I found some faded photos in the loft of Terry in Palmer Park, Reading, in the 1970s, with his first dog, Bob. He never stopped talking about that black collie cross, with its white flash and soft ears, and how Bob was first in the water and last out. He told me how he would take Bob to gigs at The Retreat pub, in Reading, in the hood of his Parka. The dog sat under a table while TC played.
..and how Bob ate through a sack of manure in the garden and vomited it all over the kitchen floor. How the dog once ate the freshly-skimmed plaster off the wall of his flat.
Terry cried over Bob more than 40 years later. When we took in our current black dog, Vera, it was supposed to be a temporary, fostering scenario for Lurcher SOS. But, Vera is also first in and last out of the water. She is a whippet and possibly a collie cross, with a white flash and soft ears. When I called TC to let him know a lovely permanent family had been found for her, and how they sounded ideal, he cried down the phone. She was never leaving this house.

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