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His bed is still in the corner of his living room. His toys are still scattered on the floor. Every now and then one of us steps on one of them and it makes a squeak that reminds us of what it was like when he filled this place with his presence and how awfully quiet it is without him. We can’t bring ourselves to throw his things away, even though it’s been six weeks now. I don’t know how long you can mourn the loss of a dog, because I’ve never loved an animal as much as I loved Humphrey.

The smallest, most mundane things can still bring tears to my eyes. Bassets shed, and there was always so much of his hair to wipe away. But every time I vacuum now, the dust bin is emptier than the last time, and it feels like every last trace of him has vanished from the world. I still find his hair on my clothes. I’ll be sitting in a meeting and spot one on the sleeve of my sweater or the leg of my pants, and I’ll feel sad all over again.

In “Me Cheeta,” James Lever’s hilarious and heartbreaking “autobiography” of Tarzan’s chimpanzee, there is a passage where he talks about the dissolution of bonds between friends of different species. He thinks of his former co-star and best friend Johnny Weissmuller and wonders if he feels like he is missing a silly animal by his side who constantly mocked him, “but only out of love.”

That’s how it was between Humphrey and me. It was like he was my funny pal and I was his serious partner. Once he was eating a man’s sandwich in Stephen’s Green. The man took his eyes off it for a second and Humphrey took it from his hand without even pausing, so I had to apologize for him. Another time I tied him to a bench outside the post office in Avoca and he decided to run and drag the bench behind him like a sled dog until it broke into a dozen pieces.

He was stubborn and disobedient, and anyone who has ever known a Basset Hound will understand that. I can honestly say that in all the years we spent together, he never, not once, did anything I told him to do unless it was something he wanted to do anyway.

One day, typically, after a stroll on Dún Laoghaire Pier, I tried to persuade him to get in the car, but Humphrey had decided he would rather stay outside if I didn’t mind. I begged him, as I always begged him: “Humphrey, please get in the car. I’m begging you. Please, Humphrey, don’t do this to me. I don’t need this today.” And then I noticed that a few feet away, a couple with a golden Labrador were standing staring at me as if they thought I was completely mad.

( We asked ChatGPT to write like Marian Keyes, John Boyne and Paul Howard. Now they are evaluating the results )

I think Humphrey generally thought I took life too seriously and that I needed to loosen up a bit. There were times when he drove me crazy, but the love he gave us back was always more than enough compensation. If you left him alone for five minutes, he would greet you as if you had been gone for a month. He was incredibly intuitive, sensing when you were sad and laying on your feet or lap just to let you know he was there – he had that ability.

We developed a routine that suited both of us and synchronized our internal clocks. We got up at five every morning. When it was a minute past five, the quiet whining would start and be enough to shoo me out of bed. We would spend a few minutes saying good morning to each other, and he would listen for any of the dozen or so human words he recognized – but most often it was “chicken.”

I would prepare our breakfast, then let him out to use the bathroom before we settled in for the morning, me to work, Humphrey to enjoy his first nap of the day. He usually slept on the doorframe or with his head pressed against the leg of my desk chair, because his biggest fear in life was that I would go to the fridge to get something to eat and he would oversleep the whole time. Whenever he woke up and smelled food on my breath, he would give me a look so full of betrayal that I had to turn my head away.

He got up around 11 a.m. to wait for the mailman to arrive. He sat at one end of the hall and stared at the mailbox like a polar bear at a trench. When it opened, he charged at it, barking like mad. Then the mailman greeted him through the front door and he calmed down.

Then for two hours he kept snorting, whining and moaning to assure me that it was lunchtime, even though he knew it wasn’t. It was one o’clock. He wolfed down his food quickly and then watched me eat mine, staring at me intently, hoping to get a crust of bread off my plate. Even when I had the last piece of food in my mouth, he still considered it “play” until the moment I swallowed it.

Then we went for one of our walks, which never involved exercise. Basset Hounds are slaves to their noses, so walking a dog is often a hectic affair that can be incredibly frustrating until they teach you patience – as in all things.

In the afternoon I went back to work while Humphrey went back to sleep. However, he would often wake up and bring toys to my desk to try to get me to play with them. Most of the time he was successful – he was very, very persistent – but sometimes, when I had a deadline to meet, I had no choice but to ignore him. Then when I finished work, I would look down and find a pile of his toys on the floor next to the desk. It always broke my heart that they were never his favorite toys, but the ones he thought I had a preference for.

( Irish pet detective: “I was attacked with machetes and firearms. I was set on fire in a vehicle.” )

Evenings were Humphrey’s. He would eat his dinner and then wonder what we were having. If it was chicken, he could sit for two hours and watch the chicken cook through the little window in the oven door. When the Christmas turkey was in the oven, he was like me when I first watched the Sopranos.

Then we settled in for the night. Humphrey insisted that we at least share the sofa with him. The word “no” to a Basset Hound means “not now – but try again in, say, 30 seconds.” Sometimes he decided he preferred the sofa to himself. Often when my wife came home from work she would find him sprawled on the sofa, snoring, with his ear in his mouth, while I sat gloomily on the hard floor.

I miss our routine. I miss all those little cornerstones of our everyday lives. Our lives have become horribly less complicated. We can now go out and stay out for hours without the inconvenience of having to rush home to a dog. But we know that when we get home, Humphrey won’t be there – his whole, ridiculously long body wagging with excitement – to greet us.

It’s far too early to even think about getting another dog. We both have this fear that another dog wouldn’t be able to hold a candle to Humphrey, that we wouldn’t love him the same way. Maybe we’ll change our minds in time, but not while we’re still feeling his absence, not while I’m still looking down every 15 minutes expecting him to be on my tail.

Or maybe Humphrey will be the first and last dog to share my life. And maybe I’ll never shake the feeling that I miss a stupid animal that mocks me, but only out of love.

He was my constant companion for 13.5 years. We hardly left each other’s sight. It was Humphrey who taught me that domesticating the dog was perhaps the best work we have ever done on this planet. But he also taught me the great sadness that every dog ​​lover knows: that our lives are so long and theirs, in comparison, so short. And it is always too soon to say goodbye.