Old Mr Choco, the kooikerhondje, will soon be 15 years old, which, if I’m correct, in human age is equivalent to over 100 years! Poor boy is already totally deaf and is on a lot of medication for various problems but is still happy enough. Choco was first bought as a companion for our dear friends’ two young children, who kept pestering their parents to get them a dog. The idea (as usual!) was that the kids would take care of it, learning to take some responsibility for a live creature at the same time. But as these stories often go, it was the mother of the family who ended up being the caretaker in the end. The kids have long since moved away from home but Choco is still there!

We spent Midsummer at our friends’ cottage last weekend, and it was so sweet to watch Choco loyally follow his “mother” around wherever she went, such as keeping guard on the jetty when she went swimming, as you can see in this picture. Not for a second did he fail to keep a watchful eye on her. Even when she visits the loo, Choco is there, patiently waiting outside the door! Gotta love him! We were just wondering what he might have been able to do, with his already weak heart, if there had been an emergency in the water.

Even though this friend of mine keeps saying that it’s getting quite expensive and troublesome to look after her canine partner now, with all his different age-related ailments, and that she’s tired of his coughing and walking about every night, which disrupts her sleep, I’m sure there will be quite a void in her life for a while when partner Choco finally goes.

Weekly photo challenge – PARTNERS.