As you might expect from an artist who has an album in her back catalogue called When the pawn hits the conflicts he thinks like a king, What he knows throws the blows when he goes to the fight, And he'll win the whole thing 'fore he enters the ring, There's no body to batter when your mind is your might, So when you go solo, you hold your own hand, And remember that depth is the greatest of heights, And if you know where you stand, then you know where to land, And if you fall it won't matter, cuz you'll know that you're right, Fiona Apple is one to mince her words when it gets around to telling people anything.

The performer has had to cancel her upcoming South American tour because her 13 year-old pit-bull mix Janet is ill and, sadly, appears to be on the way out. In the press surrounding her latest album The Idler Wheel, Apple had spoken a lot about the pet whom she’d rescued as a stray and so it’s no surprise that she’s quite cut up about the situation. You can find out just how cut up she is though in a hugely long letter that she posted to her official Facebook page yesterday (November 20) explaining that Janet had a tumour and as such she’d be staying at home with her rather than playing shows to her Latin American faithful.

Apple had initially hand written the letter – there are pictures of it on Facebook – but she also typed out the piece, which finishes with the incredibly intense words “I know that I will feel the most overwhelming knowledge of her, and of her life and of my love for her, in the last moments. I need to do my damnedest to be there for that. Because it will be the most beautiful, the most intense, the most enriching experience of life I've ever known. When she dies.” There were no words in the essay as to whether the dates would be rescheduled.

Read the full letter.