Paws and Whiskers (24 page)

Gertie is a tiny dish rag of a dog. Maybe a bit of Yorkie, maybe a bit of Norfolk terrier. Who knows? She is extremely cute and very fierce. Even the local rottweilers turn tail and run when they see Gertie approaching.

Sasha is a springer spaniel. She was seven when we adopted her, and fat as a barrel. It is horrible, and extremely cruel, when people let their dogs put on so much weight. Fortunately, after being with us for a few months she slimmed right down, and now, at the ripe age of fifteen, she still looks like a young dog. She is very keen that everyone should know she is the Only Pedigree in the Pack. Jack Russells, she says, with a well-bred sniff, are only
types
.

Benny, our one dog in a family of females, is a German shepherd/collie cross. A big, gentle, goofy boy, very laid-back and good-natured. He came from Wales, where he had been rounded up as a stray and was going to be put down. We lost our hearts the minute we saw him looking so eager in his cage at
the rescue centre. Impossible to resist!

The cats all came from our local rescue lady, just up the road. There is stripy Tom, who won’t put up with any nonsense from the annoying Minnie. There is Bella, who loves to purr and sit on a lap. And there is big black Titch, who as a kitten used to look like a tiny spider scuttling about the place. It was Bella who took him under her wing, mothering him and caring for him. And how did he repay her? For ages he ignored her, or even told her to stay away. It was like he and Tom were a sort of boys’ club, and females weren’t welcome. Now, however, they all curl up together – on our bed, naturally!

The cats sleep on the bed during the day, the dogs sleep on it at night. Well, three of them do. Minnie, Dolly and Daisy. And actually they don’t sleep
on
it, so much as
in
it. They spend the night humpling about under the duvet, snuffling and twitching as they dream about walks. The other three have their own bed in the corner of the room. Gertie likes to burrow under a blanket. Sasha snores. Benny usually collapses with a big contented sigh onto a rug. If you get out of bed in the night, you tend to trip over him.

The cats are banished to two rooms at the back of the house. If we leave them roaming about, they thunder up and down the stairs like a herd of cavalry,
or come banging and rattling at the bedroom door. If they are actually let
into
the bedroom, they jump on top of wardrobes or roam about on the mantelshelf, deliberately knocking things over. Or, even worse, they prink and poke at the dogs under the duvet, and Jack Russells then start springing about all over the place.

Oh, there is never a dull moment! But really, these little creatures ask so little. Just love, and shelter; and, for dogs, a daily walk. And food, of course. That goes without saying. Mustn’t forget the food! Meal times are extremely important in an animal’s life. Just as animals are extremely important in mine. They are truly, truly rewarding, and such loyal and loving friends. I couldn’t live without them!

Jean Ure

Ask your gran or grandad if they’ve ever seen a film called
The Incredible Journey.
I bet they’ll smile and start murmuring about old Bodger and his friends. It was an extraordinarily popular Walt Disney film in the 1960s – a story of two dogs and a cat trekking three hundred miles through rough Canadian countryside to find their way home. Bodger is an elderly white bull terrier, Luath is a strong young Labrador, and Tao is a sleek Siamese cat.

The film was based on a bestselling book by Sheila Burnford. It’s a very exciting and moving story, but it always seemed a little unlikely to me. I could just about believe that two dogs might somehow be able to find their way home – but would they seriously be
accompanied by a cat? I don’t know how they trained the animals in the film, but they made a remarkably successful job of it. Bodger and Luath battled bravely, even fighting off a bear and a porcupine – and the cat playing Tao ‘acted’ her little heart out, even half drowning herself in a river. I have no idea how they made that lovely cat perform in such an extraordinary way. I can’t even make Jacob and Lily come for their supper if they’re happily playing in the garden.

I’ve included the last scene of the book. It’s hard to read it and stay dry-eyed – and you definitely need a hankie if you watch a DVD of the old film. It all seems a bit corny and old-fashioned now, but the ending is still powerful enough to have me in floods of tears.

THE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY

Everyone was silent and preoccupied. Suddenly Elizabeth stood up. ‘Listen!’ she said. ‘Listen, Daddy – I can hear a dog barking!’ Complete and utter silence fell as everyone strained their ears in the direction of the hills behind. No one heard anything.

‘You’re imagining things,’ said her mother. ‘Or perhaps it was a fox. Come along, we must start back.’

‘Wait, wait! Just one minute – you’ll be able to hear it in a minute, too,’ whispered Elizabeth, and her mother, remembering the child’s hearing was still young and acute enough to hear the squeaking noise
of bats and other noises lost for ever to adults – and now even to Peter – remained silent.

Elizabeth’s tense, listening expression changed to a slowly dawning smile. ‘It’s Luath!’ she announced matter-of-factly. ‘I know his bark!’

‘Don’t do this to us, Liz,’ said her father gently, disbelieving. ‘It’s . . .’

Now Peter thought he heard something too: ‘Shhh . . .’

There was silence again, everyone straining to hear in an agony of suspense. Nothing was heard. But Elizabeth had been so convinced, the knowledge written so plainly on her face, that now Jim Hunter experienced a queer, urgent expectancy, every nerve in his body tingling with certain awareness that something was going to happen. He rose and hurried down the narrow path to where it joined the broader track leading around the hill. ‘Whistle, Dad!’ said Peter breathlessly, behind him.

The sound rang out piercingly shrill and sweet, and almost before the echo rebounded a joyous, answering bark rang around the surrounding hills.

They stood there in the quiet afternoon, their taut bodies awaiting the relief of suspense; they stood at the road’s end, waiting to welcome a weary traveller who had journeyed so far, with such faith, along it.
They had not long to wait.

Hurtling through the bushes on the high hillside of the trail a small, black-tipped wheaten body leaped the last six feet down with careless grace and landed softly at their feet. The unearthly, discordant wail of a welcoming Siamese rent the air.

Elizabeth’s face was radiant with joy. She kneeled, and picked up the ecstatic, purring cat. ‘Oh, Tao!’ she said softly, and as she gathered him into her arms he wound his black needle-tipped paws lovingly around her neck. ‘Tao!’ she whispered, burying her nose in his soft, thyme-scented fur, and Tao tightened his grip in such an ecstasy of love that Elizabeth nearly choked.

Longridge had never thought of himself as being a particularly emotional man, but when the Labrador appeared an instant later, a gaunt, stare-coated shadow of the beautiful dog he had last seen, running as fast as his legs would carry him towards his master, all his soul shining out of sunken eyes, he felt a lump in his throat, and at the strange, inarticulate half-strangled noises that issued from the dog when he leaped at his master, and the expression on his friend’s face, he had to turn away and pretend to loosen Tao’s too loving paws.

Minutes passed; everyone had burst out talking
and chattering excitedly, gathering around the dog to stroke and pat and reassure, until he too threw every vestige of restraint to the winds, and barked as if he would never stop, shivering violently, his eyes alight and alive once more and never leaving his master’s face. The cat, on Elizabeth’s shoulder, joined in with raucous howls; everyone laughed, talked or cried at once, and for a while there was pandemonium in the quiet wood.

Then, suddenly – as though the same thought had struck them all simultaneously – there was silence. No one dared to look at Peter. He was standing aside, aimlessly cracking a twig over and over again until it became a limp ribbon in his hands. He had not touched Luath, and turned away now when the dog at last came over, including him in an almost human round of greeting.