I started to feel Jemimas end probably around the time that I realised that the effect of the surgery and the ongoing allergy issue on her feet led to shorter and ‘softer’ walks. I say ‘feel’ because I realised that she was slowing down but was still some way off being an old dog. She could still sprint of course but she would no longer charge around at top speed everywhere she went. Instead that mantle passed to Jesse who just loved being out in the open air. I suppose I had the realisation that she would someday not be there anymore and it scared me. I had leaned on her for comfort on so many occasions that the thought of my base ‘going away’ bothered me. It bothered me so much that I would skip walking her to give her feet chance to heal from any lameness even if it was only slight.

So soft walks became the order of the day. I started looking at maps of Elstead and tried to pick out rivers and ponds so that as an alternative to running about she could swim. I also worked out over a period of months that sometimes a slight lameness could be run off especially if she was going swimming. She would start out limping slightly but after a half hour swim she would lose the lameness. I even surmised that salt water would help so I would make the trek to a beach so she could run around, in and out of the sea, while the seawater worked it’s magic. I had often read about the racehorse Red Rum who had a hoof problem that was cured by training on Southport beach so I set out to take her to a beach whenever the lameness was really bad. She and Jesse both loved the beach so despite the long car journeys it was a pleasure especially when it came to the drive home. The two wet, hot, tired dogs would always pass out in the car and sleep all the way home. What I could never understand however was how Jemima would always wake and sit up as we turned into our road a hundred yards from the front door. How could she possibly have known how close to home we were even though she would be lying on the car seat snoring only moments before?

In effect I was managing Jemimas condition. I wanted to try to get the right balance between the need for exercise and the need to rest and recover. It often meant that she would be desperate to go out on walks but was left behind. I soon began to take her out separately into the field directly outside the house to appease her despite it not feeling like a ‘proper’ walk. All this and she was 5 years old.