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When a simple New Year’s resolution—to never pass a roadside “Fresh Eggs for Sale” sign—leads to unexpected human moments, it also teaches a grieving dog owner a deeper lesson: to pause for small kindnesses, both in life and in loss. A tribute to Gat.

A Resolution

A few New Year’s Days ago, I made a resolution. Not the kind that involves kale or ice baths, but something simple: Never drive past a ‘Fresh Eggs for Sale’ sign without stopping.

It wasn’t about cholesterol or rustic living. It was more about prompting myself. A prompt to pull over, chat to someone whose wellies have never been ironic, and spend a couple of quid on something that didn’t come shrink-wrapped in supermarket sadness.

And it’s led to some rather lovely encounters. I’ve been gifted hand-knitted egg ‘hats’, invited to inspect repurposed phone boxes full of jams and chutneys, and—on a recent trip to Orkney—not only did I buy a £5 emu egg, I spent ten minutes bonding with the emus themselves. Big, curious birds, somewhere between a bouncer and a disapproving auntie.

I’m not a complete stickler for this resolution; it’s a rule of thumb rather than a law, and if I’m in a hurry I carry on without beating myself up about it. At these times the speed limit is treated in the same way as my egg resolution; a guide rather than an edict.

One of my regular stops is a little stall outside a local family home, run by two sisters who look like they’ve stepped out of a Beatrix Potter reboot. They’re awkward in the best way—unsure of their limbs, proud of their pricing, and always unfailingly polite. Six hen eggs for £1.50, duck eggs for £2. Their 'have a nice day' always lifts me. I stop not just because my own exceedingly free-range chickens have taken to concealing their eggs in the spring foliage and defeating me in the resulting daily scavenger hunt—but because I love seeing young enterprise, I love that sense of community, and because I remember being that age. In my early enterprise, Jo Booth (one of those ‘aunties’ from our local church) bought seven walnuts from me, and then wrote me a letter telling me how she’d found different uses for each one every day for a week. Though I no longer have the letter, the recollection remains. That kind of encouragement brands itself into your memory.

Terrible News

Last week, the resolution came back to me not with a cheerful egg transaction, but with death. Gatsby, our black lab, was diagnosed with a heart tumour and died just ten days later. I’m not sure how a tumour in the heart is even a thing—it sounds like a metaphor, like a line in a Cormac McCarthy novel—but there it was, leaking fluid into his chest, squeezing the life out of a dog who’d never once complained.

We had no idea until the vet picked up an irregular heartbeat during a routine check. “This wasn’t how today was supposed to go” she said gently as she explained the implications and narrow range of options, ruling out an operation which would be dangerous even in humans, and offer slim hope even for a younger dog.

She drew fluid from around his heart and gave us a few extra days. “Sometimes it takes a week to re-accumulate” she said gently, “sometimes a month or longer. But it will return.”

And it did. By the ninth day, Gatsby was coughing and wheezing, regurgitating meals, and showing the kind of stoicism that breaks your heart all over again. He never whimpered. But he would look at me as if to ask, quietly, why his body no longer did the things it used to. Why a short walk left him dizzy when once we could go for miles.

The vet came out the next day, on the Sunday after Easter, and amidst daffodils and birdsong and all the incongruous joy of springtime and new life, we mourned the passing of a friend who has set the standard for all other friends, canine and human.

Grief

I’m not ashamed of how much it hurts. Every morning he greeted me as if I’d personally invented breakfast. He was present. There for us on the high days, and through all the hardships of the last decade. He came on holiday with us to Scotland twice and frequently to the North Norfolk coast, while I worked on the farm he would guard the yard, and when I was on the computer he would warm my feet. He was just there. He looked at me for such a portion of his life that it brings me to tears of unworthiness, and he was a friend to everyone in the village, and to visitors from all over the world.

One day I was with Gatsby at a neighbour's, and the stand-in postman stopped to give him a scratch. ”He’s not like that one round the corner" he said, “That dog’s vicious!”. When I pointed out to him that ‘that one round the corner’ was in fact the same animal curling around his legs and sniffing his pocket for biscuits, he could barely believe it. After that, they had a ritual. The postman would get out of the van, Gatsby would bark, and then they’d roll around on the lawn like lads on a rugby tour.

I thought of this day, and so many more, as we buried him in the dappled shade of three oaks. Cattle gathered at the fence, just ten feet away, as if they too understood something solemn was taking place. The wildflowers were lush and verdant, greened by the water of the neighbouring pond and, on that day, the streaming tears of an aping great farmer with a big beard, coarse hands, and a broken heart. It was a guard of honour worthy of him.

Mrs Martin is convinced that she’s seen a robin around the garden, spotted several times a day since Gatsby died bringing caterpillars to a nest under the eaves, and she wonders if it’s a sign. I’m not convinced. But I believe in her, and if it brings her comfort, I’ll believe in the robin too, more aware of the shape and shade of grief downplayed by those who don’t have dogs, and dismissed by the vegan activists as ‘Stockholm Syndrome’.

'Dog people know.'

I posted the news on my Twitter account with my favourite photo and within seconds my phone ‘dinged’ with a text from a good friend offering condolences and his company in our grief.

My message was “July 2015 – April 2025. Gatsby. Grateful for a life well lived, a family well loved, and for all the walks and fuss the best good boy could want. Go well my friend x”

In the following days I received WhatsApp messages and well wishes from around the world often accompanied by photos. Our friends in Germany sent a picture from a recent visit of their daughter curled up next to our dog on his mat; others from California shared Gatsby with their son; afraid of dogs since toddlerhood, he had finally found one he could trust.

My friend Andy—about the most rugged man I know—messaged me straightaway. Andy shoots, stalks, and flights all the meat his family eats, sleeps outdoors more often than not, and lives off home-cured venison billtong. He wrote: “Take yourself off for a walk and have a good cry.” So I did. And he was right.

The replies to my social media post came quickly:

“Nothing even comes close to their loyalty and friendship” said one.

“Will always be the hardest of days” another.

“They leave a huge sorrow in our heart when they leave, but the memories are so precious” consoled a third.

Even people I didn’t know chimed in. And I found myself thinking: from now on, I will treat posts like mine—about lost dogs and aching hearts—in the same way I treat roadside egg signs. I won’t scroll past. I’ll stop. I’ll read. I’ll write something back, even if it’s just “I’m sorry. I get it.” 

I had the chance just two days later when a friend from Jersey lost his dog, and his post of black and white text conveyed emotions in high definition colour for me. As another friend wrote in a kind and well-timed card: “dog people know”.

My wife has taken it particularly hard. Not because I’m not comforting—but because she’s realising that the joy she felt when I walked through the door each day may have been, in large part, about seeing the Big Dog. That was our name for him. The Big Dog. He greeted me at the bottom of the stairs whatever time of the early morning I chose to rise, and never missed a day until the day I missed him. And every day since.

Still, as I now go about my days one canine more lonely, and as I hope the sadness fades and wonderful memories persist, I shall look out for those posts on social media. I shall make the time to treat fresh eggs and fresh grief the same.

How did you grieve a loved pet?

Did you have a first canine love? What are your enduring memories? Do you have any traditions for dog burials? Did you commission a portrait? How did your best human friends support you when your best canine friend left you?

That robin.

I write this 8 days on and with sadness still heavy in our household, and outside at the birdbath, and in the willow tree, sometimes singing, sometimes hunting grubs, always industrious, is that robin.

P.S. “Good boy, Gatsby”

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