I am so sorry to be sharing this news with you all. Yesterday, moments after I posted our last video, a unique freak accident occurred and our dear sweet beautiful and perfect in every way Barney Boy, Deputy sheriff of the farm sustained an injury that he tragically could not survive.
Running fast and free with his siblings as he always does, he turned to look at them and ran into the fence. Not even head on, along the side of the fence but on impact immediately shattered his spine and was paralysed.
If it was any other dog they would have simply shook it off. He was immediately rushed to Sash the emergency hospital, a surgeon was called in for the weekend to operate. But, sadly after scans, they found his spine had shattered and all internal organs from his shoulders down were damaged and bleeding beyond repair.
Barney was born with a deformity in his back and lower end that meant he didn’t develop a tail, he needed two surgeries as a puppy to survive. Which he did. But this last scan showed that his spine had now bridged and was so brittle that the impact shattered it into many pieces.
This is such a tragic freak accident, the doctors didn’t even believe us initially and wanted to treat for snake or tick, luckily I had seen it happen with my own eyes and we had the footage from our security cameras to show them the impact/accident so that they could immediately give Barney the pain medication to make him at least a little comfortable while they assessed him properly. They said if we hadn’t shown them that and they continued with the snake/tick scenario he would have died a very painful death, we are very grateful this was not the case.
In a very short period of time we were told that he needed to be humanely put to sleep. They could not get him stable and he could not even come home with us to go to sleep there, he wouldn’t survive the trip.
We were all there when Barney passed. He was surrounded by so much love. The kids, most especially Elle who had a special connection with Barney. He would follow her around all the time, when she was off doing her thinking walks, he was right behind her with every turn. Elle is absolutely heartbroken.
We all are. To say that our hearts are broken feels like the biggest understatement. Life just doesn’t feel the same. We don’t know what to do. Elle has not got out of bed today.
All the dogs said goodbye when Luke buried Barney on the bank watching over our backyard forevermore. Each one calmly came up and said good bye, Freddo gave his cheeky side kick one last lick in the ear.
Barney boy. You were undoubtably the sweetest boy that we could have had the honour and privilege of being able to be your family. You have touched our lives in the very short time you had here like no other dog. Always the cheeky, playful, happy, brave, loving boy.
Having had to spend the first 6 months of his life in and out of hospital and in a pram not being able to socialise, when he arrived at the farm as that cute little 6 month puppy he played from the second he got here right up until his last moments here. He crammed a lifetime of play and love and social shenanigans into these almost two years of living here at the farm.
He injected himself into absolutely everything the farm is about. Well except swimming, nope, not his thing. But he loved the pack life, he loved having so many brothers and sisters to play making up for all the lost time. He loved the bush runs and paddock runs with his pack. He loved the family life. He LOVED the children. Cutie pie and Maggie were very special to him. He looked up to the big guy Freddo and dreamt of being deputy to his sheriff. We told him he was.
He even had a sibling that was his pyjama brother, never feeling different at all in this pack of misfits he was proud to call his family.
Barney, nothing was every too hard buddy, you made our life better and we feel so grateful to have you in our life despite how short it has been.
We are grateful that we feel you had the time of your life here at the farm and that you knew you were loved everyday. We feel this unique family situation was your ultimate dream life. You showed us that you felt that way, every day.
I’m sorry everyone, I know how much you all loved Barney too. He was so very special.
Barney run free in heaven. One day we will meet again. Until then, we will be thinking of you everyday.
We love you Barney.
If you would like to look back in more memories of Barney at the farm here is a link to his playlist …
• Barney the Boxer