Scout’s honour

Scout was Scout till the end: stubborn, contrary, doing things his way and driven as always by a lingering suspicion that I was up to no good. (In this case you could hardly blame him.) An accidental comedian till the end: he got up and walked out on his own death scene. For half an hour he romped and played and barked and bumbled about on his favourite corner of Port Melbourne beach, a patch of sand he has been to almost every day for the last four years. It was his first visit to the beach since he went blind — literally overnight a few days ago, a consequence of his debilitating six-month battle with the double whammy of diabetes and Cushings disease — but he was determined to make the most of it. He barked at the waves, a lifelong habit he acquired as a puppy in the apparent conviction that if he barked at them for long enough they would turn around and go back to where they came from. He braved the water up to his ankles but no further, as is his habit. He drank the salt water, years of experience having taught him that this would make him sick and so, why not? He had a wrestle, humped a leg and summoned the strength for a spot of tug-o-war. <a href="https://medium.com/@NeilMcMahon/scouts-honour-dde0802c9bb8">Website</a>