Paws and Whiskers (22 page)

When Swimsy died we got a dog. Prynne was a retriever-cross-Labrador with long floppy ears, who slobbered wonderfully.

Married life began with a Shetland sheepdog called Puck who was wild about everything and quite
tiring. Katie, a beautiful Irish setter, smiled through her life. She loved us completely, and loved her puppies even more – Arthur, Hal and Galadriel.

Next came Sophie, an English setter with mournful eyes and a heart of gold. She was wonderful with our children and grandchildren; she slept as contentedly as she lived and she lived long. And our last dog, Bercelet, a rescue lurcher, was the love of my wife’s life. She barely tolerated me, the dog, I mean. She barked rarely and ate minimally. She ran like the wind, loved the wind too. Wind suited her, but she was a fragile, tender creature, and died suddenly, which left us bereft.

We’ve had cats too in our time. Snug and Bottom, both kittens born in the wild (quite Shakespearean, the names we chose in those days). Then Mini, Simpson, Leo – a beautiful neurotic Abyssinian – but when we had cats we had no birds in the garden. Now we have no cats and hundreds of birds, and five goldfish swimming in and out of the weeds in our pond, every one a Swimsy. I’m back where I began, second childhood.

We long for another dog, which is maybe why dogs appear so often in my stories, in
Shadow
(a spaniel),
Born to Run
(a greyhound),
Cool
(a Jack Russell
terrier),
The Last Wolf
(a wolf), and many others. As for cats, I put them in my books too, that way they don’t kill birds! So we still have dogs and cats a-plenty, if you see what I’m saying.

Michael Morpurgo

DOG MEMORY

When I was eight or nine we had a German shepherd called Tarquis. He had beautiful, sleek, golden brown and black fur, a strong body and a beautiful, wolfish face. And he was
huge
, but with a very gentle nature. Every afternoon after school, I’d take him for a walk in our local park. I loved walking with him next to me; he was so tall and I was so small, but next to him I felt very tall indeed.

One afternoon, after we reached the park, I let Tarquis off his lead and chucked a ball for him to chase. Time and time again, he chased after the
ball, tail wagging, before grabbing it in his jaws and bringing it back to me. Lots of other people were in the park also exercising their dogs. There was one dog in particular, a Yorkshire terrier, or Yorkie, which was chasing around like it was demented.

So, for about the tenth time, I chucked my tennis ball and Tarquis chased after it. The only trouble was, the Yorkie chased after it too. The Yorkie snatched up the ball in its mouth and ran off with it. Tarquis chased the dog across the park, and both dogs were at full stretch. The Yorkie’s owner was shouting at me to call my dog to heel. But then the Yorkie turned, dropped the ball and chased after Tarquis.

Tarquis turned and legged it. He ran for his life. The Yorkie was a toy dog, barely thirty centimetres high. Tarquis was huge, at least three times as long and three times as high, yet he ran like his life depended on it. And all the other dog owners around me roared with laughter.

Yes, it was embarrassing, especially when Tarquis slunk back to me with his tail between his legs and without my ball – which I had to get myself!

Tarquis is long gone, but every time I recall that incident it makes me smile. Tarquis really was a
gentle giant, and thanks to him I’ve always had a love of German shepherd dogs. Never been terribly keen on Yorkies though! Just goes to show that bullies come in all shapes and sizes.

Malorie Blackman

MY ANIMAL FRIENDS

Nanny Anna

People think that a dachshund is just a sort of short-legged, long-bodied dog. They do not realize that there are dogs . . . and there are dachshunds.

Dogs like to please their owners by doing what they are told. Dachshunds like to please themselves.

Our first ever dachshund was called Anna, and when we got her as a puppy, she took not the slightest notice of anything we said to her.

‘She must be stone deaf,’ we said. But she wasn’t. She was just a dachshund.

Apart from being as stubborn as all her breed,
Anna’s speciality was mother-love. Quite early in her life she began to be called Nanny.

It wasn’t just her own puppies that she fussed over. She did not need to be in milk, she just came into it at the drop of a baby. Kittens were well received if there was a cat crisis. And once she tried to play mother to four piglets.

A young sow had rejected them, but Nanny thought that they were lovely and immediately settled down to nurse them in her basket. Alas, newborn piglets, unlike puppies, have sharp little teeth, but still Anna put up with them till they could be fostered on to another sow. She saved their lives, in fact.

Dodo: Star of the Show

Our miniature red wire-haired dachshund, Dodo, was born on a farm in west Wales, and from the moment we picked her up to bring her home with us, it was plain that she was a most unusual dog.

Though so young and so small, she was very self-possessed. The first of our animals that she met was a Great Dane. He bent his huge head to this midget. She looked up and wagged at him.

Some years later, when Dodo was about five, something happened that changed her life.

A television producer was looking for a presenter for a small slot on a children’s programme. She needed someone who had been a farmer and a teacher and wrote books for children (that turned out to be me), and who also owned a small, attractive dog (that was Dodo).

Dodo and I must have made about fifty little films.

Though I improved as time went on, Dodo didn’t need to: she was immediately at home in front of the cameras. Not only did she like people, so that she always got on very well with the film crews, but she was always extremely likeable herself.

At first, the crew came often to our cottage, for we filmed a number of animals there or near by, and they always arrived promptly at nine o’clock on a Thursday morning.

By a quarter to nine each Thursday (and only on Thursday), Dodo would be waiting by the door for them to arrive and admire her.

Don’t ask me how she knew. I don’t know.

After a while Dodo began to be recognized in public. In London once, I suddenly heard some children crying, ‘Look! It’s Dodo!’ and they rushed up and made a fuss of her, which she loved; not because she was vain but because she was always so friendly to everyone.

And it wasn’t only children who recognized her.

The guard of an Intercity train once came to punch my ticket (and hers).

‘Why,’ he said, ‘if it isn’t Dodo!’

She was always the star of the show.

Postscript

Remember Dodo, the star of the show? It might be nice, I’m thinking now, to end with a mention of another miniature red wire-haired dachshund called Little Elsie, who is sitting watching me.

Why? Because Little Elsie is Dodo’s granddaughter.

She’s quite a different character from her granny – not as jolly and outgoing, less sure of herself (though she’s as fierce as a lion when left in charge of the car); in fact not the filmstar type.

But the older Little Elsie grows – and she’s really quite old now, though still very active – the more she gets to look like her grandmother. Her red coat has paled with age, her beard and moustache are fuller, her muzzle is grey.

And lately a funny thing has begun to happen. We keep calling Elsie by the wrong name. Several times
a day, one or other of us will say, ‘Come along, Dodo,’ and along comes Little Elsie, wagging her tail and doing her special trick, which is to bare her teeth in a grin of pleasure.

Dick King-Smith