Hogan the last Newfoundland

 

Hogan was not much younger than Osca, a really beautiful Newfoundland the colour of his coat and his confirmation would, I am sure, have made him a successful show dog. However in his younger days we had been too busy with our businesses to have had the time with Osca and him. Sadly Osca’s personality was such that Hogan was over awed and he tended to live in the shadow of his partner.

When Osca died Hogan seemed to be released, also by this time we had retired and had much more time to devote to him. It took a little while for him to get used to this new found freedom and we tried to encourage him to come out of his shell, so to speak. During the time he was by himself we included him as part of the family and took him everywhere with us, he was naturally quiet which despite his size made him acceptable virtually anywhere. If it was a case of no dogs allowed we simply didn’t go. However he was never able to fully adapt to it and always seemed to retain a certain reticence. Meg was my friend and companion, William bonded with Mike, Osca fell in love with Karen our daughter and Hogan never formed a deep bond with anyone. It is to my deep regret that we had to leave them to their own devices and Osca’s stronger personality had won out.

I am sure Hogan would have been a much more rounded personality if only we could have had the time to care for him and Osca as we had for William and Meg. We had two or three years to make up to Hogan before he left us and I treasure them, I am absolutely sure that he had more to give than his upbringing allowed.  Hopefully I will be able to use a picture of him on the cover of my new book ‘Life with my Newfoundlands’ due to be published in the very near future (thought I’d get a plug in there). No the reason I mention it, is that it typically reflects his personality, you can see it in his eyes a sort of an interested but far away look.

If you can call death natural then Hogan was the only one of the Newfies to die without the vet’s help, he died by his own choice by himself in the garden in Wales. He died peacefully, Mike found him late at night permanently asleep beside the hedge. He had gone to the back door and asked to go out and never came back. Our last Newfoundland, we had decided when we first got Hogan as a little puppy that he would be our last, it was time for change.