Nobody's Poodle

by Nikki Attree

  The next morning there was still no sign of Trev. I began to get quite worried. What the feck had happened to him? What if he’d had an accident? The house was smelling bad by now - I had to go to the toilet somewhere. Even more worryingly, my water bowl was now dry. I tried barking again, but my throat was sore from all the woofing I’d done yesterday, and I was so thirsty. One of the windows was slightly ajar and I tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge and I couldn’t even squeeze my paw through the gap. By the afternoon I was feeling quite ill, and I fell into a fitful sleep.

  Some time later I was woken by the sound of the door being opened. “Yee-ha Wooftastic! Trev’s come back for me”. But no, he hadn’t. It was the landlord and a couple more big hairy humans. When they saw me, they all started shouting and the landlord rushed towards me waving his arms violently. I thought it was probably a good time to leave, so with my last bit of energy I made a dash for it out of the front door.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Mean Streets

  I ran as fast as my paws could carry me, and my heart was beating like there was no tomorrow. There was no looking back at the house. Now I knew for sure that they’d buggered off and left me, and I was on my own on the mean streets of Costa del Scorchio. Eventually I stopped running, and it hit me like a ton of the smelly stuff hitting a fan. I really was on my own. No-one was going to feed me, or hug me, or call me a good boy. Now I was a street mutt, a stray, an abandoned dog. Just one of the many that wandered the streets of Tenerife. That was that my furry lad. From now on: no more pampered pooch - time to get street-wise. Yep, as we dogs say: “life’s a bitch”, but we’re stoic when things like this happen. We’ve got very strong survival instincts, and we just get on with making the best of a bad situation.

  My quick getaway had left me panting and my mouth dry. I hadn’t had a drink since yesterday afternoon, and I was desperately thirsty. I had to find some water, but it wasn’t that easy here. It hardly ever rained, so there were no convenient puddles to drink from. I thought I’d try one of the bars. Maybe someone would give me some water. But no, they just shooed me away and told me to go back home. They didn’t understand: I didn’t have a home anymore! My owners got on a flight, fecked off back to England, and left me to fend for myself. All I wanted was a drink of water - not too much to ask, surely?

  Then out of the corner of my eye I saw a man cleaning the pavement with a hose. Wooftastic! I dashed to the water, and lapped it up as quickly as I could. Soon I was joined by other stray mutts, all of us slurping and slobbering for Tenerife. The spray man was yelling angrily at us, but I was all-right now. I wasn’t thirsty anymore, so I ran off.

  The next urgent problem was the the rumbling and gurgling in my tummy. I hadn’t eaten for more than twenty-four hours, and my stomach was demanding that this be rectified. I had a sudden brain-wave: let’s go and check out my Irish amigo Clooney at ‘Los Wailing Leprechauns’. He might have some food.

  Clooney was sitting outside the bar looking depressed. There was none of the usual wailing coming from inside. The Leprechauns must have all buggered off.

  “What’s up mi furry amigo?”

  Clooney sighed. “Oh mate, it’s feckin bad. The boss had to close the bar cos he’s run up such bad debts and we’re going back to Ireland. I’ve had all my injections and we’re going this evening! They had a whip-round last week to pay for my flight. So at least there’s no way he’s going to leave me behind”.

  I was sad that he was leaving. I could have done with a friend like him right then, but I was glad that he wasn’t being abandoned like me. He couldn’t believe it when I told him that my no-good humans had done just that. He was very sympathetic:

  “I’m so sorry to hear about your feckin eejit family Gizmo. Best of luck mate. You’ll be fine, you’re one smart woofer … not like those stoopid eejit excuses-for-dogs that come round here in handbags. Now dem guys I’d be well worried about if they were dumped on the streets”. We said our good-byes and wished each other the “hair of the dog”.

  I wandered off, rummaged around some bins and discovered a half-eaten hamburger with mustard. Not bad, quite tasty in fact. I knew that the mustard would probably upset my stomach, but hey as they say: “beggars can’t be choosers” and I was definitely a beggar now. I felt a bit better after I’d eaten, so I went for a little trot around the harbour. I met a lady taking her pooch for a stroll. She came up to me and looked to see if I had a collar with a phone number, but of course Trev had made sure that he’d taken it off. She patted me on the head, and said that I looked like “such a cute doggie - how could anyone abandon you?”.

  “Yeah too right” I thought.

  Her pooch gave me a sniff and woofed: “really sorry amigo, bad luck, but my mistress can only afford to look after one of us”. I told him that I wouldn’t eat much, and I just needed somewhere safe to sleep. I gave the lady the cutest look I could muster, but she seemed so upset that I walked away. I didn’t want to make her feel bad, and I could see that she really couldn’t help me. I found a place to sleep and dozed off.

  Some time later I woke up to find a cute little Caniche sniffing me out. I made for her rear-end to introduce myself with some serious butt sniffing, but the wooferette came over all coy and skipped off down the street. What’s that all about then? I thought she wanted to say hello, but obviously not. Bitches, I don’t know, sometimes I just dog-gone don’t get them! Anyway, wadever … I wandered off in the opposite direction.

  A few minutes later I heard a woofing frenzy. Looking back, I saw this big ugly mutt barking aggressively at the little poochette whose cute butt I’d just tried to sniff. I thought: “hmm … shall I join in? haven’t had a good woof for a while”. So I trotted back down the street to join them. When I arrived on the scene, Ugly Mutt was baring his teeth and creeping ever nearer to the Caniche, who by now was shaking with fear.

  I was angry. If there’s one thing really gets up my snout, it’s big ugly mutts picking on smaller pooches - especially cute little lady pooches. It’s not fair and it’s not right. Plus I’m a real sucker for whimpering chicks. They can really twist me round their paws when they start crying. So I prayed to the Big Dog* in the Sky and charged in, woofing very loudly.

  Ugly Mutt turned to find the source of this rude interruption, and while he was distracted the damsel-in-distress made a speedy get-away. He gave me his best bully-boy snarl and charged at me. Up close and personal he was even bigger, meaner, and smellier than I’d imagined.

  “Hmm … maybe this wasn’t such a good idea!”.

  So I did what any sensible pooch would do in the circumstances: run like crazy. When in doubt, a dog’s danglies are always worth preserving. Fortunately before Ugly Mutt could react (for all his snarl and slobber, fast reactions were not his forte), I heard this little old lady yell: “Buttercup, stop that and come here immediately”. I kid you not, that was actually Bully-Boy’s name! My snarly-slobbery amigo Rambo would have approved, and maybe recommended an anger management course.

  Having narrowly escaped having my mutt’s nuts clamped in Buttercup’s jaws, I wandered off towards the beach, and who should I see there but the cute little damsel-in-distress. She introduced herself as Katy, apologised for her earlier flighty behaviour, and thanked me gratefully for coming to her rescue. Of course she hadn’t actually seen my hasty retreat from the Jaws of Death, and I wasn’t about to spoil the image she had of me as her hero. Some things are best kept on a need-to-know basis, don’t you think?

  Katy explained that she’d also recently become a stray. Her humans had been forced to leave their house in a hurry (now where have I heard that before), and move to a tiny apartment where no dogs were allowed. So one evening they drove to a car-park in Costa del Scorchio, opened the car door and just dumped her on the street. She told me that she’d stayed in that car-park for at least four days waiting for them to return. Of course as I’ve already explained, us dogs see time differently. So for her, those four days all merged into one
very long moment of waiting. Anyway, her owners never came back for her. She was probably only about six months old - just a pup; really sad, and all on her own.

  Us woofers do wonder about you humans sometimes. We think to ourselves: how can you do some of the things you do? I mean, I know dogs can be pretty cruel to each other, but for us it’s ‘dog eat dog’ (sometimes literally). You humans are supposed to be above us animals aren’t you? I didn’t want to think about it too much, my head was spinning and my stomach was rumbling again. I needed to find some food, so I said adios to Katy and went in search of my next meal.

  I only got a few metres before I heard a pathetic little whimper. Of course now that I was her big hero, she was upset that I was leaving. Never mind that she was first with the butt-sniffing, and then got all sniffy herself when I’d tried to return the compliment. But like I said, bitches can really twist me round their little paws when they start making with the whimpering noises. I’m a big-hearted pooch. A real softy in fact, and I can’t bear to see a bitch cry. OK I thought, it might be good to have some company for a while, so I said she could tag along. But I warned her, before she got too many romantic ideas about ‘us’, that I wasn’t too big on responsibility. After all, I was only one-and-a-half years old myself, and I wanted time to play the field a bit before I settled down with pups of my own. And anyhow she was just a pup herself. So, we were just amigos. “OK, wadever …” she said, licking my nose and cuddling up to me. I wondered if she’d really got the message, but I have to admit she felt good next to me.

  The way things turned out, teaming up with Katy wasn’t such a bad idea. My new amiga was a cute little fluffy white Caniche-style pooch, a bit of a ‘mini-me’ in fact. As I’ve mentioned, I’m actually a Lab-Doodle - a rather handsome mix of the best bits of a Labrador and a Poodle. So neither of us were anybody’s Poodle, and both of us were pretty good looking dogs (even if we did need a bit of a groom by then). We made a great team when we went scrounging for scraps from the restaurants. A bit like human beggars who have a baby with them, people liked the fact that we were a cute little family. Especially when we put on the hard-done-by looks. To be honest it wasn’t too difficult to do a hard-done-by look, because hey, we were hard done by!

  We’d often hang around the cafes and bars in calle Vomito on the infamous ‘Hurlo strip’ in the late morning, when they were serving the full English breakfasts. The tourists who ate in these places were called ‘gambas’ (prawns) by the locals because of their two-tone pink-white complexions. They usually sported a few tattoos, a pint of larger, and were often on the chunky side of life. Let’s put it this way: sitting under one of their chairs would be to take my life in my paws and risk being squashed as it collapsed under the enormous weight. Saying that, as long as we managed to avoid death-by-squashing, these tourist humans were certainly generous, and we used to get quite an assortment of food thrown to us, before the waiters would shoo us away.

  Wandering the streets all day and night we came across a lot of cats, and I have to say that in my humble opinion, cats are pants! I’m sorry but I’ve got to get this off my chest. They really pee me off. They trot around acting all superior, looking like they own wherever they happen to be perched, and they’re teasers of the worst kind. For example, typical catty behaviour is to sit on a high wall lording it, and waiting for an unfortunate dog to pass below. Then they smirk as they watch the poor pooch go crazy, barking and leaping manically.

  Meanwhile they’re giving him that knowing look. Know what I mean? The look that’s been passed down from generation to generation of smug pussies. The look that says: “na-nan-na-na … you can’t get me … I’m far too high-&-mighty for a miserable mutt like you to reach”. Then when the exhausted woofer finally collapses in a heap on the ground panting for his life, the moggy jumps off the wall and strolls down the road, nose in the air, knowing that the poor pooch hasn’t got any energy left to chase them. These feckin feline felons can be so cruel they’re positively evil!

  There were other pests that made life on the mean streets a pain. Along with not having a home, or anyone to give you a regular meal and a safe place to rest your paws, there were those pesky fleas. They know a free ride when they see one. For them, a stray mutt is an opportunity for some property speculation. They size up the most ‘sought after’ woofers, and then they just move in to your fur. They do it without your permission. It’s not like they’re giving you any rent, or contributing anything to your up-keep. They’re just squatters really, and once they’ve moved in they’re bloody difficult to evict. These annoying little critters were really driving me nuts. The little buggers were keeping me up scratching all night, and I was getting almost no kip.

  I was also starting to get a bit worried about Katy. She’d had a bad case of the runs for the last few days and seemed very lethargic. I must admit, my digestive system wasn’t functioning much better either. It wasn’t surprising really, most of our food was scrounged from the bins or left-overs that people would chuck us. Admittedly the fried food was tasty, but the tourists’ diet was doing us no favours.

  We decided to leave Costa del Scorchio and explore a bit further afield. We walked along the coast for quite a way until we came to a bustling fishing village called ‘El Blowo’ (apparently this was short for: ‘El Blowo-de-Sombrero-Offo”). It looked like a cool place. Feckin windy that’s for sure. Almost blew my fur off in fact, so maybe it would blow a few of those pesky fleas away.

  We stopped outside a cafe on the board-walk called ‘Flashpoint’. They’d left a bowl of water on their steps just for passing pooches. How considerate was that - wooftastic in fact. I was starting to like this place, and we decided to stick around for a while.

  Some of the humans there were wearing rather strange outfits. Skin-tight black rubber gear which smelt well weird. Actually the more we sniffed it, the more we liked it. Apparently they were called ‘wet suits’ and some humans wore them to go in the sea. Judging from the odour, these suits were also handy when they were ‘caught short’. Hmm - nice, I approve.

  The real purpose of these smelly suits was to keep the humans warm while they were doing some funny stuff called ‘water sports’ (after all, the poor things didn’t have fur coats to keep them warm, like we did). Apparently El Blowo was famous for water sports like surfing, windsurfing and kitesurfing because the non-stop wind made the sea very bumpy. Funny eh? That would just make me sea-sick, but these humans-in-smelly-suits liked to use the bumps to leap into the air. They called it: “getting some air” … ironic really, cos for us dogs this means passing wind and sniffing it - far more logical (and pleasurable) really.

  Water sports were certainly peculiar activities to spend your life doing. The participants had to carry all this heavy equipment across a sand-blasted beach, chuck it in the water, and jump on. Then they spent several hours charging around, getting their air, and falling off. It looked daft to me, and I’m not even sure that I’d call it a sport. I mean, where was the ball? or the stick? or the frisbee? Humans can be such strange creatures sometimes.

  We spent quite a while in El Blowo, checking out the restaurants (well their rubbish bins anyway), and getting to know some of the local pooches. One of them was a cross-breed mutt called Stitch. She had a cool life as the official cockroach catcher for a local surf station, but spent most of her days snoozing outside the door, and sniffing new customers as they came in to hire equipment. She only had to fulfil the roach-catching duties on a part-time basis, and anyway it was fun work chasing those little brown buggers around. Most days the surfy customers would throw a ball for her to chase on the beach, but Stitch said she was a bit tired of that …

  “What do they think I am? a performing Poodle?”. I knew what she meant. Of course, as I’ve explained, I’m more street Doodle than swanky Poodle, but neither of us were anybody’s Poodle. We were very much our own dogs. She was a bohemian surf dudess, and I liked to think of myself as a sort of ‘working-class hero’, standing up for the Under
-Dog, even if it did get me into a fair few scrapes on the mean streets of The Reef.

  Katy and I also used to hang out with the local Yorkshire Terriers. You couldn’t avoid them really, they were everywhere in El Blowo. We spent some time ‘bone picking’ about life with four of them: Nacho, Paco, Hugo and Conchita. They all had homes, but they were happy to have a woof with us strays while their humans sat gossiping on a bench in the Plaza. I asked them why there were so many Yorkshire Terriers in the town. Hugo explained: “it’s because us Yorkie dudes are such babe magnets, and well … a woof’s as good as a wink, know what I mean? say no more!”.

  I wasn’t very convinced by this answer. It was laughable really, especially given that Hugo was well passed his ‘babe magnet’ days. In fact he was probably already entitled to his free bus pass, but I didn’t want to argue with him. Yorkies can turn quite nasty if pushed. They’re like mini-Rottweilers in a terrier disguise. So I changed the subject.

  Anyway, as I said, we woofed about a whole variety of things, but Conchita got a bit bored when we discussed anything remotely serious. She’d start inspecting her paws, primping and preening, and generally getting peed-off that she wasn’t the centre of our attention. To be honest, I don’t think she had too many brain cells. A bit of a fur bimbo in fact, but she soon perked up when Katy asked her which groomer she went to. Then we couldn’t get her to shut up!

  I felt sorry for Katy. She was a pretty little pooch, but her fur was starting to look a bit ratty. No brush had been near it for a quite a while, and until she found a new home there wouldn’t be much chance to visit any of the fancy groomers that Conchita kept woofing about. Never mind though, at least in El Blowo she could always pass it off as a fine example of the ‘surfy look’, which would always be popular there with so much wind around.