Losing Bifi made me reminisce a lot about the pets in my life. First and foremost, Bifi is still on my mind a lot, and it still feels unreal that she’s not here anymore. I often still find myself yearning to pet her little head, missing that bond we shared. I want to hold on to those memories for as long as I can, because eventually they will fade.

She was not the first pet I lost. I grew up with many, many animals that have been gone for a long time, and my memories of them seem so far away now. I’ve blogged about some of them before, but I suspect most of those blog posts are long lost to the hidden archives of this blog. I grew up in a very rural village on a massive former farm yard, and there was plenty of space there for all kinds of pets and farm animals.

The first pet I remember in my life was probably our little mutt, Mopsy. She was born a month before me, to her mother who was also my parents’ dog. My parents gave them both away, but when I was about 2, we took Mopsy back and she became the family dog. When I was 6, Mopsy had a very fast affair with the neighbor’s dog, and a few months later, in September 1991, we had a litter of 6 little puppies. I was actually in the hospital with tonsillitis when this happened. Needless to say I was gutted to miss this. Once I got back home, I finally got to see them, already about a week old. One of my most vivid memories of them is playing and running with them in the backyard, which was full of autumn leafs with a bit of autumn sun shining. They were the absolute cutest.

Mopsy with 3 of her puppies

I really liked the big one on the right, which I called Missy. Playing and running with her was a lot of fun. I wanted to keep her, but my parents said her legs were too long. Ridiculous, if you ask me. I never understood why my parents didn’t like bigger dogs. Instead, I got the tiny one on the left. She was one of two who were actually so tiny that they had to be bottle-fed, otherwise they likely wouldn’t have survived. We gave all the puppies away except for the tiny one, which we named Daisy. My parents thought she was a bit stupid, and had a hard time potty-training her. Now that I’m older and wiser, I think my parents just had no idea what they were talking about. She would have done great with a little bit of proper dog training, which she never really got.

This is one of the many cases when thinking back on it now, I also feel a lot of regret about not doing right by the animals that were in my life. But I was just a child, and unfortunately children usually do the very foolish thing of believing their parents. My parents were not malicious, but they were not educated enough (in the case of my father) or not empathic enough (in the case of my mother), to really know or care about animal welfare. Ironic, considering we had SO many animals.

Daisy was my dog and I loved her very much. When she was 2 years old, we had a conflict though, because my parents bought 2 horses, one of which was named Daisy. We were in the conundrum of who to rename, the dog or the horse? Daisy the horse had a registered name, and Daisy the dog had not. So the dog became Jeannie for the rest of her life. She was a very loyal dog, but definitely desperately could have used proper dog training, and could have lost of a lot of weight. My parents always had excuses for that, like saying that she’s just fat because she’s neutered. No, she was fat because you fed her too much, and I was too much of a naive child to understand these things.

We had Jeannie alongside Mopsy for years, and at some point my mother really wanted a corgi. So she bought one from a questionable breeder as a puppy. We named her Millie. I have to say I’m not a big fan of corgis ever since then. Millie was a very dominant, opinionated dog, and in my opinion didn’t do so good for Mopsy and Jeannie. Especially poor Mopsy, who was getting old.

Mopsy, Lando, Jeannie and Millie

Unfortunately Mopsy had an accident with a car a few years after. Mopsy was mostly my father’s dog, and he would take her with him to the pub. I don’t really know exactly what happened, because I wasn’t there, but my parents told me she was hit by a car. I was on a class trip away for a week when this happened. My mother thought it best not to tell me then, but then she told me in the supermarket on the way home. In the SUPERMARKET. Yes, that’s how empathic my mother is. Poor Mopsy, and poor me.

From then on, it was just Jeannie and Millie. Ironically, Jeannie outlived Millie by years. Millie, being a purebred corgi, had lots and lots of issues. Some probably genetically, but some also induced by my uneducated father always feeding the dogs unhealthy sausages from the table. Millie had diabetes and some kind of epilepsy, I’m not entirely sure. I think she also had issues with her spine. Her life lasted only 9 years.

Millie and her BFF, Lando Calrissian the cat

Jeannie, on the other hand, became older and older, though not necessarily better. Her face, once black, had become completely white (just like Bifi’s).

I moved away from my parents’ house when Jeannie was about 11, and left her in the care of my parents. Looking back, I regret that I didn’t take her with me. But as a 17 year old teenager, I probably still wouldn’t have done right by her. Not to mention, I’m not sure how I could have afforded caring for a dog on student grants and later an apprenticeship salary. Thinking back on her, there are so many things I wish I would have done better. Trained her. Trained my parents to not feed the dogs crap from the table (which would have been so, so much harder than training the dog). Spent more time with her. Take more pictures. Snuggle more with her.

Jeannie lived until she was 16 years old. She was really old and frail by the end. I wasn’t there, but the few times I saw her, she was deaf, almost blind, couldn’t hold her pee anymore, and probably had other issues I wasn’t aware of. My mother told me she used to carry her into the yard and lie her in the sun in springtime, where Jeannie would sleep in the sun. One day she just didn’t wake up anymore.

This is one of the many regrets I have for Jeannie. I wished I would have been more aware, and pushed for her to get a good death, without prolonged suffering. It took me until my 30s to realize that my mother tended to fail to recognize our pets’ suffering. I’m glad I’m not like that. While I regret I wasn’t there to recognize Jeannie’s suffering at the end of her life, I’m thankful I was able to do it for Bifi.

I’m happy to have had all these dogs in my life. Though I have only few memories of Mopsy and Jeannie left, I do remember that they were both good dogs. Not in training, but in character. They were both exceedingly patient with an annoying kid like I was to them. I wish I could have done what I did for Bifi, and written down everything I remember about them, back when those memories were fresh. And taken more photos and videos. A thousand photos I have of Bifi, and it still doesn’t feel enough to do that magnificent dog justice. But I will always carry these dogs in my heart, all of them.