Braan – a light has gone out
Braan on Tràigh nam Faoghailean (the beach of gulls) at Balranald on North Uist
Although we all know that pet lives are so much shorter than ours, it can be a shock to lose a dog from the family, as we have experienced this summer with our beloved Braan. Another consciousness that I was connected to has suddenly gone from this world.
When Andrew and I met, my home was an old weaver’s cottage that opened straight onto a lane. Andrew was keen to get a dog, me less so. We agreed we’d buy one when we moved home to somewhere with an enclosed garden. Eventually, 11 years ago, Braan came into our lives. At the time, I didn’t realise how much that would change our lives. The first effect was that, now we were daily dog walkers, we spoke to and came to know many more people around our new village.
Andrew grew up on a dairy farm in Northern Ireland where his father kept a line of red collies that lived around the yard. By contrast, my only experience of having a dog was for a few years in childhood, when my family adopted an adult Scottish terrier.
Andrew had previously owned bitches from the family farm and was keen to continue the tradition with a red border collie. My priority was a dog with a short coat who would bring less mess into the house! We found Braan at a breeder in Angus, about 80 miles away. She specialised in dogs with a keen working instinct for shepherding, dog trials or agility. She also bred some of the rarer colour combinations, which only appear when both parents carry the appropriate recessive genes, including those for red coat colour and tricolour markings like Braan.
When we brought Astra Braan (to give her her full name) into our lives as a 10-week old puppy, I immediately felt highly protective of her. After puppy training classes, I took her to agility training and we became a tightly-bonded team. I couldn’t believe how quick and responsive she was, with thinking and reaction speeds far faster than mine. We soon began winning lower-level agility competitions and progressing up the grades. The limitation was whether I could keep up with her and how much time I was prepared to put into training.
We taught Braan through positive reinforcement to be well behaved so we could take her anywhere. She never climbed onto furniture, was trustworthy around livestock and had a reliable recall. Very much human-orientated, she loved people, but preferred it if other dogs ignored her. In her early years we often camped. Then in 2015 we bought a campervan, partly driven by the difficulty of finding pet-friendly accommodation near the places we wanted to visit.
Over recent years Braan had slowed down and become a bit stiff, so I left her at home with Andrew on my more demanding walking trips. Our last trip all together was three weeks in the Outer Hebrides this spring. We toured from Castlebay on Barra to Lochmaddy on North Uist and enjoyed miles of dazzling white sand, as well as rugged moorland peppered with freshwater lochs. I have dozens of photos of Braan running around pristine beaches.
A few weeks after we arrived home, she suddenly became very ill and spent a day at the vets on a drip. Lymphoma was diagnosed and advanced rapidly. It was agonising watching her decline and trying to judge when to release her from her struggle. We brought her home one last day to say goodbye to some of her special human friends before a final visit to the vet where she slipped away peacefully.
When we tell people the news, some enquire whether we’re going to get another dog, but that feels to me like asking a bereaved person if they’re going to marry again just after their spouse has died. Braan was a person in her own right for us and, as a collie, was particularly attentive to everything we said or did. She and I were always thinking about each other. A special bond is severed. Or is it? As I walk fields and woods around home I feel a tug inside at the places where she usually stopped to play or have a paddle on the river’s edge.
Those solo walks are now a time to reflect, rather than to be engaged with my doggy companion. I realise now that the special gift that Braan gave me was close contact and friendship with another, non-human species. Our relationship taught me so much about non-verbal communication and made me appreciate a different way of experiencing and interacting with the world.
We’ve cleared away some of Braan’s belongings, but many reminders of her remain. Pretty, little eyebright has been flowering on the lawn along the line she wore by habitually taking the same route around the house. When on the road, we miss that last pee walk, which meant experiencing the outside world as the moon rises, tawny owls hoot and bats flit around woodland edges. Even though opening the door on summer evenings risks letting a cloud of midges into the campervan!
Eleven years ago we chose Braan’s name as we were driving through Strathbraan on our way to collect her from the breeder. The River Braan is a tributary of the Tay, which was what her father was called. Years later we bought a patch of wooded land on the edge of this valley with the aim of increasing its biodiversity. Braan was our companion throughout that endeavour so we have buried her there, not far from the river after which she is named. We will feel her presence as we continue our efforts.
Recently I read an article ‘The Mystery of Time’s Arrow’ by Julian Barbour. I admit that I didn’t fully understand the references to quantum mechanics and the laws of thermodynamics, but it gave me some comfort. It suggested that the linear flow of time may be an illusion and that in reality everything may exist simultaneously. I certainly feel Braan’s presence still and specific memories are as vivid as ever. If my perception could extend to a fifth dimension, maybe we would be reunited in more than imagination.
The My View page in the November 2022 issue of MMM magazine contains my tribute to our canine campervan companion. Braan regularly appeared in my travel features for this and other magazines.