Photo by Myles the Petsitter, taken on Black’s 14th Birthday – 15 July 2025

I learned from my fellow coach-friend Conny that today is International Dog Day. Seriously. I never knew there was such a thing, but I looked it up, to check — and to not believe everything people write — and it turns out that yes, indeed, today is a day for celebrating our dogs even more.

I’ve been wanting to write a piece about Julia, and her recent Deathiversary, and how this year — again — was different. But Julia can wait. That’s the funny-not-funny thing about dead people: they can wait. But Black the dog, no — he cannot.

Black is now 14, which is pretty old for a doggo, even for a mongrel like him. And he’s been so utterly remarkable. He gets pretty good coverage in my book (currently being edited – slowly) — lots of accolades for being a steady presence in my life as too many two-legged loved ones were disappearing. However much I love my dog, I’d rather have kept the two-legged loved ones, given the choice. But there wasn’t a choice. And so I’m grateful to have been able to keep Black this long.

Some time back, when preparing to be a podcast guest, I saw that one of the questions the host might ask was, “What do you wish you had known as you started your grief journey?” I wasn’t asked the question in the end, so I didn’t have the opportunity to share my answer, but here it is:
“That someone could have told me, ‘Emma — you won’t lose your dog yet. You won’t lose your parents yet. No more big, close-in losses for at least a few years.’”

That’s what I wish I had known.

Not that I’m ready to lose Black or my parents or someone else close-in — because you can never really be ready. But that I was given a few years’ grace, that Black has lasted these past years and been a steady companion in my broken mosaic world — that’s been solid ground for me.

He’s an old dog now. There are calculators to work out a dog’s age in human terms, but they’re geared towards posh breeds, and since Black is a mutt, a Bitsa (bits of this, bits of that, as Amaryllis my former cello teacher called him), a Heinz 57 varieties as Mike used to say, I don’t really know. But let’s just say he’s knocking on 90 in human terms.

He is very deaf, has had cataracts for a while, has arthritis, and can no longer jump into the boot of the car. Instead, he sits behind me when I take him somewhere. And now he only has one eye. Yes, he is Black the one-eyed pirate dog.

When I came back from holiday about a month ago, my pet sitter said he’d noticed some pinkness in the white of one of Black’s eyes. I’m not sure I would even have noticed — the white of the eye in my dog, at least, isn’t so visible. Black’s beautiful amber-brown iris takes up most of his eye socket space. But pink it was, so the day after I got home, I took him to the vet — mostly to put my mind at ease.

The vet was a very young woman (they all seem to be, at least where I live), and she took a good 20 minutes with him, checking this and that. I figured she was freshly minted and wanted to be thorough. A bit like getting a haircut with a trainee hairdresser — they take forever, but they’re more careful than the qualified ones.

Eventually, she said, “It could be nothing more than a scratch… or it could be a tumour. You need to take him to a dog ophthalmologist. As soon as possible. I don’t like that the pressure in his eye is so high. He’s probably in pain.”

The next day he saw the specialist, who confirmed that Black was already blind in that eye and that there was a tumour present. The necessary intervention was to remove his eye. Would we like a fake one for aesthetic purposes? No. That answer was simple.

So the last few weeks, Black has been knocking into everything and suffering in the extraordinary heat due to wearing his cone — to stop him from scratching out the stitches, or worse. He looked pretty awful, really. I’ll spare you the details, but he got a good bit of love from people who came to visit.

Now the cone is off, and he’s full of beans again. Happy to race to the gate and bark anytime the post van comes. Calling out for food the moment the church bells ring at 5 o’clock (I swear he can count).

Black is back. I am grateful. I love my doggo so much. I doubt he’ll be around for next year’s International Dog Day, and who knows when I’ll get my book out. So here, at least, I honour my amazing dog.

One-Eyed Black today

Thank you, Black, for your companionship, comfort, affection, presence, loyalty, stability, and love. You are joy and wisdom and mischief wrapped up in fur. You’ve never judged or complicated things. You’ve just been — steady and soft and reliable. I am so grateful you’ve lasted — healthily — this long.

You carry memories of our full family of five + au pairs, and so much more will disintegrate when you die. But we’ve made myriad memories over a lifetime that’s nearly as long as Julia’s.

Thank you for hanging in there.

I love you.