Olga, 2010–2025

Well, yesterday was the day. I tried to wait for Dave to return from Boston but circumstances changed, and he was as convinced as I that we should not delay. I won't go into details, but Olga was visibly uncomfortable and unable to eat. She only nibbled on one of her beloved Dentastix, which she did not finish.

I called the vet and rescheduled her home visit for yesterday evening (I'd originally scheduled it for Sunday). After the quick administration of a sedative, Olga literally went to sleep in the garden, about 7 p.m., lying on the grass. She then got a bigger shot to stop her heart while she was asleep. Dave was with us via video call, watching and listening. We are heartbroken but also happy she was in a beloved place, her nose smelling the grass, the noises of familiar voices, parakeets and squirrels all around her. Within an hour a crematorium collected her.

I thought today I'd post some favorite pictures of Olga through the years. I have thousands of them, but it was surprisingly easy to narrow them down to these -- some of which I have no doubt blogged before. First, above, is Olga in our Notting Hill apartment in February 2013, less than a month after we got her. She was so white!

She was a wild bundle of energy from the very beginning. "Hundred-percent dog," we called her, because she never gave less than full effort and enthusiasm. One of her favorite games was to demolish our mail the minute it was dropped through the mail slot. I'd come home to find shreds of paper carpeting the floor, and Olga leaping up to greet me.

She was pretty much fully grown when we got her, and she was not a small dog, but she was sure she could fit on either of our laps -- as she did on Dave's in the photo above, taken at a cafe in Hyde Park in May 2013.

When we lived in Notting Hill, Olga's normal stomping grounds included Hyde Park and Wormwood Scrubs (above, April 2014). But once we moved to West Hampstead in July 2014, she became a regular denizen of...

...Hampstead Heath. No doubt this is the place most of you will associate with her, as we went there (or to the local cemetery) every weekend, and sometimes twice a weekend. Olga could not get enough of the woods, the ponds, the mud, the squirrels -- she plunged through the undergrowth and ran to her heart's content, carrying her beloved Kong toy (above, December 2015).

In addition to our weekly visits, her dog-walkers, who exercised her on weekdays while Dave and I were at work, took her to the Heath daily. She knew the place like the back of her paw. She even got lost there once, when lightning struck during one of her dog-walker outings and she and another dog ran for their lives -- fortunately someone found them and returned her to us via the information on her microchip. She was only missing an hour or two.

Unfortunately, in recent years, it got to be too much for her to walk all the way to the Heath with me, but until last month she still went with her dog-walkers in a van or occasionally with us via tube. Our last visit together was about a year ago. (Above, on the walk there, June 2016.)

But there was no place like home, and she loved her garden. And her sofa. And her dog bed. (June 2019)

This is my last photo of her -- halfheartedly nibbling that final treat in the garden last night. (The squirrels are ravaging our walnut crop as they do every summer, dropping bits of husk on the grass. They stain Olga's white fur brown. I'm sure the visiting vet wondered why we didn't bathe the dog!)

She had such boundless energy, at least until recently, that this is how I often saw her -- running ahead, scouting out what was around the next bend. She always paused to look back at me, to make sure I was still there. It brings tears to my eyes to think she has finally run ahead to a place where I cannot follow.