HI THERE

To all Bunny’s friends over the years,

I’m sorry to bring you some sad news.

I came home on Friday to find Bunny looking very wobbly. She’d had a
little fit a few days before that and hadn’t quite returned to normal
since. By Saturday morning she could barely lift her head, couldn’t eat
or drink, and was finding it very hard to breathe.

We spent the weekend by her side, trying to keep her comfortable, cool
and hydrated, before finally deciding to do the merciful thing and let
her go on Sunday evening.

Although we’re very sad and miss her terribly, we are glad that she
didn’t have a very long period of debilitation and suffering (just last
Sunday she was running around exploring the sculture garden at Heide),
yet we had a little bit of time to prepare and say goodbye. We’re also
glad she got to have a pretty good innings – she was a few weeks shy of
fifteen.

Nursing her over the weekend gave us the chance to reflect on her
fifteen years of antics, as well as all the loyalty, love, companionship
and good humour she has given over the years. The fact that between us
we were there right from her conception and birth through to the end,
meant there was a lot to reminisce about.

We thought of the many times she had defied death - at least three very
close-calls, and several grey-hair producing stunts. (In fact Mum thinks
she actually did die once after eating a cane toad, but somehow
miraculously came back; her will to live probably coming from wanting to
have another go those pesky cane toads, as she later did). We’re very
grateful that she didn’t die prematurely on any of those occasions, but
peacefully at home at a pretty ripe age instead.

Still, it’s hard not to feel the loss at every turn, when she was a dog
who wanted to be involved in everything; be it cooking (for obvious
reasons), taking out the bins, gardening, standing by in the bathroom
while you had a shower, going with you to the toilet, heralding the
arrival of the postman, or dinner-time, or invading cats, or burglars,
or the presence of (usually phantom) mice in every nook and cranny,
going for rides on the bike or (joy!) in the car, going to picnics,
parties, concerts, shopping and, at the end of it all, going to bed
(definitely a favourite).

She was so good at quietly sitting in my handbag not making a peep, in
order to be snuck into various places or taken on the tram. It can’t
have been very comfortable, but she seemed to understand the game and
know that the pay-off of not being left at home was well worth it.

(Well, usually… There was the time I snuck her into a film screening at
the State Library in Brisbane. I couldn’t work out why she wouldn’t stay
still, until finally she got away and made her way across the front of
the cinema to where, it turned out, some very surprised friends were
sitting.)

Perhaps one of the hardest things is not having her greet us at the door
when we arrive home. But thankfully her four little cousins are trying
their hardest to make as much of a song and dance of it as they possibly
can, to try to make us feel better.

So, thank you all for your loving care and affection towards Bunny over
the years. She was definitely a people-person and greatly appreciated
every pat and cuddle you ever gave her, as well as your snacks and
scraps from the table, walks, minding while I was away or at work, or
anything else you did to care for her.

I have attached some photos to remember her by. I have tried to
represent different sides of her personality, from the sweet and gentle,
to the joyous adventurer exploring under the car seat on a hot day, to
the mischievous rubbish-bin rummager (she dressed herself in that
plastic-bag cape).

If you’re wondering what she's up to now, my nephew Sam has this to
offer (reports my brother Tom);

“When I told him "Well, Bunny's now happy in Doggy Heaven", this got Sam
interested in this as a research topic (much like his earlier theories
about dogs marrying without their human owners knowing) and he started
to hypothesize about what such a state of being might be like. "They'd
have non-stop bones, and holes to dig. And they could chase cats all the
time. But they'd be dummy cats, because the real cats would rather go to
Cat Heaven" ..."

Regards,
Liz
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