THEY had been her two blonde women (initially named Hazel and Honey) and renamed Luna and Seren by Anne Harrington and her Welsh-born husband, Dave Rees.
“So we called her Luna, which means moon. It’s also short for lunatic; she was well-named,” says Anne, who has all the time felt “a magnetic pull” in the direction of lurchers — a mixture of sighthound (greyhound, whippet) and one other breed, eg collie, terrier. “There’s something about the hairy lurchers that I just love.”
As quickly because the couple met Luna and Seren — they’d been dumped in a yard one night time — they only knew they couldn’t depart them behind. “They melted my heart,” says Anne.
Anne Harrington Rees, with lurcher Flynn, adopted in 2018, pictured at Skibbereen Farmers’ Market
Luna, “a bit of a divil”, Anne describes as a one-dog ambassador for lurchers. “She was the ‘people’ dog, very outgoing. In a way, she deflected attention from Seren, who was more reticent; she’d hold back, hide behind us. But once you got to know Seren, she loved people, too. She and my sister, Mary, had a great connection.”
Living in Timoleague on the time, the seaside at close by Courtmacsherry turned a pure three-times-a-day hang-out for Anne and the dogs. “To see the two of them on the beach. Did they love those waves, Seren in particular. It was an absolute joy to watch her run. Luna was more into chasing her and then coming back to us. She’d hunker down like a collie and herd Seren.” The seaside was a pure draw for Anne, too, who’d been identified with fibromyalgia whereas beforehand residing in Wales. “Walking on tarmacked roads kills me. I find it easier on sand.”
In Wales, she’d run her personal panorama business. “I loved it, but two and a half years in I got very ill. I was unable to get out of bed or drive.” When her well being improved, Anne did a university course in artwork, although nonetheless fighting ache and with repetitive duties. “I struggled with pain in my shins and in my arms.”
But West Cork seashores and the corporate of her beloved lurchers had a therapeutic impression. “I love being outdoors and having the dogs brought me outside; being in the fresh air helped my head space. It’s a fantastic way to meet people — they stop and ask you about your dogs. First, you get to know their dog’s name, then you get to know the people’s names. A half-hour walk could turn into two hours.”
Luna, supervising Anne Harrington Rees’ drawing course of
Then got here the recent summer season of 2018, and worries about why 12-year-old Luna was reluctant to go for even quick walks, why she struggled to go up steps, and x-rays that gave no rationalization. And then got here the wrenching day when a scan confirmed most cancers had eaten away one in all Luna’s vertebrae and nothing may very well be achieved for her. Still beneath sedation, the vet’s recommendation was to not let her get up.
“It was the hardest decision and the easiest. We didn’t want her to be in pain any longer,” says Anne. “You go there, not knowing what the problem is, you’re hoping it’s something that can be fixed — and to come away with not having her… We brought her home with Seren beside her. I think it’s important if one goes, that the other sees them dead, so it’s not you have just taken the dog, or the dog has just left.
“Through that time, I thought, ‘Am I going mad?’ People didn’t really talk about losing their animals. I wanted to talk about Luna; she was family, such a part of us. On our walks, people were used to seeing Luna and Seren together. They were almost afraid to ask – and I’d explain, and there were always tears.”
Grief from pet loss is actual, Anne is aware of. “It’s visceral. It’s huge. We have loved so deeply and lost so much.”
This summer season she launched Luna’s Legacy, a pet commemoration design service to assist folks work by means of their grief, and to recollect the life they shared with their pet. “You share stories and images of your pet with me and I create a design celebrating and commemorating your life together,” says Anne, who can be a Green Sketching coach/ambassador – inexperienced sketching makes use of doodling as a device to assist us see/get pleasure from magnificence in nature, serving to us to reconnect with nature.
Anne Harrington Rees’ Kelp tea towel.
Anne’s personal, private Luna-inspired art work is a ‘kelp’ design tea-towel, created with from a photograph taken on Waterford’s Ballyquin Beach. Luna was in collie mode, ready to herd Seren again to Anne and Dave – each dogs cherished munching on kelp stems washed up by the tide.
“The coastal palette came from the colours of sky, sea, sand and Luna’s coat. And it seemed right to feature kelp fronds on the design.”
It is, says Anne, a reminiscence of these blissful days spent on the seaside together with her women: Seren handed away in 2021.
- For every pet commemoration design commissioned, Anne donates 5 % of the charge to animal rescue charities. She will probably be at Ballymaloe Craft Fair – November 17-19. Visit .
