We have had Collies for about 40 years. Always having had puppies, all of which lived for at least a decade.

However we lost our beloved Border Collie, Miskin, (aged 12) in May last year, and In December we visited a rescue centre and adopted a beautiful 3 year old Border collie. She had ended up in the centre after her young owner had sadly died. Quite shy at first, she soon settled in and became a favourite with everyone. At the beginning of May whilst out for a walk she picked up a stick and brought it back to my wife, who threw it for her, something neither I nor my wife would very rarely do, as normally we would have a ball to throw. She chased and caught the stick but part of it broke and lodged in her throat. We rushed her to our local vets, who kept her over night. The following day they suggested we should take her to a specialist animal hospital in Bristol (70 miles from us), they operated on her but tragically she died two days later. We were absolutely devastated. The sadness suffered at the loss of all our dogs has been dreadful but because she was so young, we only had her for 4 months and the terrible way it happened has been unbearable.

The animal hospital vets told us this is a common occurrence and a lot of dogs don’t survive. I know there are a lot of dog owners on this site so I write this hopefully to discourage anyone else from throwing a stick for their dog and going through the sadness we have suffered, and are still suffering.