Farewell Huxley, elder statesman and friend

I cannot believe I will never rub those velvet ears or stare into those wise old eyes again

"Huxley had been part of our family since just after the birth of our first child"

I’d spent a perfect day far from the cares of the world. Two miles up in the Rocky Mountains, adrift from any form of modern communication, I was competing in quad-bike races on a frozen lake. The locals were friendly, and didn’t appear to hold it against me when I took a surprise second place in the ultra-competitive final.

Victorious, I drove back to my hotel above Colorado Springs, brandishing my trophy as proudly as any member of the Denver Broncos, who had, to the delight of all Colorado, just secured themselves a place in the Super Bowl that very same day.

Then I got a wi-fi signal and things fell apart. There were several messages from home asking me to get in touch urgently. Something was wrong. Our beloved eldest dog, Huxley, one of the most special black Labradors to walk this earth, had been taken very ill and had died half an hour earlier.

I was utterly devastated. Huxley had been part of our family since just after the birth of our first child. He was the reason that we never returned to London after moving to the Cotswolds for an experimental six months. Once Huxley arrived in our lives there was to be no return to the big city – it just wasn’t his scene. I did take him there once – to our flat in All Saints Road in the heart of old Portobello. It didn’t go well. It turned out that Huxley was freaked out by Rastafarians (which was odd as he was black himself) and would bark ferociously whenever he saw one. I would desperately try to apologise, but they all looked daggers at me as though I’d somehow trained him to do this.

So, we stayed in the country. Huxley was an independent soul – a wanderer. In our last house he would clamber over a 7ft wall and roam the village for lost hours. One day I put a special camera on his collar that took a photo every minute. It was a valuable insight into his many interests – chasing cats, rummaging through rubbish bins, taunting a tethered dog and multiple dips in the river Coln.

Huxley was named after Aldous and was equally smart. He would have made a champion gun dog but he was destined for a life of leisure with us “townies”, and he did his best to adapt. Over the years, as we moved to our current farm and acquired more dogs, then cats, then (much to his disgust) a pig – Huxley took on the role of elder statesman. He was a kind and benevolent ruler but would never hesitate to put a young pup (or pig) in his place.

My wife and Huxley shared a particularly special bond, and I long ago gave up trying to compete for droit du seigneur status in the marital bed. Huxley had total VIP privileges and would sprawl himself out, leaving any human to try to eke out a convenient space to sleep in the remainder.

I cannot believe I will never again rub those velvet ears, stare into those wise old eyes nor roam the sprawling hills above Cheltenham with the most loyal and loving of life’s companions. Farewell Huxley – run free.