It's a dog walking life

19 May 2008

I have nothing against dogs. I even sort of, kinda, quite like them. As long as they are about two feet away from me and don’t have their snout anywhere it shouldn’t be without an explicit invitation. I’m not that mad about kids either. Yes, mine are great and when they were small, there was a select number of other people’s that I could tolerate. Even now some friends have children who leap over all my defences, but as a race, I’m not that keen and I don’t think that breeding is the be all and end all of life time experiences and things to do before you die.

I’m glad I did, but there are still other things on the list.

Having a cocker spaniel with a ribbon in its hair isn’t one of them.

I know I have the retirement fantasy of the yellow Labrador called Mabel, but that’s all it is – a fantasy. I can see the attraction of having another breathing, living thing in the room that sleeps all the time and doesn’t say much and looks at me adoringly.  And far down the line when I give up on the idea of ever fitting into a size twelve frock and when my cleavage looks like a toast rack, yes, I could just about see myself in the heavy waterproofs and the wellies, with the wet dog at my feet panting. I mean assuming that Brad Pit is unavailable.

But…wet? On second thoughts, maybe not a wet dog – I’d probably take it out in plastic shoes and dry it with the hairdryer in the hall after I make it walk through a santised foot bath.

I’m just not doggy.

Sorry.

Don’t get it.

I can see why other people get it, but at this point in my life I just don’t need another dependant being whose toilet habits I have to be on plastic bag terms with. They might be child substitutes, but who needs a child substitute when you have four and a half of them already?

But the doggily demented are always with us. I am happy to live and let live. Whether you want to dress up in ladies’ clothes and wear make up like my friend Jenny/Andrew then go in peace and walk in heels. I don’t necessarily want to look at the before and after pictures of your surgery, but to be honest, neither do I much want to see a picture of your dog.

I don’t whip out pictures of my kids the minute I’m sitting comfortably on a train, so why am I expected to swoon over snaps of your Yorkshire Terrier? Let me tell you something – even if her name is Mitzy and she is wearing a tartan coat the truth is she’s not that distinctive. She looks like ALL THE OTHER Yorkshire Terriers. I am not going to be able to pick her out of a line up.

I am prompted to launch into this long rant because of a weekend spent with a woman of a certain age who, seconds after we had been introduced, whipped out her wallet (her wallet, I ask you?) to reveal a snap of her baby – a little brown pug called Sasha, who, she giggled as she pointed out, ‘has exactly the same hair colour as me’. Family resemblance then. In fact they both had a bit of a pug face too, but the doggy didn’t have freckles.

The rest of the weekend, whenever the rest of us who are sprogged up, talked about the minutae of sprog-life, like who was looking after them, or how old they were, what they were doing while we were gone, we were treated to anecdotes about Sasha, and how she would be missing her, and where she was staying, and… well I risk you murdering me even by repeating it.

I wanted to scream: IT’S A DOG. It’s not a child. Mentioning your pug in the same breath as someone else’s kid’s 11 plus exam, or comparing a teenager's drug problem to a worming treatment IS NOT THE SAME THING.

At one point during the weekend we all sloped off to a farmhouse in the middle of the countryside and this huge black mastiff came careering out of the long grass, loping like a tank over tough terrain with enormous jowls, a sneer at each side of its mouth revealing blood red gums and dripping white frothing saliva hanging in soapy rings from its jagged teeth.

Anybody who had any sense, or love of their extremities, jumped back except for doggy person who made cooing noise, stuck out her hand and attempted to stroke it. The dog could have swallowed her whole, but unluckily, did not choose to do so.

‘I so miss my little Sasha,’ she crooned once the beast had been tethered by an inch wide chain.

If I heard one more thing about that pug I would have bitten her head off myself.

Elsewhere I seem to be surrounded by the dogged. Since my friend Nel and I have started tramping round Wormwood Scrubs as part of our health drive, it’s impossible to miss them (together with a number of other subspecies of the strange and desperate – model air enthusiasts, kite flyers, flashers and junkies). They seem to have a uniform – including anything fom Boden. a Barbour, waxed jacket or one of those sleeveless puffa jacket thingies from the eighties, big Wellington boots and a headscarf. Even in May when we’re walking in short sleeves, they are still in full dog-walking kit. It’s all faintly ridiculous when having passed by this Teutonic woman bristling with tweed, you see her followed by miniscule poodles with pom pom coats. There are the ‘local’ dog walkers too – ie men with shaved heads and tattoos with Staffordshire and Pit Bull Terriers.

But they don't bother with the ribbons in their hair.

Nel bemoans her otherwise highly intelligent academic friend who greets her dog with the regular call of ‘come to mummy’ while yet another, previously sane friend has also succumbed to the lure of the evil hound. Every day she’s out tramping with a pair of Alsatians, coincidentally with somebody I used to know who has recently acquired a whippet. Nel joined them one morning and was distinctly unnerved by the conversation. We talk about food and the GI content of almond chocolate muffins (1, apparently – seems unlikely but we’re willing to be convinced) as well as regular moaning about college kids (lazy idle), DIY obsessed husbands (Energetic always busy), ex husband (gone)  and writing (not happening).

Yup, we’re Renaissance women.

The dogged, however, just have very strange doggy conversations: whether you can take them with you on airplanes (thank you Richard Branson for making sure I never fly with you again), doggy passports and doggy cars. My friend has a big Range Rover, especially for transporting the dog twenty yards from her house to the car park where they walk. They know all the other doggeds by the breed of their pet (‘Oh look it’s the corgi/sheepdog over there’/’haven’t seen the two Airedales for a while, do you think they’re on holiday?’)

I met my friend (whippet, keep up) the other day just as she was putting it in the front seat of the specially bought car with the belt around it (dog can’t sit in the boot behind the bars because she gets lonely).

‘How are you?’ I cried, all excited to see her and hear about how her job at the FT and her kids and her husband's new book are doing.

The dog, in the meantime, let off a volley of barking that sounded like a rocket launcher going off in my ear, and flattened itself against the car window, snarling, its mouth open revealing a ring of slavering teeth like the hound of hell.

I jumped back into a different postal district.

‘Oh ignore her, she’s such a sweetie’, said my friend as I cowered.

She didn’t tell me anything about her life, but you’ll be pleased to know she’s the dog is actually a whippet cross.

A bit too f*ing cross if you ask me.

Posted by Writer in Residence at 12:33 PM