The year of the Captain

2013 will be, for us, the year of the dog, or the beagle perhaps. More precisely, the year of the Captain.

Those who know me on social media will have seen the news of Captain's death last week. I just wanted to include it in this space, where I celebrated his introduction to our family in January, as well as how great it was having him as part of our crew. He often featured in my Instagram feed, as well as in my APPA award winning portrait of Ash as a pirate.

At 11 months old, just over 9 months since we got him, and while Ben and I were on our first weekend away without kids (since having kids), Captain got out of the yard on Monday morning of last week, and was hit by a car at the end of our road. He died instantly (as far as we can tell).
 
The 4WD who killed him didn't stop, but the person behind them did, and kindly tried to find his owner. A neighbour not far up the road and the witness of the accident together came to our door, where my poor sister answered it to such tragic news. They carried him up to our house, and I later asked a dear friend to pick him up and take his body to the vet for us.

There is a lot of frustration about how he got out - it's a long story, but the damaged fence wasn't our fault - but the truth is that he always was an escape artist of the highest order, as beagles tend to be. He was strong, and very fast, determined, curious and super excited pretty much all of the time. I had just the week before bought a second, different dog harness to try and improve our dog-walking training! He ate anything and everything, and looked super cute curled up in his little kitchen nook, snoring away.

I miss him. We all do. It's really weird being able to leave gates open, or food on the kitchen table unattended. I guess that will all become normal again. Until next time. But, of course, and as Sienna has been saying as she asks when she can get another dog -

"Nothing will replace Captain!"