Sadly, I lost Tai in 2011. He was game to the end. Other than adding this note, I've not altered the original text written in 2008.
I have a dog who is a real treasure. Almost everybody falls in love with him, because he's a good-looking animal with an engaging personality. But it was not always so. When he was about a year old, he was taken from his original owner in a pitiful state. We never found out the details and don't know whether any prosecutions resulted, but we could see all too clearly the unhappy state that the animal had been reduced to, emaciated, bedraggled and terrified of his own shadow. He would cower at the slightest movement and we were not sure whether we would be able to do any good with him.
'Tai' has become a traditional name in our family for dogs. Before I met my partner, Daemon, he had a Boxer dog with very attractive brown and white fur, called 'Tie' (his spelling). Eventually, this dog died and Daemon took on another Boxer from the same line which was given the same name and grew up to be as attractive as his predecessor. We had the second 'Tai' for some years, until he died of cancer. At the time, we also had another dog, a bitch full of character called Foxy, a rescued dog reprieved by Daemon some years before. The present Tai, although not a boxer, had the same attractive brown and white fur so the choice of name seemed inevitable. Tai was intended as a companion for Foxy and she helped him to settle in. Alas, both Foxy and Daemon have passed on. Tai and the writer are presently in good health and hope to enjoy life for some time to come.
More photographs of Tai can be found in the Family and Friends section, partly because he's often to be found being fussed by my visitors, partly because, as Daemon always said, "Dogs are people, too".
