Loyalty

Leao is the dog of Cristina Santana, who was killed in the Brazil floods. She was buried two days ago, and the dog has kept vigil by the graveside ever since.

What to say? What can you say, that isn't either trite or pompous? The image speaks for itself.

Like The Grim Reaper (to whom a hat-tip for the image), I have had dogs most of my life, and like him I was moved enormously by this.

End of the Year

There's a real end-of-the-year feel about today. Because of the high autumn winds in Pembrokeshire, many of the leaves get ripped off the trees and fall to the ground to rot before they change colour on the branches. But the leaves that are still there are starting to turn. The Japanese maple that we planted a few years ago looks especially nice:



There's a clear blue sky and bright sunshine, and the wind is light, so we decided to take the dog to the beach. The sea was a fabulous turquoise blue, and the air was clear, enabling you to see for miles.



Newgale is a fantastic beach, with about two miles of smooth white sand and, especially at this time of year, rarely crowded. Today there were probably only 10-20 people within sight at any time, and at times, none.



I say there were few people around, but of course having a Labrador means that, of those few, none were unvisited and uninspected. He's a friendly old boy, and is especially fond of children, so he was in his element today. But, sadly, today also made it clear how age is catching up with him. He's always had problems with LSD (Labrador Selective Deafness, where he and only he decides what commands he is prepared to listen to), but today it seems as though real deafness is developing. It's the first time I have even known him not respond to the word 'biscuits'. His eyesight is now poor, and for him to see and chase a ball it has to be thrown directly in front of him. Anything thrown to the side, he just doesn't see.



The saddest thing is the way he is deteriorating physically. He's always been big and strong, and very fast on his feet for a big dog. When he was about a year old, I threw a ball on the same beach and measured his stride length when he was chasing it. Between the front paw marks on each stride was a full 12 feet. He hardly touched the ground. Today, I did the same, and he managed about half that. He can still run, but you can see he is stiff and hurting. He's finding it hard to get in the back of the car now as well. I had to help him in both times.

It comes to us all, I suppose. I'm feeling my age myself these days. Nothing works quite as well as it used to.

I'm told that getting a puppy when your dog is old is a way to keep them young and sprightly for longer, so perhaps we need to start looking for a little pal for the old bugger.



End of the year, things coming to an close; a melancholy time.

Why Dogs Are Good For You

There's a good article in the online Times today, with the above title. If you like dogs, go and read it - you will enjoy it.

A couple of things that made me laugh:

If I say “walk” or “biscuit” he will perform what I call his “extreme dance of happiness”, which, if you’d like to give it a go at home, must involve spinning in excited circles while trying to bite your own balls off.

We like to play the game, “What would Monty not say, even if he could speak?” and top of our list at present is, “I feel so cheap and worthless after casual sex,” and, “No, after you, I insist.”

All my life I’ve prided myself on never taking any exercise, but I walk Monty on Hampstead Heath for at least a couple of hours every day and I’m never bored. His enthusiasm rubs off on me. Let’s bark at this squirrel! Let’s crash though these bushes! Let’s see if this nice golden retriever lady wants sexy time!

This reminds me so much of my own Lab, about whom all of the above (with the exception of the reference to balls - he lost his a while back) could be written. He's dim and rather goofy, and has some appalling personal habits, such as getting into the field and rolling in fresh fox-shit, and then coming to greet every member of the family in turn to show off his new after-shave. But then he'll walk up to you with those big eyes, put his slobbery jowls on your lap, and all is forgiven. At almost 12 years old, his eyes are getting a bit dim and his boundless energy is less than it was, but he has never lost his puppyish enthusiasm for people and food. I can't imagine living without a dog.

I've never met a dog I didn't like. That's more than I can say for people.

Another poem

As promised. This is an incredibly simple poem, but it has fantastic resonance.

Praise of a Collie

She was a small dog, neat and fluid --
Even her conversation was tiny:
She greeted you with bow, never bow-wow.

Her sons stood monumentally over her
But did what she told them. Each grew grizzled
Till it seemed he was his own mother's grandfather.

Once, gathering sheep on a showery day,
I remarked how dry she was. Pollochan said, "Ah,
It would take a very accurate drop to hit Lassie."

She sailed in the dinghy like a proper sea-dog.
Where's a burn? -- she's first on the other side.
She flowed through fences like a piece of black wind.

But suddenly she was old and sick and crippled .
I grieved for Pollochan when he took her a stroll
And put his gun to the back of her head.

Norman MacCaig

The tale of the dog

This post will be unashamedly sentimental and soppy. If that bothers you, look away now. There's plenty of stuff on motorbikes and tools and stuff elsewhere on this blog.

Jem was a Springer Spaniel, and was about 4 or 5 when I moved in with her owner. There are two types of Springer, Welsh and English. The English type is heavier-built and has a coarser coat; the Welsh variety is much more slender and elegant, with a silky coat. I am sure that Jem was a Welsh Springer, but her KC certificate said English. But she was sleek and shiny, with liver and white markings, and I thought she was fab. Actually, at first I thought she was a nuisance, as she had Anna's sole guardian for many years, and she didn't relinquish her responsibilities lightly. But we quickly learned to get along, although I don’t think she ever trusted me fully.

I could go on for pages about what a great dog she was, but I shall keep it brief. She was never trained as a gundog, but she had certain responses built in. At a command of "seek!", she would dive into the nearest bushes and work the undergrowth until something - anything - ran out at the other end. Sometimes a rabbit, sometimes a pheasant, sometimes a rat, but she always found something.

She was a little madam at times. If we went shopping and left her alone, she would turn her back to the car, look over her shoulder, and then pointedly look away. You could almost hear the disapproving sniff.

We live in the countryside with fields all around and a few holiday cottages nearby. Every change-over day, she would patrol all the cottages, introduce herself, and accept a sandwich. Most holidaymakers thought she was a star.

A very few were anti-dog and gave us severe warnings about 'having a dangerous animal on the loose', not realising that, unless you were a rat, there was no more harmless creature in the county. One great success story was one of these families who complained on day one of their visit. We kept her in for the duration, but she must have wandered off at some point, as on the day they left, the father knocked at our door. We were expecting a tirade of the usual my-child-could-have-been-killed nonsense, but instead he asked what kind of dog she was. Jem had (sneakily) gone to see them half-way though the week, the children had fallen for her, and had persuaded Dad to get them one just like Jem. Result.

When she got to 12 or 13 years of age, she started to get health problems. Her joints became stiff, and she kept getting painful abscesses. We must have spent hundreds on medication for her, but in the end the vet told us that she was too weak for another operation, and that the next time we came to see him would be the last. He knew she was terrified of the vets, so he agreed to visit us on the way home one night, and he put her to sleep on the lawn with both of us holding her. We wanted to bury her on her 'patch', so earlier in the day I had asked a friend with a JCB to come and dig us a big hole. He couldn't do the job himself, but sent one of his lads. I met him at the appointed spot, halfway down her favourite stretch of the lane.

All right, boss?

Yeah, sort of.

Where do you want the hole?

I pointed.

Big dog, was he?

She. And no, she wasn't very big at all.

At this point I found I had urgent business about 100 yards away up the lane and out of sight of this strapping lad. Afterwards, I gave him a fiver.

We buried her in the hole and worked harder than necessary to fill it in. The work seemed therapeutic. Finally, we had finished, and went back to the house for a cup of tea. As we stood in the kitchen, looking glumly at each other, there was a tap on the window. It was a man who had stayed last year in the cottage next door, who had just arrived after a long journey from Birmingham.

Is Jem around? The boys have been talking about her non-stop since we left. They'd love to take her out for a play.

I didn't know what to say. I mumbled something like:

Sorry, we buried her ten minutes ago.

He was stunned and very apologetic. No need, of course; he wasn't to know. But the boys took it badly, apparently. He felt guilty about asking; we felt guilty that he felt guilty, and it was a bit of a sorry exchange. They never came back.

Later, I made a little marker for where we had left her. Solid oak, hand-carved, just her name and her vital dates. It's still there, and I tip my hat to it every time I pass.

I'm normally fairly unsentimental, but if anyone ever says they are grieving over the loss of an animal, they have my utmost sympathy. People dying is always complex, but with animals it is simple. They were here, and now they are gone, and that's the biggest difference in the world.

Animals, eh? You let them into your life, look after them, and they tear you apart. We gave it a week or two, and then decided that the house was just too quiet, so we got another dog. But that's for another day.

The real truth about cats and dogs

Reading this post, I was struck by how polarised people are by the 'cats and dogs - which is best?' debate.

"I was reminded yet again that anyone who loves dogs and hates cats needs psychiatric help or self esteem classes."

Whut?

I ought to declare my hand here and say that I love dogs, always have and always will. I never met a dog I didn't like. I had a dog throughout my childhood, which performed much the same service to me (guide, philosopher and friend) that Juliette's cat did for her. When the little mutt got run over when I was 16, I was heartbroken. Circumstances meant that I didn't have a pet of any kind (unless you count a couple of psychotic rabbits when the kids were small) until I moved in with Anna 19 years ago. She had a Springer bitch and two cats, both kittens at the time I moved in. The cats and I had a bit of a stand-off, a kind of armed neutrality, for a long time. I didn't like them much, but I didn't detest them either. I expect they felt the same. The Springer, on the other hand, was delightful.

However, I did get fond of the cats in a weird way, and when the time came for them to be put down (the last one when Anna was in hospital for the heart surgery, thanks cat) I was pretty upset. We got another cat just recently (a long story for another post) and this one is great fun. She's a total nutjob, and screams around the house at top speed just for fun. She's also a good mouser. Although the previous cats managed to catch the mice and keep them out of the house, she has only managed the first part so far. We get about one 'present' a day, and as Anna hates mice like most people hate having burning bamboo splints shoved under their fingernails, it usually falls to me to find, capture and dispose of the little bugger. ('Dispose', to me, means put in the garden as far away as possible. I only kill things I am prepared to eat, or which mean me harm, and mice don't fit well into either category.) So cats and I are getting along much better these days.

But on the dog/cat question, I am still firmly in the dog camp. Dogs, as a rule, are useful, obedient, and love you unconditionally. Cats tend to be remote, selfish and cannot be trained.

Dogs have owners; cats have staff.

There are people who think dog lovers are therefore muppets with low self-esteem, who need a dumb animal to feel wanted and needed. I tend to take the view that, if you are going to spend your hard-earned on feeding an animal, it might as well be one that will do neat stuff and can give you a fight on the living-room carpet when you're bored. These same people say they 'admire' cats for their aloofness and independence. When you start 'admiring' an animal for how low and unimportant it makes you feel, I think it's you that has the self-esteem 'ishoos'.

Yes, dogs are blokey - not too clever, eat anything, easily satisfied, fart a lot. And cats are girly - obsessively clean, self-centred, picky and unreliable. Dogs make you feel good. Cats make you feel uncertain. And that's why this bloke is unashamedly doggy.