I don’t know what to say. My worst nightmares came true yesterday. Just as I was starting to believe that I was going to have a girl dog to keep me company and give me the chance to be a surrogate dad, she is cruelly snatched from me. We spent the morning putting up even more posters, covering an ever widening area but in the afternoon we had a phone call to say she had been found dead. This has to be the worst day of my life. My Mistress and I just held each other. She wailed, while I did my best to lick away her tears. We were all devastated. I couldn’t face going to collect her body so my Mistress and Master went without me. She had run all the way to York, which is at least fifteen miles from here and seems to have followed the river. In the end she died on the railway, which must have been so awful for her. I just don’t know what to do with myself. I don’t know whether to put all her toys away or whether she would like me to have played with them. It has made me realise that while other girl dogs might be fun to meet, there is no other dog like an Entlebucher, not to me anyway. It’s funny how you understand someone who is so similar to yourself. It’s as though you just know you belong. I wish Bella had felt the same about me. I hope she’s safe now, wherever she is. I hope that she has gone to a land where she can chase rabbits endlessly and where the bone cupboard is never empty; a land where you can be cuddled 24 hours a day and where you can always nap in comfort. Goodbye dearest Bella, you have left this little dog with a dream of how perfect life could be if I could have shared it with you. A little bit of my heart will always be with you.