An accidental comedian till the end. He got up and walked out on his own death scene. 

For 30 minutes he romped and played and barked and bumbled about on his favourite corner of Port Melbourne beach, a patch of sand he has been to almost every day for the last four years.

It was his first visit to the beach since he went blind  –  literally overnight a few days ago, a consequence of his debilitating six-month battle with the double whammy of diabetes and Cushing's disease  –  but he was determined to make the most of it. 

He barked at the waves, a lifelong habit he acquired as a puppy in the apparent conviction that if he barked at them for long enough they would turn around and go back to where they came from.

He braved the water up to his ankles but no further, as is his habit. He drank the salt water, years of experience having taught him that this would make him sick and so, why not? He had a wrestle, humped a leg and summoned the strength for a spot of tug-o-war.

Then the time came to do what we had come to do. We set up on a blanket in a corner against the rocks, settled ourselves, bracing for the sad goodbye.

Scout had other ideas. He got a whiff of something under the sand nearby and set about digging up whatever it was – and eating it. Then he dug a bit more, found another bit, and ate that. And on it went.

We think he had found the remains of a bird, but whatever it was it was far more appealing than whatever it was we had in mind for him over yonder on the blanket.

Eventually, with the remains of the local wildlife exhausted, we coaxed him over to meet his maker. 

The vet, the wonderful Emma Whiston, first gave him a heavy sedative, a dose that would send him into a sweet and dreamy sleep, in preparation for the more serious injection to come. 

HIs first reaction: he threw up on me. 

And then we waited. And we waited. And we waited, for him to fall asleep. 

But he had no interest in sleeping. Head up and alert, he wasn't going to nod off if he could possibly help it. The fear of missing out is strong in him, and he would only go to sleep if everyone else went to sleep, too.

So I lay down on the sand and tried to convince him I was going to sleep. He didn't buy it. After quite some time had passed, Emma decided to give him another dose –  in total, the dose required for a 30 kilogram dog; Scout weighs 14 kilograms. 

And so we waited once again, for his inevitable drift off to dreamland.

And we waited. And waited. And then …

He shook himself free of my clutches — and set off for a walk. This had been fun, but  –  despite being totally blind and pumped with enough drugs to stun a horse  –  he'd had enough of whatever it was we were up to.

He got as far as the base of the rocks that would lead him off the beach and back home when finally the drugs kicked in and his little legs started going out from under him.

I picked him up and carried him back to the blanket. 

And after that last defiant show of spirit, he finally closed his eyes and started snoring. He was gone a few minutes later. A heroic last stand.

* Scout was a staffie, his name taken from To Kill A Mockingbird. He was 10, almost 11, when he went on his way. I'd had him since he was eight weeks old. He was a bloody character. Dr Emma Whiston started her home euthanasia practice, My Best Friend, in Melbourne in 2004 and it is one of the few such veterinary practices in Australia. Dr Whiston says Scout was the first time she had put a pet to sleep on a beach.