suggzy

Keeping up with my promise to write something once a month, as I continue to be at leisure. Decided to drift away from travel for a while, to tell you the story of my life with dogs, for it has been more than a mixed bag. I’ll hit the travel trail again soon, most likely a little piece on my adventures in Malta with my Mother. Stay tuned.

Meantime? Let us step back to, I think, 1984. Easter holidays, and my Dad (yep, here we go again) decided I should join him and a couple of his chums as they went for a ’round of golf, at the public course near Canterbury. I was cast in the role of junior caddy, and before long I found myself dragging the old man’s clubs up hill and down dale. I certainly recall what I think was the third hole, which featured the most extraordinary incline up to an elevated tee. From there one was tasked with crashing one’s ball downhill and ’round a long right-hander of a dogleg.

The rain started to fall, and my progenitor thundered his drive a mile to the right, way, way over the adjacent trees.

I’d have the pleasure, some years down the line, of playing golf alongside the old boy. Instances such as that one off the third tee were really quite common. For instance, in my late teens I watched him once lash two consecutive drives directly down a railway line at the Westgate course. Thank the good Lord there wasn’t a service heading our way. ‘Amateur Golfer Derails 9.23 from Victoria’, the Thanet Times headline would have read.

We’ll get onto dogs, but I need to conclude this discussion of my Father’s golfing prowess first. He told me once about a game he was playing with a mate of his, when aged about 17 or so. They were queued up on a tee behind an elderly pair. One of these old boys unleashed a vast fade off into the undergrowth. Clearly a three-off-the-tee situation, but the fellow was determined to retrieve his ball. “You play through” he told the younger men, and stalked off at a near right-angle, to grumpily search the thicket.

Most men would feel the pressure coming off them at times like this, but Father and I share a similar sense of our fate, and the inevitable. He popped his ball down, and arrowed a five iron out into the blue. Within fractions of a second it deviated wildly to the right, and disappeared out of view. The first clue anyone had as to how the shot and concluded and where the ball was came with a blood-curdling distant scream. Yep, you guessed it. My teenaged Father had managed to pick out a pensioner in the small of the back from 80 yards, with his target invisible to him.

An uneasy silence followed. Thoughts of the law courts. How to disguise an accidental manslaughter? Whether or not to simply just run away? Light relief came when the injured party staggered back out onto the faraway. Rubbing his spine with one hand and cradling a golf ball in the other. My Father, being a good sort, made his way down the course and talked his way out of the whole business. Happily he remained at liberty (although his golf game never improved) to then sire a Son 11 years later, who would one day become his child caddy.

Back to 1984. The ball was lost, but, frankly, it was only a matter of moments before the rain gave way to a frankly epic deluge. This was the good old days. No waterproofs or brollies, just a case of giving it a few minutes and then agreeing it was every man and boy from himself. We arrived back at the cars at closing on lunchtime, and sat inside them drying off. The men agreed that the only possible solution was to go to the pub to get over the disappointment of missing out on the golf. We repaired to Margate, to a pub owned by one of their former teaching colleagues.

On arrival, my ten-year-old self was mortified to be met with a Big Black Dog. Through infancy and the first half of childhood, I had been terrified of dogs. I found their reactions to me unreliable. I sensed they sensed my fear. I mistook doggie exuberance for aggression, particularly after a nasty scrape or two with a Great Dane as a toddler. Our neighbours had two of them, and they patrolled their ploughed back garden with unexercised menace and they towered over me whenever they got near. Used to scare the absolute bejaysus out of me.

I attempted to hide myself, but animals have always been fascinated by me. The dog I own now is eyeing me even at this moment, up as I sit at the dining room table, typing this. I took my crisps and lemonade and attempted to keep the pool table between me and BBD, as my Dad and the others played a couple of racks of pool. However, a game of ‘chase’ inevitably resulted. Of course, now, I realise it was after my crisps. One does not leave crisps or peanuts unattended near our dog, as he is forever on the make.

A swift walk became a jog, which became a full pelt series of laps of the table, oblivious to anything else. To everyone in the pub but me, this was, of course, utterly hilarious. I must have done the 6’ x 4’ lap ten times before someone took pity on me and collared my loopy stalker. I was many many years in coming through the experience. In some ways it became worse, as I went through puberty and into adulthood, and discovered not only that I was afraid of dogs, but also really badly allergic to them. Prick tests (fnaar), steroids, all sorts of treatments.

If I was ten that day, I suppose it was the small matter of 29 years until I took up running in such earnest again. This was, of course, the year of the great weight loss, gathering of fitness, no booze, etc. etc. And, as we know, after a couple of online dating false starts, I was to meet the lovely SWK, who now sits to my left on the sofa, quietly contemplating her decision to have married me last Summer.

Our first two dates set the tone for what has become our inseparability. I was sold on her within minutes, and told the story of how utterly useless I was on our first date last Summer to our wedding guests. Happily she was able to excuse my nitwit scaredy-cat behaviour and soon proved to be feeling about me as I did about her. However, following that second date we were to be parted for nearly three weeks, as I was promised to a Maltese holiday with Ma, and a bit of a tour around the UK seeing chums.

Eventually, we made arrangements to meet for a third time. Naturally, SWK tentatively suggested that she might bring her and now our dog out to lunch? Naturally, I said yes. I knew she had a dog and could not ignore the fact. Plus, I was falling very much in love with her, so we’d have to see how it went.. I had visions of ending lunch having turned blue, and having to ask her and the dog for a lift to A&E.

I drove to Chesterfield from Manchester in the most glorious sunshine, dressed up proper smart, small pressie in my pocket. All the while fearing doggie disaster. I arrived, and tentatively made my way over to the churchyard under The Spire. On the bench sat my beautiful girl in a Summer dress, with this little fellow. What a gorgeous pair, eh?

Tentative peck. Nervous reintroductions, and then we set off and, within ten yards, young Milo (MTWD – Milo The Wonder Dog) looked earnestly up at me and dropped his canine guts all over the base of the nearest gravestone.

MTWD has something of a habit of crapping on consecrated ground. I have been through the experience many times since, of course. However, on that first afternoon, looking back, the ‘test’ period had begun. Cute three-year-old dog versus 39-year-old grumpy suitor for the attentions of the female.

The great success that Saturday afternoon (beyond SWK grounding her sports car on the way up to the reservoir to exercise MTWD, only to issue forth such language as I had never heard before), came when we got back to the lady’s flat. Now in an enclosed space, I feared it was only a matter of time before the very affectionate and cuddly animal did for me. But, you know what? The sneezes never came. My breath stayed clear. My skin stayed intact. I left, hours later, and the future was set fair.

Alright, yes, I had a few days when I felt a little off colour, and puffed and blowed a bit, but essentially the whole thing was written in the stars, and I stayed healthy, happy, and came to love them both as much as I do now.

But my transportation to loving dog owner was not without its tests. MTWD can be a wilful little fellow, for a dog that weighs a stone and is ten inches high. Frequently, when we were alone together, further challenges would come. One rather rainy October afternoon, with SWK out at work, I decreed he had to go out for a little bit of exercise, having lay on me in bed for the first half of the day. MTWD took a different view, and anchored himself to the ground when we got out in the wet. I implored the little chap to be reasonable, that we were only going ‘round the block and it would do him good. Nope, not budging, bugger you, forcing me out in the rain. In the end I had no choice but to commence a dragging move, at which point he responded by launching from the back end, once again, leaving a frightful streak across the pavement, which I then had to clear up. 1-0 MTWD.

A week or two later, and we were over at my place in Hucknall. Out for an evening stroll whilst SWK finished up at work. As we ambled in the dark up to the Leisure Centre, the hound dived off into the undergrowth with alarming power. Caught off guard, it was a few crucial seconds before I realised he’d got a discarded chicken bone in his craw. I attempted to grasp one end of it and haul it back into open air, but with a growl and a memorable ‘crack’, he broke up and yummied down the item. Blast! Still early days with SWK, and I feared the mutt would inevitable have pierced himself, and would expire within the hour. But no, he trotted on thoroughly pleased with himself, and home we went. And of course, wanting to prove himself terribly mistreated, he waited for ‘Mum to get back through the front door and for me to begin my cautionary tale, to vomit the blasted bone all over the place. 2-0 MTWD.

More was to follow. The time when he rewarded me for a six-mile walk by piddling up the leg of my almost new 501s when he decreed we had had to wait too long at a traffic signal. That was nice. Then the time we were visiting SWK’s Granny over in Wyre, and, to be helpful, I walked him over to Evesham to do some shopping at ASDA. Tied him up for a few minutes (this had worked fine before), popped into the store and then, a few minutes later, found myself the subject of a Customer Announcement, as the dog had gone utterly BANANAS outside. Ditched my shopping, went out in the rain (why was it always raining at times like this?) to find him being tended to by the Manager and Deputy Manager. Needless to say, as soon as he saw me he acted like nothing had happened and ‘went all cute’.

He was, let’s face it, massively ahead on points by the time when, one Sunday morning, SWK told him that I was his ‘Dad’ now. I still feel a bit misty about that, a couple of years and more later.

And he went on to become my absolute wonderful buddy. He leaps onto the bed at night and sleeps on our feet until morning. He’s laid by my side for a few days at a time when I’ve gone down with a grim cold. I’ve taught him new words, and he’s been wonderful to me so many times. He’s never off duty, and is a pleasure to be with. He cracks me in the knees whenever I’ve been out for more than 20 minutes, and demonstrated love every day of his life. I can’t remember a time when he wasn’t our lovely dog, and hate being without him.

So, there you are. Quite unexpectedly I am now a dog lover. And it only took a shade under 30 years to become such. The best things in life are worth waiting for.

Love you, doggo.