Toyah
I don’t think the words exist to do Toyah Justice; she grew from being the best friend a teenager could wish for, to an untrained assistance dog to her human grandma.
To quote my farther “she was the best £45 he has ever spent”.
Toyah died in 2007 just a day short of her 15th Birthday, she had beaten the odds against a very nasty aggressive form of bladder tumour, after being diagnosed in the summer of 2006 she was given a course of chemotherapy, data available at the time gave a very guarded prognosis and listed cases that had only survived for several weeks after diagnosis, however Toyah being Toyah trundled on to lap up old age as long as she could, although she had a horrid condition I am eternally grateful to the powers that be, that she did not suffer, before she fell asleep.
Toyah from a young pup was a typical collie, enjoying bouncing of the window ledges if anyone dared go by, looking out for us finishing school and in time work, she was an excellent guard dog and guardian of the younger visitors to the house, including rescuing my baby cousin from a near miss with an iron.
Over the years Toyah had a taste of a variety of doggy activities from obedience to agility. She was especially proficient in pretending to be my patient when I was studying to be a veterinary nurse and later she helped nurses, I in turn was training.
Toyah had an unfounded ability to just be there when you needed her, this was never more evident than when she would give my mum an advance warning that she was going to have an epileptic seizure, there are highly trained skilled dogs in the world that do this day in day out but Toyah never needed training, we didn’t get chance to even contemplate it, she just did it.
Toyah will be forever remembered as the matriarch of the family, I feel forever indebted to her, she was and still is in my heart every inch a collie and true friend.
