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Name: | REX |
| Born: | 1993 | |
| Died: | 2005 | |
| Species: | Dog | |
| Gender: | Male |
My Story
Rex Robertson; What a dog!!
How can I do this justice? Maniac just doesn’t cut it.
When Rex was a few months old we were down on the beach. Rex was running up and down from the grass to the beach and back. Suddenly two dogs ran out of nowhere and attacked him at the same time. While I ran in a blind panic towards the dogs to grab Rex I distinctly remember seeing the look of pure joy on his face as he snapped and leapt and bit, before to his immense disappointment I dragged him away craning his neck to see behind him. For the rest of his life he showed no interest in bitches at all and unless he was properly introduced, tried to kill every male dog he met.
Rex was a Kerry Blue, a dog bred in Ireland to catch rats and kill badgers and the like; and Rex was a Kerry Blue to the centre of his soul.
My daughter would hear us saying ‘Good Boy’, and so she just called him ‘Boy’ and so did we a lot of the time. His registered name was Sapphire Prince but of course we never used that.
They say Kerry Blues are very defensive of the family members and that is true. I can assure you that if anyone ever broke into our house they may have got in, but they would not have left in one piece. I once returned after a three week absence, and without properly stopping to say hello to Rex, reached out for my daughter, the next thing I knew I was pinned to the floor by a 24lb Kerry Blue .
My daughter has special needs and when she would get in a bad mood she would often kick Rex and then Rex would snap at her toes leaving little red marks; and at the same time they were inseparable. He was around for most of her life and was an important part of it. Most of the time she would watch her video’s with the dog sitting on her foot. Wherever she went, Rex traipsed along behind. Want to call social services yet? Okay let me tell a little about his more sensitive side then, because he did have one.
I couldn’t go anywhere without Rex. Where I went, there was the dog. It broke his heart to be left behind and I couldn’t do it. We would often be found trailing along the beach, (Both of us looking for signs of other male dogs but for opposite reasons), or driving through town with Rex battering against the windows trying to get at dogs on the street. My car would sound like wow wow wow WOW WOW WOW wow wow wow as it passed by. Sometimes he barked at cows thinking they were dogs but closer than they actually were.
Rex had ‘Rabbit Blindness’ I’ve seen him almost trip over a rabbit and still not see it. I would shout ‘There! There is! There it goes! There’s the rabbit!’ And off he would race in the completely wrong direction as I fell about laughing. It gave him a real buzz trying though and lots of extra exercise.
We would go along the beach past the Wemyss Caves where no-one bothered us and then up through the old graveyard and home. We would often trail along there in appalling weather and then get into trouble for bringing mud and sand into the house. We always enjoyed it; it was a part of our life. I haven’t been along there since he died. I’ve got no reason to go.
Oh yes, I was talking about the softer side of Rex. Amy once dropped a bit of sausage she was eating and Rex snapped it up. In a quiet voice, I said’ Rex that wasn’t yours you know. You shouldn’t have eaten that.’ He walked across the room, opened his mouth, dropped the sausage at my feet and slowly walked out of the room.
When we got ducks I got hold of Rex and said, ‘Rex, I don’t want you to eat the ducks.’ I only said it once but he never did touch them. Admittedly he would ‘cruise’ the garden sometimes stalking them under the bushes but he never ate any. He certainly wanted to and it must have taken some willpower.
We also had a cat called Holly. They'd lived together all Rex's life so he didn't bother her, (apart from occasionally sniffing her bum. DON'T DO THAT!!!'), but one day she was sitting on my knee and I put a red cravat around her neck. I wasn't paying much attention to her but when she jumped down off my knee Rex, who now didn't recognise her with the cravat on, chased her through the house and down the garden.
We used to play ‘The Slipper Game’; I used to whack him around the head with a slipper and he would try to grab it off me. The game would go on for a while and then suddenly I would put the slipper on my foot. To Rex the slipper had disappeared, he couldn’t see it while it was on my foot. It was completely gone- he couldn’t see it any more. Then I would slip it off again and start whacking him and it was as if it had suddenly appeared out of thin air.
Rex was a total softie when it came to my wife. (Six months after he died she got ill with a viral infection and she felt him jump up on the bed and lie down beside her!!)
A while back she took him a walk through the graveyard and stopped to look over a three foot wall out to the sea beyond. She was musing at the seascape when Rex for no logical reason decided to leap over the wall. Of course it was a forty foot drop on the other side and he totally disappeared down into the trees below. She shouted ‘Stay there!’ and ran in a panic to get me. He was a good Boy and he was still there looking up when I arrived. I had to go down and hack my way through masses of brambles to get him out.
Another time when my wife came home he didn’t bark, which he always did. He would ritually bark and run around the kitchen in excitement when we came home. But not this time; he was dead silent. when she looked closer she could see a thin white line along the edge of his mouth. Then she discovered that he’s eaten a packet of wallpaper paste and glued his mouth shut; he gazed silently up at her with his big brown Orang-utan eyes. Another trip to the Vet. When we went in they would grin and say 'Well; what's he been up to now?'
I could go on. Nothing Rex ever did was small or normal or boring. He was Rex, The Boy, and he tried so hard and we loved him very much. Now he’s gone and I have no reason to go along the beach, my wife has lost her brave defender and goodness knows where Amy thinks he is. She must miss her wacky kick -nip relationship with The Boy, they were never apart for as long as she can remember.
Rex wherever you are I hope the rabbits are bright yellow, the landscape is vast and they serve crabsticks en-croute for lunch. We miss you, and your spirit will live on.
Bruce, Marion and Ames.
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