Nelly

Otherwise known as Nell. Or Nelza. Or Nelly Welly, Nell Bell, Smelly Nelly ... even Nelectrolux (when she was a puppy and literally vacuumed up everything in sight). I am writing about our beautiful black (and grey!) Labrador-mix dog, who we bid a teary farewell to this morning.

Nelly came to us in 2003, when she was six months old. She was a giveaway – unwanted by her previous owner after outgrowing the ‘cute puppy’ stage. I had been thinking about getting a dog for the kids so I took them with me to meet her. We all fell for her immediately; then we just had to convince the Caveman (he’s not so much of a dog lover). He came with us that afternoon to meet her and, as soon as she saw us, she made a beeline for him. It was like she already knew she had me and the kids ‘sold’ on her and it was just him she had to convince. It worked. He melted and we took her home with us then. She already had the name Nelly, so we kept it - it saved us trying to come up with a name we could all agree on.

There were some issues over the years … if she got out of the yard she could follow her nose a very long way. Nelly was a wanderer. I lost count of the times we would come outside in the morning to find she’d broken out and vanished. We could only wait, and sure enough, our intrepid explorer would appear at the top of the driveway a little while later feeling very satisfied with her morning run. She would race back toward us with her ears and tongue flapping in the breeze, the happiest expression on her face, wondering why we were all annoyed with her. She wore an expression that said, ’Hey there family, here I am!’, as if she just expected that she would be loved, no matter what she did. In fact, that was the same expression she greeted us with every morning for most of her life.

 

Like most Labs, she was a vocal dog too. Yes, she barked more than she should have and it was a bad habit we never got under control to the extent that we would have liked. But she was vocal in another way, which was designed to get our attention. She would make a long ‘wrooo-wrooo’ sound, almost like a doggy version of 'hello', at us, or to ask for more pats. It was effective – she usually got her pats and we would ‘wrooo-wrooo’ right back at her.

Nelly adored our kids from day one. She always loved running around with them in the backyard, curling up with them for cuddles, going for walks - usually her walking them more than they walked her. She worried over them if she thought they were doing something she considered dangerous, like swimming. Nelly hated the water, so she never understood why the kids would choose to go into it. She would actually whine and paw at me to get them out again! Of course, she got better about it as she got older, but she still worried. It’s not surprising she started going grey at an early age.

She enjoyed good health for most of her life, despite her habit of chewing absolutely everything when she was younger. We lost shoes, books, toys … even the arm of a lounge chair! Eventually she learned that sticks and dog treats were allowed, but nothing else. We also had to watch her sweet tooth; the kids were taught very early about the importance of not giving Nelly any chocolate or other sugary snacks. She had to be tied up if we were having a birthday party – we learned this lesson when one of the kids had a party where they had to burst a piñata. When the lollies hit the ground Nelly was right in there with all the kids, grabbing her share and swallowing them, wrappers and all! 

When a cancerous growth appeared 5 months ago (a recurrence, where a previous one had been removed a year earlier), we decided to let nature take its course and just love her for the time she had left. In the past few weeks though, we'd been noticing signs of her discomfort, and realised yesterday that it was time for that final trip to the Vet.

She was with us for 11 years, and we would have liked a lot longer, but we know we gave her a happy life for the time we did have. We had no false expectations at the end; saying goodbye was every bit as hard as we expected it to be, with floods of tears from everyone. 

We have lots of happy memories of our beautiful Nelly, but the most precious memory is knowing that she loved us with all she had to give. She may not have been a perfect dog, but she was the best dog for us.