Tea and Dog Biscuits Page 7

  I still wasn’t used to getting up early on Saturday mornings. Trudging down the hall to answer the phone I reflected on how my Saturdays used to be. I’d read the paper, have a leisurely breakfast, have a yawn and a stretch, perhaps wander round the bric-a-brac market in town, maybe take the dog for a walk, although not too far.

  And now… today I had five dogs to walk! My hand on the phone, I paused and pictured the five. And smiled – what a lovely thought.

  ‘Hello.’ As I lifted the receiver another thought quickly followed on: At some time today it would be only four dogs.

  ‘Hello, Mr Hawkins. I’m sorry to ring you so much earlier than I said. But I just couldn’t wait.’

  I smiled again. That was just the sort of thing I wanted to hear. ‘Hello, Mrs Burton.’

  ‘I thought the earlier I rang, the earlier we could arrange to come and pick him up.’

  The eagerness in her voice was music to my ears.

  ‘I can’t wait,’ she said.

  ‘You haven’t changed your mind, then, about wanting him,’ I said, teasing.

  ‘I shan’t deign to even answer that question,’ was the reply. ‘But I have a couple of questions to ask if I may.’

  ‘Fire away.’

  There followed a series of questions, all relating to Monty’s well-being. For this was going to be Monty’s Big Day. Monty was going to his new home with Mr and Mrs Burton.

  ‘He’s a cracking dog,’ PC Charlie Morecambe had said when he met Monty. ‘I’d love to have him.’

  He had taken him back to the police kennels for some initial tests which Monty had – of course – passed with flying colours.

  ‘He’s full of it,’ Charlie had said. ‘My sort of dog.’

  But the force X-rayed potential canine recruits to assess their hips. Hip dysplasia is a common problem in German Shepherds and without a good ‘hip score’ the strains put upon a police dog could lead to early retirement. Monty’s hips, we were told, were fine for a family pet, but as a working dog there was doubt whether he would be able to scale walls until retirement age.

  ‘I miss him already,’ Charlie had said when he brought him back. He’d had him one day.

  As he was getting into his police car he had paused, pursed his lips and looked at me. ‘If I don’t find a dog soon they’ll have me back pounding a beat.’ He shut his eyes for a moment at the thought. I could tell that his disappointment wasn’t just because he hadn’t found himself a police dog; it was so much greater because he thought that he had. He was about to close the door of his police car when he looked up at me and said, ‘I don’t suppose you want any help sometimes, do you? I could do with walking a dog.’ He patted his belly. But I knew that wasn’t the only reason why he wanted to walk a dog. I had had that same sense of longing when I had been without Elsa after she died. I would gaze at other people’s dogs. I would ask if I could stroke their dog. It was a need.

  I told Charlie I would be delighted if he came and walked some of our orphans – and I meant it. Most big dogs usually need plenty of exercise and it would also be a chance for me to get tips about dog-handling from a professional.

  Charlie’s loss was to be Mr and Mrs Burton’s gain. And they wanted to come and collect their new dog ASAP, as Mrs Burton’s phone call was making clear.

  ‘I can’t wait,’ she said. ‘We can be round in twenty minutes if that’s all right with you.’

  I had to ask her to be patient a little longer.

  ‘I’d like to take Monty for one more walk,’ I said. ‘Our last walk together.’

  She understood. They would come round late morning.

  I put the phone down and stood gazing at it. Those words I had used, ‘our last walk together’, had stilled me. I realised what it would be: my last walk with a dog that had become in just three weeks my companion, my friend, my playmate, my personal guard. My dog.

  Looking back now I realise how lucky we were with our first rehoming, how easy it was. From then on we would be handing over our dogs to people we had met only a couple of times, usually after replying to an advertisement. No matter how much care we took in our assessments, no matter how many enquiries we made, no matter how much more skilful we became in assessing the suitability of the home, we were still taking a risk. We were placing our trust in the people. And people could put on an act. We all do at some time or other. We are on our best behaviour on a first date. We want to impress at the interview for a job. Dorothy and I had something that people coming to us wanted. How much of an act would they put on to get it from us?

  Mr and Mrs Burton lived in the next village, where they had seen our advert in the village shop, but before that they had lived in Little Wilberry. Over the years we had often seen them walking their female Shepherd, and stopped to admire her and to chat. From first-hand experience we knew this was a couple who regularly exercised their dog, took her to training classes, immediately whisked her off to the vet at the first sign of a health problem, took her away at weekends caravanning, took her on holiday with them and were stricken with grief when she died suddenly at only eight years of age.

  For our last walk together I would take Monty somewhere different.

  ‘How would you like to go to the reservoir?’ I said, holding up his lead and dangling it temptingly.

  He did his usual rushing round in a circle, then jumped up at me, paws on my shoulders, then another rush round in a circle. He knocked over the kitchen flip-top bin.

  I opened the back of the old Volvo estate. He didn’t leap in, but waited for the instruction. Standing, ready to spring, eyes fixed on me waiting for the word, trembling with excitement.

  ‘In the back!’ And he was up with a surge of power off those back legs, skidding across the carpet in the load-carrying area, crashing into the rear seat. Then he turned back to come and put his head out of the opening, look all around and give me a lick in the ear. I could read the eager, happy anticipation on his face. He stood there, king of the castle. I looked at him and shook my head in wonder and admiration. How I adored this breed.

  He loved to learn new things to do, and learnt so quickly. All I’d need to do was go through it with him two or three times and he’d got it.

  ‘You’re so clever as well as handsome,’ I said to him.

  Wag, wag, wag went his tail. ‘Are you sure you want to go for a walk?’ I asked. I shouldn’t have teased him but I couldn’t resist it. He held up a paw and plopped it down on my arm which, in readiness, I had held out. Then he leant forward and took hold of some strands of my hair in his teeth. This is why I couldn’t resist teasing him. I knew what he was going to do. Just three weeks and we had developed our own fun routines. I jerked my head back and cried out in mock pain.

  On the way to the old reservoir I looked in the rear-view mirror. I knew what I would see: two paws resting on the top of the back seat of the car, one either side of the head of a German Shepherd dog. I couldn’t see a great deal other than that in the mirror. The dog was looking about, sometimes screwing his head round behind him as we passed something of particular interest. I realised that when I drove the car after that day I would miss that view in my mirror.

  I wondered if he would go in the water. I had been to the reservoir with Orphan Number Two, Pearl, the gentle white German Shepherd, the previous Saturday while Dorothy had taken Monty to an old aerodrome. The reservoir is at the top of a rise and Pearl had halted at the top and stood gazing at the reservoir, obviously a new sight for her. Gingerly, she had made her way down to the water’s edge.

  ‘Are you going to go in?’ I asked in an encouraging tone. One paw had gone forward slowly at the water’s edge and touched the water in her usual genteel, ladylike manner. And that was it. The sum of any interest Pearl showed in the reservoir.

  Today I reached the water’s edge before Monty, the boy having been distracted and led away across two fields by a hare. He never caught anything. It was clear that wasn’t the intention; he wasn’t in determined pursuit. The cha
se was just fun.

  I stood at the water’s edge, alert for the sound of running footsteps behind me; I had no intention of being tipped into the water and soaked.

  I liked it there. It was a reservoir created long ago by a farmer to supply water to his fields of ‘tatties’, as the locals called potatoes. Created by human beings for the purposes of large-scale agricultural production, it had over the years been colonised by wildlife. It was now either a home or a stopping-off point for many birds and small creatures that I could see and no doubt for far more tiny living things that I couldn’t. The rise on which the reservoir was sited was very exposed and often when we walked there the wind would cause waves on the water, which brought to mind summer days on the beach. Today the water was still. It was spring and I watched a mother bird glide across the water followed behind by a line of youngsters. I recalled that Dorothy had told me on our first visit to the reservoir that these little brown birds were grebes.

  Suddenly, Monty shot past a few yards away, not close enough for me to have heard him approach. Coming face to face with this expanse of water he braked hard at the edge of the bank. He turned round to look at me as if to say, What’s this? Then he ran towards me, turned as he got to me and leapt off the bank.

  SPLASH!

  ‘Aaaoooooooooooowww!’ I cried out.

  I could never have foreseen the force with which he hit the water and the volume of water he displaced. I tottered about, horrible muddy water coating my spectacles. I couldn’t see a thing. Dirty cold water covered my face and my hair, soggy cold trousers and shirt clung to my skin.

  I was going to miss this dog.

  We sat in the living room, Mr and Mrs Burton, Dorothy and I, drinking tea.

  ‘I wasn’t going to have another one,’ Mrs Burton said. ‘I couldn’t face going through that pain again when you lose them…’

  Her voice trailed off and she turned her head away. It had been several months since she had come down one morning to find Sophie had died overnight in her basket. Her husband, Trevor, placed a hand on her arm, then looked at Dorothy and me.

  ‘We buried her at the bottom of our garden. Mary still goes down every day to her grave.’

  It was time to lighten the tone of the conversation and look to the future. We changed the subject to Monty.

  ‘He’s going to be very different, this one,’ Dorothy said to them both. ‘But then you know that.’

  ‘Oh, yes!’ Mary said, smiling. The sombre atmosphere had been broken by the thought of Monty and his antics.

  She reached down and picked up a bulging carrier bag she had brought with her. She pulled out a leather lead in royal blue, then a blue collar, both with price tickets attached.

  ‘And I went into town this morning, early,’ she said, ‘and had a disc engraved to put on his collar.’

  A chill went through me. Were they going to change his name? I suddenly remembered the promise I had made to homeless John, who had had to give up Monty. I hadn’t thought to tell Mary and Trevor about this promise on their previous visits to see Monty. There had been so much else to tell them and to ask them. I hoped fervently now they didn’t dislike his name and were giving him a new one.

  Mary was holding a round metal disc. From where I was sitting it seemed to have a fancy edging.

  ‘That looks nice,’ I said. ‘Can I see?’

  She passed the disc to me. On one side was the name and telephone number of the new owners. I turned the disc over. It was blank. I looked up.

  ‘We haven’t put his name on it,’ said Mary. I read somewhere that you shouldn’t put the dog’s name on. It makes it easier to steal the dog. They can use his name when handling him.’

  I nodded in agreement.

  ‘And nobody’s likely to guess his name is Monty,’ she said.

  Would he get in their car?

  The four of us were standing on the drive. Monty sported his new collar and his new lead.

  ‘This is the third time he’s met you,’ Dorothy said to Mary and Trevor, ‘and he was pleased to see you today – I think he’ll go with you.’

  It was when Dorothy said, ‘I think he’ll go with you,’ that a feeling of misery welled up in me. He was going.

  ‘Can I just have a minute with him alone?’ I said to the other three.

  Mary nodded knowingly.

  ‘Of course,’ said Trevor. ‘Do you want us to go back indoors?’

  ‘No, it’s all right,’ I said. ‘I’ll just walk him to the end of the drive.’ I turned to Monty. ‘Come on, mate.’

  He trotted with me up to the gate. I knew how eager his new owners were. I couldn’t keep them waiting long. We turned away from the gate, walked a few yards and stopped. I asked Monty to sit, so I could squat down and make a fuss of him.

  He had been a companion for me in those last days when Dorothy had been in hospital. Out on our walks off-lead he tore about, into this, into that, crashing through hedges, excitedly following a trail, leaping up at the tree after a squirrel. But of an evening we had sat together in the kitchen and I had discovered that this rambunctious dog could sit, still like a statue. I would put my face close to his and speak quietly to him. And I would put my hand on his head and slowly run it down the length of his body. And then again. And then again. When I stopped he would turn his head and fix me with a look. And I would do it some more.

  Here we were now, out on the public highway, a trio of people watching us from the garden. But Monty was as still as if we were alone together in the kitchen at night. If you were to ask me now, having been the proud owner of so many German Shepherd dogs, what is the most striking characteristic of the breed, I would reply as follows. I would not say, as is the popular misconception, that they are naturally aggressive. I would not say that their most striking characteristic is the ability to learn quickly, although of course they do – and some of them seem to have more brains than their owners. And yes, they want to please you. Yes, they want to be with you. Yes, to the kind and caring owner they are devoted. But it is the German Shepherd’s sensitivity that always astonishes me, including this big, bruising, rushing-about, gambolling teenager, Monty. Now he had picked up my sombre mood.

  He offered me his paw and gazed at me. I am not imagining it when I say he looked at me quizzically: he tilted his head, first one way then the other. For three weeks he had been my dog. How long does it take before you come to love your dog? My chest started to heave and I took a couple of gulps.

  I knew how long.

  Squashing My Foot

  ‘I think a lot of men are not very good with poo.’

  It was Dorothy’s voice I overheard. I was drying Lion-Maned Dog’s feet in the utility room, which was not a straightforward job because as far as he was concerned it was another new game.

  ‘But Peter does my head in.’ That was Cecilia, who a few hours earlier had brought the Lion-Maned Dog, our Orphan Number Seven, to us.

  ‘More tea?’ asked Dorothy.

  They were having a nice cup of tea and a chat in the kitchen while I attempted to towel a dog nearly as big as the utility room we shared.

  ‘Go on, then,’ said Cecilia. ‘And can I nick another chocolate digestive?’

  Save one for me, I thought on hearing that.

  ‘Our garden’s too big to mow it every week,’ said Cecilia. ‘And the grass gets tall and you can’t see where the dogs have been. Yorkies only do little poos anyway compared with the dogs you have, but Peter just can’t bring himself to pick them up.’

  Lion-Maned Dog gave me a wet lick in my left ear as I kneeled down to pick up a back leg.

  ‘Urgh!’

  ‘You all right in there, darling?’ called out Dorothy.

  ‘Oh yes, I’m having a great time. He trod on my foot just now – he weighs a ton. I don’t think he knew he was standing on it – I had to pull his leg off. And he turned round and squashed me against the wall.’

  ‘I did offer to help but you said there wasn’t room for both of us with him.�
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  ‘Oh, I’m all right. You enjoy your tea and biscuits.’

  ‘Thanks, we will.’

  ‘He’s a bit of a martyr, your Barrie, isn’t he?’ said Cecilia in a lowered voice, but not so low I couldn’t hear.

  ‘I offered not to go to my evening class but he insisted he would be fine,’ said Dorothy.

  ‘You couldn’t miss the first class,’ I protested through the door.

  ‘So how many dogs have you taken up to now, Dorothy?’ Cecilia asked.

  ‘That lad is Number Seven,’ Dorothy said. She counted them off on her fingers as she said the name of each: ‘Monty, Pearl, Claude, brother and sister Wilma and Rob, Sam and this boy with no name but who will have one soon.’

  ‘I’ve lost count of how many I’ve done,’ said Cecilia. It wasn’t a boast. ‘Is this class you’re going to for dog training?’

  ‘No!’ I answered for Dorothy through the door. ‘You won’t believe it! Trampolining! Not two months after her operation. UUURRGGHHH!’ Lion-Maned Dog had shaken himself.

  ‘Are you sure you’re OK, darling?’ Dorothy enquired.

  ‘Whatever is he doing in there?’ asked Cecilia.

  ‘He’s just shaken himself all over me!’

  We’d had to bath him before he could come in the house. But the dirt in his coat was oil, so too were big dark patches on each of his hind legs. Thinking about my own visits to our local car breakers’ yard, there were always patches of oil on the ground and it must have been the same at Lion-Maned Dog’s former home. So the first job when Dorothy had got back from her evening class had been to get out the dog shampoo and the hose. Thank goodness it was now summer and we could wash him down in the garden – putting him in the bath didn’t bear thinking about.

  It had been another great game, perhaps even better than the one where I have to land on him out of the sky. He obviously loved the attention. Dorothy had lathered him all over, then rinsed him off, lathered him all over again, rinsed him off again, but as I rubbed him down now with the towel I could see it was going to take more than one bath to get rid of years of oil and grime. Still, the dark patches were grey now rather than black and at least we wouldn’t have an oily hand after stroking him.