Innis My Guide Dog Is Dead, Long Live Innis.

Innis was my retired Guide Dog. I say was because we had to have him put to sleep the Wednesday just before the Christmas weekend. Firstly I feel I should explain his strange name. I didn’t choose it although I am not shore what I would have called him if I had chosen him a name. Most Guide Dog’s litters are named alphabetically. So all Innis’s brothers and sisters would have had names beginning with I. As you can imagine you have to get a bit inventive with some letters of the alphabet for names. I say most because if you sponsor a Guide Dog you sometimes get to name it. He was a huge, beautiful, black, and haired and to die for, pity me and feed me sad brown eyed Labrador retriever cross. Although there wasn’t much retriever in him since he would chase the cong (a kind of ball but more like a squashed traffic cone with holes in both ends) but would he retrieve it would he hell. I got him when was 2. This is the normal age that you get them. Usually you get to work with them until they are age 10. This doesn’t sound very old I know but you must remember from their biological point of view they are actually 70. I was very; very lucky I got to work Innis till he was 11. He was so fit they permitted me to do this. When the retire you have several choices. You can have them adopted. It was approximately 13 years ago when I was told this but then I was told that the waiting list for people ready to take retired guide dogs was so long they couldn’t accept any new foster parents. But any way there wasn’t a question of this. If I had sent Innis away something I wouldn’t have done any way Dad would have hung drawn and quartered me. I asked if Mum and Dad would adopt him because I was moving to a new home and hoped to get a new one and didn’t think I could cope with two guide Dogs. They bit my hand off. So they called me the morning of the Wednesday before Christmas and said that they thought I should get ready and Mum would pick me up since they were waiting for the Vet Innis has gone off his feet and they feared the worst. We all agreed with the Vet that we didn’t want him to suffer any more so he gave him an injection to put him into a sleep and then another to stop the heart. It was very sad and possible one of the worst decisions I have ever had to make but I believe that is was the best one. He is running through the endless fields and forests of the other world. Making lots of two and four legged friends and no doubt eating tons of food he wasn’t allowed in life. Mum came up the best idea of what to do with his ashes. There is a beach in Norfolk that he loved to run on so we will scatter them there don’t tell anyone will you they mite not approve. So yes it was hard loosing him but I believe he went to a good place. I also believe that as long as we keep his memory matrix alive he will be to.