Dogs Glorious Dogs

Now that I have a connection with Woofbark on Twitter I feel that I can give myself licence to get really doggy. My Border Terrier Saffron is the first female dog I ever had and by far the nicest, which is only to be expected. She has a sweet nature, is extremely pretty, gathers fans about her on the train when we travel and if I leave her outside a shop she draws a group of concerned citizens who reproach me.

I acquired her from some friends who bought her for their daughter just about that time of pubescence when she found the poop scoop deeply embarrassing and boys totally fascinating, so poor Saffie was not getting much exercise.

I was grieving for my last dog, Zit, more of whom later. I had mostly had rescue dogs before and this enchanting little creature was a totally new experience for me,a civilised girl, the arrangement initially was that I had her during the week and took her back weekends but I found excuses to keep her with me and finally, when she began to pine for me and go into ecstasies when I arrived they said I could keep her.She does of course have her own vices, a passion for rolling, in fox spraint main among them and I have become accustoned to perfume of fox as accompaninment to life with her and only bathe her when she rolls in a dead toad, old fish or if I expect fastidious friends to visit.( oddly they seem to have fallen by the wayside over the years!)

She is a great contrast to my last dog, Zit who was a rogue of the first order whose main aim in life was escape and who would slither away low to the ground, in imitation of Muttly whose grin he could do, between car and door looking over his shoulder with what looked like a gotcha grin to me. He was sly and endearingly funny. He also had hideous breath and stupendous farts . I got him from a friend whose boyfriend swore he would leave if she didn't get rid of him, predictably he left anyway. I felt that she should have chosen the dog but was glad to have the pup who was a few months old and already an escape artist.

His mother Daisy was a Jack Russell mixed with something indefinable and even after being spayed she had a distinct taste for lusty adventures with the local dogs. Zit was a further variation on the mutt theme. He would bounce four feet into the air at the hint of walkies reduced to a mere two feet before he died at twenty. He was never spayed and now that I have a bitch I realise that he was a pest, at the time I felt it was the unkindest cut and when he was seventeen we tried to mate him with a similar bitch called Libbie. They were enthusiastic and went off for a weekend sojourn together, which they enjoyed but no progeny resulted.

When he was twenty his back legs quite suddenly were paralysed. He dragged himself around for a day or two looking thoroughly miserable, he was a dog who lived to roam and now he couldn't walk. I made up my mind, took him to his favourite place: Mudeford where he attempted to jump from the car and landed in a heap on the ground dragged himself along the beach a few feet and collapsed looking reproachful. I had seen dogs with wheelie things for back legs but he was twenty had a heart murmur and arthritis I decided to put us both out of our misery. I made him a bowl of his favourite Boulognaise which he gobbled up and then I took him to the vet, a long term admirer of his. I held him as he died my face alongside his and he wagged his tail as he went, the death of a reprobate. I spread his ashes on Hegistbury Head one day in the Spring. I swore I would never have another dog.

I missed him dreadfully and realised that apart from our life together it was a case of a social life that had gone. Those conversations about dogs, the mutual admiration of our dogs. The instant comradeship of fellow dog owners, the routine conversations that go on fairly set lines, they never nag you or reproach you (a downright lie this - Zit could cut me to the core and ignore me for an entire day if I curtailed his freedom)I know many people by the name of their dog and they call me Saffie's mum.

This may sound trivial to the non doggie among us,I expect it is but it precludes the usual judgements that colour my own relationships and limit me. So I had a great friendship with a Labrador's mum who, one day shook me rigid by voicing an admiration for Mrs. Thatcher. I caught my words before they got out into the atmosphere and we are still 'friends.'

My partner is not English and finds the whole business of dog talk bizarre and threatens to make a video record of the routine 'sharings' with other dog admirers, not a bad idea!