Today we lost our Barney. 14 years ago my wife and I came home from honeymoon and having never lived in a house without a dog (my mother and sister owned the family dogs) I went out and bought Barney. A wee Cairn terrier who was the smallest in his litter and last to leave his mum. He was an amazing wee dog who had an incredibly way of making you laugh when you where sad and comforting you when you where down.
Our Barney as a pup – one toy was never enough!
He loved to dig and one of our funniest moments was finding him digging between to closely placed sheds. I couldn’t reach him and thought it best to try and crawl up the gap to get him and in the process getting myself stuck. My wife was in stitches at the two of us. I loved the way he never left your side and if my wife and I were in different rooms he would lie patiently in the hall exactly half way between us. I’ll miss his never say die attitude as seen yesterday even in the midst of what was a very dark day for him. Yesterday as he struggled to walk and in a very weak state he thought it only proper to find the effort to go out to the garden to tell our neighbour off for cutting his grass, funny to the last. I’ll miss the welcome he kept for me each and every morning, at the expense of other house members and most of all I’ll miss him beside me on the sofa. Over the last year or two he had grown to like placing himself as tightly as he could between my leg and the arm of the sofa. We think he loved the heat of it but Barney being Barney when he was too warm he kicked you until you moved a little away from him and when he was too cold he would stare at you until you closed the gap and moved closer.
Over the years our family has had many dogs. Since I’ve been about we’ve had Airedales (I was so young they are hard to remember), Boxers, Poodles, Westies, Yorkies, and Labs and by far the biggest personality and the most fun to be with was Barney.
Barney it was a privilege to know ya, we’ll sorely miss ya, rest in peace.
Ocean Blue 