Sasha

This blog entry is years / months in the making...

She came into my life, a fathers day gift.  Collected from a "breeder" in Essex which was later realised to be a puppy mill.

I remember when two puppy labradors were brought out, the guy was wearing a hoodie and she was trying to attack the cords that went through the hood part of it. When he put them onto the floor, she approached me.  I found a twig or stick and threw it. She ran after it and brought it back to me. I was sold right there and then.  She was to be named "Sasha". Born on April 1st, well that should be an easy date to remember.

Having this amazing lady labrador which everybody loved. She was easily led astray by her friends, digging holes (the jack russell would always start and then she would join in seconds later). Fighting a tree, for a stick (technically still a branch).

She was an amazing constant, through divorce, different roles in my career. She didn't care what I earned, or what I could give, she was just there, choosing me every single time even if I felt that I didn't deserve it.

On walks, I would dread her doing a stop, drop and roll. For humans that happens when on fire (according to those videos) but for Sasha, it meant she had found something "unpleasant" to roll in. On one walk where she did it, for a few seconds she vanished into the tall grass, when she came back up, she looked like Schwarzenegger towards the end of Predator when he realises how to hide himself from it. What is it with her and cow pats!? There was no way I was letting her back in the car smelling like a sewage plant and covered in shit. Fortunately, the friend I was with knew there was a stream in this country park we were in, so  I took advantage of Sasha's love for water, kept on throwing a stick into it which she happily went to retrieve until she was relatively clear.

Her spinal injury never slowed her down too much, I admired her and it was then I was starting to compare her mentality or attitude with that of a human, how some would regress into themselves, but Sasha just lived in the moment and was grateful for, well, just everything.

Losing her, I'll never forget that final day. Who gave me that right to end the life of something so good? The sayings I was seeing were like "Rather a week too early than a day too late". I dont want to focus on that final day with Sasha but I was living in granular time. I slept downstairs with her, I never left her side. I lived that Aerosmith song "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing". 

When I knew it was her last day, I became sad, angry. I told a guy at work and he said he'd take care of everything for me. I shut down my laptop because it was a massive sense of clarity that came over me, work didn't matter, it wasn't important at that point. There was no emergency that would have stopped me from walking away at that point. I was not going to spend a single second longer in front of my computer on Sasha's final 24 hours.

I'm not going to go into the nitty-gritty of those final 24 hours. Suffice to say it was seriously hard. I was crying, Tori was crying, when I looked up, the vet was crying also... shit I'm crying now as I type this

Sasha's final walk...

Today is August 2nd 2026, I went with a select group of friends that had a connection to Sasha so I could scatter hers and crocodiles remains (she was cremated with crocodile).

We went to Horsell common. While it wasn't a place we had been to for several years, it was a place that I knew she'd loved visiting. I had written a poem for Sasha which Tori had offered to be my backup in case I couldn't finish it...

I'll paste it below

Just a dog

They’ll say she was just a dog.
Just a dog that got me through my toughest times.
Just a dog who walked Horsell with me when I had no one else.
Just a dog I was always telling, “stop eating the lawn!”

Just a dog who squished me into the corner of the couch,
just to be near me.
Just a dog who, fast asleep beside me,
rolled onto her back mid-dream
and kicked me in the face at 2am -
never even waking up,
though she woke me.

Just a dog, that claimed any food in a bowl as her own.
Just a dog with eyes that said, “you weren’t eating that, were you?”

Just a dog who swam in Windermere.
Just a dog who turned rivers into laughter -
“swimming with Labradors.”

Just a dog with a crocodile she never gave up.
Just a dog I drove twenty miles to hospital,
so she wouldn’t wake without him.

Just a dog that people loved to look after,
whether for a day or a fortnight.
Because she made every house feel lighter just by being there.

She was never just a dog.
She was my family.
She was Sasha.
And she was mine.

Just a dog…
who’s probably staring my dad down for biscuits right now.