We said goodbye to our dear Raffles this morning.
It was a difficult decision, striking a balance between too soon and too late, but with hindsight it was not too soon and I would not have wanted to leave it too late.
Raffles had had a malignant tumour removed from his mouth in the summer and this quickly re-grew. About a month ago he started producing blood-tinged dribble and we were faced with the possibility of him biting into the tumour while feeding, precipitating a catastrophic bleed, which would have been a violent and traumatic end. At that point he still enjoyed his walks and his food, and even this morning he was impatient for his breakfast. In recent days, though, he has refused most of his walks and his cheek swelled so much that he looked like a capybara. He showed signs of pain and frustration, finding it difficult to tolerate his discomfort. I couldn’t bear to watch him sitting there like that, enduring. We took him to the vet at 10am and she gently and kindly confirmed that it would be in his best interests to put an end to his pain. In the end he fell asleep gently with me holding his paw. I told him to take care and kissed his soft snout and he was gone.
Raffles was originally bought by my cousin Nisha in a Singapore petshop and came to me after her death in 2014. I wasn’t prepared for how wilful beagles can be, and little Raffles crashed into our family and broke all the rules, sitting on the furniture; sleeping on the bed; stealing food from the table and disappearing if being walked off-lead. I’m sure that this behaviour didn’t endear him to poor old Oscar.
Raffles was an adventurous gourmand, finding and devouring inter alia the Virgin Mary from a Christmas crib; a takeaway curry left in the bushes by some lazy human; countless lunches of gardeners and tradespeople; a laden sanitary towel and a human poo from a layby on the A21.
He was more of a cat than a dog, and I think he expended most of his lives in those early years. One morning a few years ago I noticed more cars than usual coming over our unmade-up road to avoid a traffic jam at Shortlands station, 1km away, caused by Raffles who had got out on an adventure and was jaywalking in Bromley Road. On another occasion he disappeared on a walk in Dulwich Park on a torrentially-rainy Bank Holiday Monday. We called and called him and eventually headed for home, Oscar barely able to disguise his glee, only to receive a call from the cafe to tell us that he was waiting there for us and holding court with the clientele. Many is the time I’ve been scolded and told to take more care of my dog by an irate person with Raffles at the other end of their lead.
Raffles took readily to the heat and humidity of life in Hong Kong where he was cared for by our lovely Miss Jenevieve whose tender company he undoubtedly missed when I brought him home almost two years ago. He particularly enjoyed eating the rotten fish washed up on the beach and was invariably down at the vet’s the next day.
He did try his best to bond with Oscar, memorably including a regular Saturday evening humping session in his routine. I won’t forget his little face when I returned from the vet’s without Oscar just over a year ago, and he searched around the house for his dead brother for some time afterwards. I think having puppy Fergus in his life eased Raffles’s sadness, at least for a while, though he never wanted to play with the puppy.
This well-travelled little beagle’s final journey was a short one. Goodnight Raffles, you charming tongue-out gentleman thief. You stole our hearts and will be much missed by us all.
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