Mellie, our little terrier, died yesterday.
Though we’ve yet to see what kind of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will be, it’s safe to say he is a man full of surprises. Back in 2011, the member for Wentworth penned this poignant eulogy for his family dog Mellie: a terrier, blogger, political ally, occasional escapist and friend.
It’s so beautiful we thought we’d share it with you again.
PM Malcolm Turnbull writes…
Mellie, our little terrier, died yesterday. She was nearly eleven and had been very sick for the last few months. Her heart was giving out and when we went for a walk we would carry her most of the way.
We thought she might leave us on Saturday, but I think in her funny, doggy way she knew that it was an important day – an engagement party for our son Alex and his fiancée Yvonne – a celebration of love. She loved us all too much to die that night. So she hung on until Sunday.
Mellie and her sister JoJo joined our family early in 2001. They were Maltese/Sydney Silky crosses, Mellie looked very Maltese and JoJo very much the Sydney silky.
She was called Imelda because, as a tiny puppy, she liked to climb into shoes but it quickly became Mellie.
Nine other things you didn’t know about Malcolm Turnbull.
When JoJo and Mellie came to live with us we had an old beloved red cattle dog, Rusty, who was ten and had started to become pretty sleepy – a nasty experience with a tick hadn’t helped. The arrival of the little dogs brightened him up and for next five or six years he was almost as lively as them.
Dogs are pack animals and they regard their humans as part of their pack. In our family Mellie was always most concerned that the pack stay together. If we were going for a walk and one of us was a little slow in getting out the door, Mellie would rush back in and round you up. If one of us fell behind on a walk –anything more than five or six metres – she would stop until you caught up or rush back to get you. There was not the slightest biological evidence for this, but I often wondered whether she had been a border collie in a previous life.