People are sharing the very moving open letter Sue Perkins wrote when her dog Pickle died

Last year, TV host and author Sue Perkins lost her beloved beagle, Pickle. An open letter she wrote about the agony of having to put her friend of 11 years down is being shared online again after she returned to screens hosting The Great British Bake Off.

The bittersweet letter will chime with anyone who has ever loved and lost a pet.

She began the letter by writing:

My darling girl, First, a confession: I had you killed. I planned it and everything; asked the vet round and a nurse in a green uniform with white piping - all with the express intention of ending your life. Yes, I know. I know you had no idea, because I had been practicing for weeks how to keep it from you, and how – when that time came – I could stop my chest from bursting with the fear and horror and unbearable, unbearable pain of it all.

In one of the most moving passages, Perkins wrote:

When someone once took a punch at me, you leaped in the air and took it. When I discovered I couldn’t have children, you let me use your neck as a hankie. You were my longest relationship, although I think any decent psychologist would have deemed us irredeemably co-dependent. You were the engine of my life, the metronome of my day. You set the pulse and everything and everyone moved to it. What a skill. I woke to your gentle scratch on the door. (it wasn’t gentle, it was horrific and you have destroyed every door in every house we have lived in - I am just trying to make you sound nice) and the last sound at night was the sound of you crawling under your blanket and giving that big, deep, satisfied sigh.

Amid the sadness, it has it's funnier moments too:

As a pup, you crunched every CD cover in the house for fun. You chewed through electrical cable and telephone wires. You ripped shoes and gobbled plastic. You dived into bins, rolled in shit and licked piss off of pavements. You ate my bedposts. As an adult you graduated to raiding fridges and picnics, you stole ice cream from the mouths of infants, you jumped onto Christmas tables laden with pudding and cake and blithely walked through them all, inhaling everything in your wake. You puked on everything decent I ever owned. You never came when called, never followed a path, never observed the green cross code and only sat on command when you could see either a cube of cheese or chicken in my hand (organic, or free-range at a push) And last, but not least, you shat in my bed (yes, I know they were dry and discreet little shits, but they are still shits, you shit).

You can read the full letter below, or by following this link.

A letter to Pickle. by Sue Perkins

More: This dog's story has a happy ending