I know a few people visit my other half’s site (The Depp Effect) so they may already know that over the weekend we lost our poor old friend on four legs – Jack – or, as my wife always calls him – The Pirate. He was old (thirteen and a half), a bit crotchety sometimes but always an optimist and I like to think that we made his remaining years happy and comfortable. When we took him in at ten we really thought that he would have a few months at the most as he was in such poor health but it was a testament to his joy of life that saw him overcome all the aches and pains and problems he had.

Regardless of what people may think by the monika ‘The Pirate’, he was not actually named Jack after every one’s favourite Johnny Depp character although, to be fair, the name suited him well as like his namesake – Captain Jack Sparrow – life and what might happen next was always an adventure to him. He took change in his stride with a sort of cheerfulness that I wish I could sometimes muster.

His racing name was ‘Flashing Star’ but his original owner named him ‘Lucky’ and he was called Lucky until she died and he went into a rescue. For some bizarre and thoughtless reason, the rescue decided to call him ‘Jay’ which probably confused the hell out of him but ‘Jay’ he was for the few months he was there.

When we went to take a look at him to see if we could take him on and decided to bring him home we were not that keen on either ‘Lucky’ or ‘Jay’ and we settled on ‘Jack’ because it had some of both names – the ‘Ja’ of Jay and the hard ‘k’ sound of ‘Lucky’. We thought he would be able to cope with that change easily and that is why he was called Jack. Honest!

The tragedy of course, is that Jack’s death comes just five weeks after we lost Renie – the younger and healthier of the two – and now the house, for the first time in 15 years, has no dog. We miss them both and there is a hole in our lives but they will be remembered.

I have been putting off writing this, partly because we still find it upsetting and partly because my wife has already written it far more eloquently than I can manage. But here goes.

At around 3pm on 30th December 2008 we had to say goodbye to Renie, the 10 year old greyhound we bought into our lives when she retired from racing nearly 6 years ago. I think it was the suddenness that has devastated us. Just 5 or so weeks ago she looked to be a healthy and happy dog but the last two weeks of her too short life were painful for us all as the cancer we did not know she had took hold.

Renie was quite genuinely a very special dog. She was a ‘person dog’ who found joy in just being around people. She was fantastic company and bought a smile to the face of all who encountered her. She was also a therapy dog who once a week would visit the local ‘Sense’ centre and enrich the lives of the deaf and blind who will miss her almost as much as us. She was, for very good reason, also known as ‘The Princess’.

Out here in the conservatory where I sit with my laptop are two old armchairs. Renie could often be found in the empty one beside me now, head up on the arm just watching me. And I still keep glancing that way expecting her to be there.

I know it’s bad form to talk about what you donate to charity but I need to touch on that so that I can have my rant of the day. It’s possible I have had this little rant before as well but after three years it’s sometimes hard to remember! So – eyes. I have this – probably irrational – fear of losing my sight. Take a leg, an arm even, let me go deaf but please leave my eyes alone. I know that if I ever need eye surgery I will need to ask to be kept anaesthetised for a week before and a week after as any thought of anything being done to my eyes will induce a hurricane force panic attack.

So it’s not unreasonable that when it comes to supporting charities I tend to favour those concerned with helping the blind here at home and preventing unnecessary blindness in the third world. So every month one small donation goes to the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association. This works on the principle that you are a co-sponsor of a particular dog during its long period of training and as it costs around £10 a day per puppy and takes around 20 months to train, it comes down to one hell of a lot of money and a large number of sponsors.

What angers me is that every now and then, but at least four times a year, I get a progress update in the mail. This is not a simple letter telling me that things are going well and reminding me that I could always increase my donation. I’d be happy with that – actually, I’d be happy with nothing or maybe just a quick note that the dog I co-sponsor has gone to a home. No – this is a glossy, full colour leaflet dedicated to my sponsored dog with pictures of it looking happy and a report on it’s progress. And they do this for every dog in training.

As someone that was once a graphic designer working within the print industry, this sort of thing is not cheap. It’s not just the print and mail costs either, there is the design and production cost and there are people involved who need to be paid. And it is totally unnecessary. I know why they do it – the theory is that the more you ‘involve’ the donors and make them feel a part of the process the more likely you are to keep their regular donation. But the question they should be asking is ‘if we don’t send you glossy leaflets and picture postcards of your dog and don’t waste time writing it all up and getting it printed then we can invest that saving in training more dogs. Are you happy with that?‘. And I bet the vast majority would say yes. That is, after all, why we make the donation in the first place.

Jack is seriously orthodontically challenged and the net result, as you can see, is the hanging tongue! I couldn’t resist this shot.

He was already 10 years old when his last owner passed on and we rescued him. Sadly, she didn’t seem to think that his rotting and infected teeth were a problem and the poor dog must have been in frequent pain over the years. He now just has a couple left at the front so whenever he lays on his side… out slips the tongue!

He often lays directly on the floor with the tongue scraping the carpet! You’d think that would be a really uncomfortable feeling – after all the nerves on a tongue are very sensitive. But he doesn’t seem to care. Actually, Jack doesn’t really care about much except food and getting out and about a couple of times a day.

With the possibility of those who earn their living in the industry it surely must be true that everyone loathes and despises insurance companies. They squeeze the maximum amount of money they can for the policy in the first place and then squirm and try and wriggle their way into paying out the smallest amount they can get away with when you put in a claim. And nobody – well there are probably quite a few anal people who do I suppose – ever reads all the small print. It’s more often than not written in a form of the language especially reserved for, well, small print!

But here’s something I don’t understand that landed on the doormat in this mornings mail.

The picture here is a photo of my dog, Rene, a greyhound. She was a five year old ex-racer when we adopted her just over four years ago. With the exception of a voluntary donation to the Retired Greyhound Trust, she cost me nothing. She has, in her time with us, never had any serious health problem and any visits to the vet have been for yearly shots or simply precautionary. So the vet bills have been, luckily, extremely light. And she is, at least as I write this, in absolute perfect health.

So how come she costs more to insure than my sons two bedroom house in Sheffield? I’m not kidding. I know this because I pay for both. The insurance of one perfectly healthy middle-aged dog is costing me more than the building insurance on a house.

Makes me glad I don’t have a tortoise. I’d probably need a special bank loan to insure that.