Back in 1998 I was serving as the OC JSHU (Cyprus) based in Akrotiri. There may not be anyone in BARC who remembers Tucker the dog I adopted, but since he was an unusual and unique animal, I thought I would let you know what happened to him. Tucker was a Cyprus Pointer and chocolate brown in colour. The BARC staff at the time told me he had been abandoned on a roadside somewhere before being rescued and taken to their kennels. He had obviously been in some sort of serious accident as he had a large, livid scar down his back (from an operation – so someone must have cared about him enough to pay for it). His back legs were not as strong as they should be and his tail was crooked (didn’t stop it constantly wagging though)! The kennel staff thought he was about 2 years old and also said he’d be lucky to survive a couple of years because of his injuries. Anyway I was hooked and duly adopted him. The minute he got home he leapt onto the couch and made himself at home – and the Campbell household really was home for the next 13 years - despite BARC’s predictions! Tucker had several unique character traits – he hated cats, loved to chase shadows, follow torch lights and reflections. The whole family loved him and his antics were a source of great amusement to us all. After 2 years in Cyprus I was posted back to the UK. What to do with Tucker? The quarantine laws had not been relaxed at this point – the Pet Passport Scheme was due to start some 6 months after our move back to Blighty. I wasn’t about to leave him behind but nor did I want to subject him to 6 months in quarantine kennels. Luckily another family agreed to look after him until the passport scheme was in force and in June 2000, Tucker became the first dog to enter the UK from Cyprus without going to quarantine!
When I left the Army in 2001 we moved to Argyll and then a year later moved again to Bonnybridge, so Tucker was certainly getting lots of stamps in his passport so to speak. All this time he was a fit and active dog. I took him and Shadow (a black Labrador we got in 2001 as Tucker appeared to be slowing down) running and the entire family took the dogs on numerous long walks. Tucker’s travels were not over yet. At the grand old age of 11 he joined all of us in a major move to New Zealand and it is not an exaggeration to say that we all suspected he might not endure the flight and that if he did he may not last long in NZ. How wrong we were! Tucker came out of his crate in Wellington Airport Cargo shed completely unphased again! His first action was to mark his territory much to the annoyance of a particularly miserable female staff member! Tucker settled really well and was still enjoying long family walks until his age started to get the better of him during 2010. Sadly by the end of the year he was getting slower and slower and rarely managed to walk beyond the garden. The mind was willing but the body wasn’t able. Since January 2011 we could see that he was failing and we just wanted to make him as comfortable as possible for what turned out to be his final few months. Since 1st April he really did go downhill fast and by the weekend of 9/10 April his weight loss and general lethargy meant the difficult decision was imminent. So it was that on Monday 11 April Tucker left us. He will be sorely missed.
