheinhessen and Nahe). However, my little dog Tara is now a very elderly lady and is, I fear, not destined to be with me for very much longer as she has failed markedly in recent weeks and has become seriously unwell since my return to Nairn. I have another appointment with the vet on Wednesday following on from two last week (on Tuesday and Saturday) and based on what I am advised then may well decide that it is time to let her go 'to sleep' - she is now on a cocktail of drugs twice a day to keep her little heart pumping strongly and to take fluid from her lungs; it is pitiful to watch her decline even if, very fortunately, she is not in any pain, but simply getting weaker by the day, now finding great difficulty in supporting herself on her legs, particularly when she has been lying in her basket for any length of time - which she now does most of the day and night. Her bladder control is now almost non-existent and this must be troubling for her since she has always until recently been such a fastidious little creature about her personal cleanliness. In this blogger's life there are some things more important than mere politics, even for a political junkie like me and even during such a 'momentous' week for Scotland, and the UK, as this may prove to be, so I felt I could not in good conscience take myself off to taste wines when this may be one of the last evenings that Tara is with me.

On how to get a dog to pose for a photograph!

The weather has been good for the past couple of weeks so a few days ago I decided to go to a secluded and quiet beach near here - all I'll say is that it is a few kilometres west of Mazarron and Bolnuevo and is approached down a dirt track at the start of which a height barrier has thankfully been placed, so preventing the place being colonised by camper-vans. It was quite a breezy day, but the beach itself was perfectly sheltered and warm enough to sit on the beach in shorts or swimming costumes, although no-one (and certainly not me!) thought the sea was anywhere near warm enough yet to go in - give it a few months. This beach does not become crowded even in summer - there is a little café at the top of the hill behind the beach, approached only by a steep path, but apart from that it is not developed at all.

How to get Tara to pose? 13 March 2007 Answer: not easy! Tara explores around the edge of a rocky promontory ... and here is the almost perfect shot! Click here to see larger images.