Thanks everyone for your kind words about Roxy, and I just wanted to give an update to you all. After quite a lot of soul-searching (particularly my dad, who was devoted to Roxy), my parents decided that the house was too empty without a pet and that they could still offer another dog a very good home. They live quite near a boxer rescue centre and went to have a look, thinking they might well come away empty handed. They told the staff all about Roxy - a white boxer - and they were desperate to introduce my parents to Lily, a one-year-old white boxer who had been dreadfully abused by her previous owners and was being ignored by most visitors to the centre because she's white and because she's skin and bones. The inevitable happened - they fell in love, they took her home ... she's not Roxy but she's fitting in beautifully and seems overwhelmed by the kindness now being shown to her. If one good thing has come out of Roxy's departure, it's that Lily is getting another chance at life.
