Stranger on the shore finds our faithful Nicky

FOLLOWING the publication of my column about the mystery of our missing dog, 14 readers were good enough to phone the Irish Examiner or to email me to offer advice or help.

Their concern said a lot about the kindness still abroad in Ireland.

The warmth of their response gladdened the heart while, in the event, the reality saddened it.

I had bad news for them. The unfortunate dog had been found, dead. How it happened compounds the enigma of her disappearance. I cannot believe it is sinister. But there is one niggling thing. . .

The first report of a Springer spaniel being found dead came in a telephone call on the Friday evening. (She had disappeared on the previous Tuesday.) My son took the call. The caller had seen a lost dog notice I’d posted in Timoleague. His description sounded ominously like our much-loved Nicky. By coincidence, he turned out to be a friend. I’d given only my phone number on the notice, not my name. He told us that while out walking in the half-dark, he’d come upon a good-looking Springer, lying dead above the tide line on Howe Strand, two miles across Courtmacsherry Bay from the cove at Coomalacha where I’d last seen her.

It was after 10 at night when he called and the tide was coming in fast. If she was still there in the morning, he’d check the details and call us back. He did and, from what he said, it sounded like our dog. I drove to the beach and found that, sure enough, it was Nicky. My son brought a spade and buried her where the tides wouldn’t reach her.

At home, the house continued to be strange without her: it continues strange now, 10 days later. My wife, who is in Spain, was told. She was, of course, affected.

More than anyone, she had looked after the dog.

It is a mystery how Nicky died. As I said, she had been bouncing through the long grass beside me as we walked down the field and I stood above the cove, watching ravens in the nest.

If she had fallen down the cliff and was injured, she would have barked, and I’d have heard. There was almost total silence, no waves crashing in, only the background hum of nature on an April morning. An hour afterwards, I returned and scanned the steeply sloping cliff face, I saw no track of her fall through the vegetation. When I climbed down into the cove, I found no trace of her amongst the rocks.

The tide had been half out when she disappeared. If she had fallen, and survived the fall, she would have found herself in shallow water with rock platforms nearby, on to which she could have clawed herself to safety. Springers are adept swimmers. Alternatively, if she had been killed in the fall, I would have found her body on the shore below.

It is possible that she was killed in the fall and washed out by the falling tide before I returned. But I scanned the sea’s surface with binoculars and saw nothing. Her coat was 70% white, very white; even in death, it was still vivid.

Being an old dog, she could, I suppose, have had a heart attack as she lost her footing on the ditch above the ravine and fallen straight into the sea and been washed away. There is also the possibility that she was hurt in the fall and couldn’t swim but I dismiss this, because she would surely have barked for a short while, at least, and I’d have heard her. We will never know. Strangest of all is the fact that, as her body lay there on the lonely strand, as lissom as in life — rigor mortis long past — one thing was missing. Her collar was gone. How it could have opened or come over her head will forever be a mystery.

We must now accept that this four-legged family member met a fate beyond our ken. We’ve had kind offers of a nice pup but aren’t sure if we will get another dog just yet — or ever.

I remember the mongrel that was my inseparable companion when I was a boy. My sons and daughters will no doubt, always remember Nicky in the same way.

We have all heard of Gorillas in the Mist, the famous book by Dian Fossey. Here, we have rabbits in the field beside our house, in the misty mornings of spring. Nicky used to have a go at chasing them, but Springers aren’t built for speed. The rabbits loped away, unhurried. I think they were playing tricks on her, but she enjoyed it.