Winston Fathead

This is Winston Fathead. He died yesterday.

He arrived at our house in September 2014 - this is him, on the day of his arrival, sleeping on the chair that was reserved for our previous dog, Wookie.

He was a rescue from the RSPCA (they had called him "Bullseye" but we immediately knew he was a "Winston") and all we knew about him was he was probably around three or four years old, his owner had died and he was living, outside, in a yard. They said he was good with children, good with other dogs, good with cats. None of those things were true.

When a friend's son came round to see him, I explained that his name was "Winston Fathead". He laughed and said "you can't call him that". But when he met Winston, he looked at me and sagely nodded "he does have a really fat head".

I don't think I've ever worked so hard with a dog. As staffies have such a bad reputation, I was worried about his barking - at strangers, at dogs, at children, at muslims (he was most definitely a racist, which was embarrassing). So I put a lot of effort into improving his behaviour. It didn't always work.

He was terrified of vacuum cleaners, so I used counter-conditioning on him. This meant covering the hoover in cheese spread so instead his immediate fear reaction, it was replaced by one of joy. This worked - he could calmly lie on the floor as we vacuumed around him - which was a result.

I tried the same in the car. It was a shock to me when I found that he was scared of going in the car - every other dog I had met (and one cat) loved cars. But he would shake and tremble and bark, bark, bark. I tried the counter-conditioning trick again and it worked to an extent. He ended up loving the car, because it meant we would go somewhere exciting. But he still shook and he still barked. Constantly.

He was anxious around other dogs. I read about Behaviour Adjustment Training, hired someone to teach me the technique, then used it on him. It sort of worked. We could be around other dogs and he would be fine. Or we could be around other dogs and he would bark. Sometimes he would meet another dog and they would go off and play together. But I quickly decided not to let him off the lead around small dogs. He's a staffie, which means he has no sense of his own strength and he would knock the other dog over, it would get annoyed and I'd have to intervene.

When he arrived, we had guinea pigs. We kept them very far apart, but one day, Winston saw us feeding the pigs. And I could see the lightbulb in his head - "these guys live here". From then on, while I never left them alone together, I knew he wouldn't deliberately try to hurt them. When our cat returned from a 13 month absence, I knew the two would be OK together - once Winston realised "this guy lives here too". When we got another cat, during lockdown, the same applied. Neville, our new cat, adored Winston.

It has to be said he was hilarious. I'm sure it was deliberate. I remember one time he and I were sat on the sofa. Winston was sat up straight, just to my left. My wife came in and started yelling at him about something he had done (probably some food he had stolen). She ended her rant with "... and I can't believe you did that ... URGH". And he flopped over sideways, in perfect time with the "URGH". There wasn't a day that went by when he didn't make someone laugh.

We don't know how old he was, but he'd been with us for over ten years and his back legs got weaker and weaker. We could clearly see he was miserable - and none of the painkillers the vet prescribed made any difference. They said we could put him on Librela - a monthly injection that works on the immune system, reducing the pain he would feel. It wasn't cheap and his insurance only covered part of the cost, but we did it and he was much happier. Yet after a year of Librela, we could see it was start to lose effectiveness - the first two weeks would be good, but he would slow down and have trouble walking as he neared the date of his next injection. The worst was going down the stairs - it was much more of a "controlled fall" than a descent. We could have prevented him going upstairs, but he's a velcro dog - he wants to be with people and that means, if they're upstairs and he's downstairs, he's going to bark. Constantly.

We have been spending more time away (other family health issues meant a lot of travelling), so he was often in the house alone for several hours. Our friends would pop in to see him, but it's not the same as having someone there with him all the time. I had visions of coming home to find him at the bottom of the stairs with two broken legs, stuck there, unable to move for hours. I decided last month would be his last injection. And we called the Visiting Vet.

So yesterday, Jess came to our house. He had a plate of cooked chicken, while the vet gave him a sedative. He lay down, with his head on my lap, and fell asleep. And then she gave him his final injection and he was gone. Neville came into the room and sniffed at his nose. As he realised what had happened, Nev jumped back and walked away. I'm glad he got to see Winston like that, so he doesn't spend the next few months wondering where his hero had gone.

If Winston could have chosen how to go, I'm sure this - peacefully falling asleep on me - would have been his first choice.

Goodbye Winston. You were bloody hard work, but you were always a lovely, funny and never dull member of the family.