“He was fantastic that boy”: Martin Clunes Doc Martin co-star Dodger the dog’s death confirmed

The death of Doc Martin’s Buddy - played by Dodger the dog - has been confirmed. Co-star, Martin Clunes, paid tribute to the pooch, calling him a “fantastic” boy.

The 63-year-old star revealed the sad news about his character Martin Ellingham's four-legged friend, saying he is “no longer with us”. Dodger couldn't appear as Buddy in the final series, in 2022, because he was suffering from dementia.

During Martin's appearance on 'The One Show', host Roman Kemp said to him: "Your character was always irritated by his dog but you had quite a good way of getting around that," and the actor replied: "Oh Dodger, oh yeah!

"He was fantastic that boy. Sadly no longer with us. That was the joke I thought ... ‘Who hates dogs’ ... that someone who hates dogs, but they all love him, and they just hang out with him."

Martin has recalled having "such fun" with Dodger on the set, and he enjoyed "pushing the limits" of what the canine star could achieve. He added: "So I had to yell at him, throw him around, do all sorts of things but I never shouted really at him. I just waved my lips around and added in the shouting later.

"Me and Sonia Turner, his trainer, and Dodger, we just had such fun on that, y'know? Pushing the limits of what we could do with him and he was fabulous."

As someone who owns a working farm, Martin is very much an animal lover. He has a menagerie of creatures at home and in his fields, including five dogs, two cats, six horses and a miniature Shetland pony, nine hens and a handful of cattle.

In November last year, he explained how his household was fairly chaotic at that time due to having two sixth-month-old Jack Russell terriers who he and his wife were training. He bought them in the wake of the death earlier in the year of Jim, his beloved Jack Russell, from liver cancer, and he writes movingly about their bond in his new book, Meetings With Remarkable Animals.

“He was totally my soul mate. We knew Jim had cancer when a vet diagnosed him with liver cancer and said, ‘Don’t leave it too late’. That registered with me, which was when I made his coffin, but actually he lived another six months.”

When the time came, he filled the coffin with his dog’s favourite tiny tennis balls and buried him at the end of the garden. “It’s enabled us to smile when we remember Jim without sobbing too much. I miss him every day but I feel we did him proud,” he said.

The book charts the wonders of creatures he’s either encountered or researched, from mine-detecting rats to cancer-sniffing dogs, life-saving dolphins, war hero carrier pigeons and valiant horses.

Clunes agrees that animals have helped him through hard times in his life. His father, Alec Clunes, also an actor, died aged 57 when Martin was eight and soon after, he was packed off to boarding school which he hated, throwing himself into plays and making people laugh to avoid being whacked by classmates. He was later put in charge of the school menagerie, feeding and tending the animals, which he loved.

“It was a remarkably good choice by that teacher to give me that responsibility at that time, because I was quite isolated. I mean, I still go wandering off, I’ll take one or two dogs with me and go and do a job somewhere on the farm. I like that.”

He says working with animals, whether at home or on set, has been joyous. As the irascible, dog-hating Doc Martin, he loved working with Dodger, who played Buddy in the series. “Everybody loved Dodger. I’ve lost more time to actors and actresses than I have to Dodger. Children are another matter. We used to have 12 babies on Doc Martin and rotate them when they start crying or don’t start crying – and you can’t win over a baby with a bit of sausage.”