Matt Baker spoke about his Matt Baker pet loss after losing his beloved border collie Bob, saying the grief sits alongside a lifetime built around dogs. He linked that loss to his new podcast, Petcast, and to the way animals have shaped his work and home life.
He said he has had more than 20 dogs in his life since Cromwell, and added that when he moved down to London it was the first time in his life that he’d been without a dog and he felt quite lost. For Baker, the loss of Bob lands inside a longer story of living with animals rather than standing apart from it.
Petcast and London
Baker said it is his love of animals that inspired Petcast, and he traced that attachment back to his childhood on a family farm. He trained his first sheepdog at age 13, and he said pets were his companions on adventures when he was younger. That background gives his comments on Bob a plain edge: this is not a one-off attachment, but part of how he has lived for years.
He also said, “The difference is that pets are animals you let in the house” and, “But even saying that I realise you can take a lamb to feed and before you know it they’re in the kitchen and they’re a pet, too.” Those lines place Bob’s loss in the middle of a life where the line between work, home and animal company has often been thin.
Meg and Blue Peter
Meg is Baker’s best-known dog, the border collie who was with him during his seven years on Blue Peter. Baker said, “When I moved down to London it was the first time in my life that I’d been without a dog and I felt quite lost.” He later said, “Blue Peter supported me,” and, “My time on Blue Peter was a partnership with Meg.”
Meg came from a neighbour’s farm up in Durham, and Baker said, “I still think that’s a wonderful thing for children to see on TV, especially those who perhaps couldn’t have a dog.” He added, “It made me really proud.”
Bob and the Chiltern Hills
Baker now lives on a smallholding in the Chiltern Hills with Ted, Ivy, sheep and chickens. He said his current animals include the young border collie Ted and the miniature dachshund Ivy, which makes Bob’s death part of a much larger home setting built around animals.
That is the point of the story for readers: Baker is grieving Bob, but he is doing it as someone whose life has long been structured by dogs, from Cromwell to Meg, and now to Ted and Ivy. The unresolved part is simple and personal — when did Bob die, and what exactly happened to him?
