The house is very quiet

Sad news, the house is very quiet. China, a retired racing greyhound, friend and companion of the last five years, had been losing condition since June but continued to enjoy life to the full till Monday evening. By eleven o'clock on Tuesday morning she was very weak and had lost all interest in life. The vet came and while I held her he gave her a lethal injection. We could not prove it without a post mortem but everything pointed to a tumour in the upper gut.
China was our third greyhound, Freya was our first -

Epitaph for Freya - 1988

Shall I forget –
Forget your silhouette
In the broken shade beneath the towering beech?
Shall I forget your cold wet nose
Your trusting gaze depending on mankind
To set you free
I know not where.

I loved you and I laid you down
Curling you nose to tail the way you used to lie,
Your joyful speed now a cold stillness
Under two spits of earth.
I must pick up my burdens and walk on
But, maybe as the evening shadows lengthen I shall see
Beside my own upon the wayside grass
Another shadow thin and elegant
No longer old and weary
Following me home.

The House is very Quiet
13 November 20007

Where has love gone
Now she that I loved is dead?
I heard a voice reply
'Love does not die,
When all the tears are shed
Love will be found
Among the living
Not the dead.

We are already looking for another long dog, probably not a pure bred greyhound this time, but a lurcher; not a replacement but a new friend.