Dudley Quayle

Born c. 1995/6, died 18 December 2009

On our first visit to the Shenton Park Dog Refuge eight years ago, Dudley launched his four-legged charm offensive by wagging his tail and grabbing Schmackoes out of our hands. His name was our choice, in honour of jazz musician Dudley Moore, and he immediately set about reorganising the global order of our lives.

The colour coordinated, wicker dog basket we bought was ignored and on the first night he simply jumped out of the basket several hundred times until we gave up and fell asleep. We woke in the morning to find him snoozing on the end of the bed.

As far as Dudley was concerned, doggy car harnesses were for, well, dogs. Dudley always insisted on a prime spot in the lap of the front passenger, either standing up or craning his head out of the window. This was the rule for every car trip including a six-hour trip to Albany.

At the dog beach he found a particular thrill in stealing tennis balls from slow-witted German Shepherds, who failed to see the funny side.

He never forgot a good source of Schmackoes and didn’t seem to mind the rubber-gloved indignities of the vets or the painful procedures of the eye specialist when he knew there was a gobful of treats to scoff at the end.

Dudley graduated twice from the RSPCA obedience course. On the last day of off-lead training he took off at warp speed down the hill and gatecrashed somebody’s barbecue. It was then we taught him a code-word to make sure he would always come back, no matter what the distant attraction. And yes, the code-word was Schmackoes.

Dudley was a comedian, a character and our little companion. Many a time we would start a big day’s gardening in the early morning and not finish until the late afternoon, and he would still be fetching the Kong, dropping it at our feet and fixing us with a look that said, ‘Well? You throwing it or what?’ His other favourite game was to chase the vacuum cleaner and bark at it until it ‘barked’ back at him. Even though he got two walks a day, he always jumped on our sleeping heads at sunrise to make sure we knew it was ‘walkies’ time. In his twilight months he invented Hooverball, where he would nudge his tennis ball to the vacuum cleaner with his nose and it would nudge the ball back to him.

Dudley had a tail-wagging, nose-licking zest for life that people really warmed to. He greeted visitors by dropping the Kong at their feet and expecting them to play. He loved children, adults and cat-poo. Bits of him can be seen in all our renovation photos. Mostly, he just wanted to be wherever we were.

The last time we looked at our house on Google Earth, there was a fat white blob asleep in a sunny spot on the brick paving. How fitting, how very cool, that a huge character like Dudley could actually be seen from space.

We are so grateful for the care and compassion of the fantastic team at Midland & Bullsbrook Vet Clinic, who helped us give Dudley the care that he needed throughout his life: Martine, Brian, Hugh and all the staff, who loved him as much as we did.

Rock on, Duddles McPuddles. You brought so much joy to our lives. We miss you terribly.

Peter and Sharron Quayle, and Jessie the cocker spaniel