by Emily Dean
‘The typical Pomeranian thinks he’s hot stuff,’ the character profile began. Pomeranians were apparently vivacious and ‘delightfully alive’ (which was a bonus as I was all funeralled out for now), as well as being attentive and intelligent. But they wouldn’t take orders from anyone they considered ‘beneath them in importance’. I suddenly cut to a life based around him lying in stately splendour across my bed glaring at me, while I cowered below on a blow-up lilo.
Poodles and sausage dogs still had everything to play for, but my eye kept being drawn to the Ewok-resembling Shih Tzu. I discovered they were proud and sometimes arrogant but with ‘a sweet-natured temperament – they like cuddling on laps and soft pillows.’ It was only at the end that the devastating left hook was delivered. ‘GREAT for senior citizens!’
My main Shih Tzu experience so far had been via the Rosses’ adorable dog, Captain Jack, who had belonged to my eldest goddaughter, Betty. He had a sweet, gentle disposition that reflected hers. He would occasionally join the pack squabbles over a toy rubber chicken but was happiest snoozing across us devotedly, while we watched TV.
‘They are such good-natured little things,’ Jane told me, with the poorly concealed anticipation of a car dealer smelling the closing of a sale. She had been a voice of unwavering enthusiasm on my dog quest, mainly because she knew more than anyone how brilliant I was at finding excuses for not following through.
‘Look, I just think it’d be the perfect dog for you. I mean, you could just go and see one …’
A few weeks later I met another Shih Tzu.
‘Megan, Dalai, stop being dicks!’ I heard from beyond the door of a pretty converted church. I was relived to discover that the ‘dicks’ were dogs rather than children. The Canadian comic, Katherine Ryan, ushered me in, all manga eyes and dazzling smile. I was interviewing her for my Times podcast and we chatted, walking round her local park with her three dogs, Manny the Yorkie and the two dicks – Dalai the Tibetan terrier, and Megan the tiny black and white Shih Tzu.
‘Megan don’t EAT POO! That’s GROSS,’ she yelled as the dogs sprinted around the park with a confident street smarts that sat unexpectedly with their pocket-sized glamour. She told me about her life as a single mum raising Violet, and the village of female friends that acted as an extended family. We popped back to hers and I noticed all the framed family pictures – Violet in a pink feather boa and oversized sunglasses with her pals, a mother–daughter shot of them hugging on a sunny day. It felt like a dog family but built in a different way. There were no accountant dads in the frames or family estate cars in the drive. This life had nothing to do with those conventional beats of adulthood that had always felt out of my reach. I thought your story couldn’t begin until you fell into the safety of another person’s arms. But perhaps a dog family was something you could make yourself, in whatever way you liked.
Mimi and I were covered in a battalion of Shih Tzu puppies. Two snowy white little girls with half-closed eyes wriggled on our laps, their tongues scratching at our fingers.
‘Now here’s a special boy!’ announced Theresa proudly, entering with the most peculiar-looking puppy I had ever seen. ‘This is Biscotti!’
Biscotti’s eyes darted about wildly, as if he was worried the police were about to appear and interrupt his street-corner transaction. He had slight shadowy markings under his eyes, the sort that would force you to say to a friend, ‘Is everything okay at home?’ His coat was cream with biscuity strands and a curiously fuzzy texture. It reminded me of a sheepskin rug I owned that was urgently in need of a dry clean.
‘Hey Biscotti,’ I coaxed and he responded with a human pensioner’s croak, before assaulting the air with manic spins. He finally seized his teeth into a leather cushion, gnawing its decorative floral rosette hungrily.
‘He’s ever such a character is our Biscotti!’ said Theresa and I smiled warmly, as you do when a parent indulges their hyperactive offspring.
Biscotti started to tug insistently on my trainer laces. He was the type whose friends insisted ‘You’ll LOVE him when you get to know his humour,’ a charismatic outlier who would make life endlessly entertaining. I found myself drawn to his wild temperament.
‘I think Biscotti is … a little bit crazy?’ whispered Mimi.
‘Maybe that’s why I like him,’ I admitted, as Biscotti launched himself at a sofa leg like it contained the spirit of Satan. ‘But he is … a handful.’
I looked at the quietly obedient creamy puppies on our laps, the kind who would text to check you got home safely. I basically wanted Biscotti’s spirited joy with their devoted tranquillity. A pattern of my lifelong modus operandi. I’ll have that charming, alpha boyfriend with a side order of commitment and loyalty. Give me the noisy ebullience of my family with the dependability of the Simpsons. Always agonising over the way I wanted things to be was exactly how I’d ended up with a big handful of nothing.
Biscotti crashed into a table leg before attempting to liberate the innards of a urine-soaked puppy pad. I tried to remind myself of the golden mantra, ‘Everyone is guilty, no one is to blame.’ Even Biscotti.
‘Oh, I forgot to show you this little love,’ said Theresa, returning with a slightly gleeful smile. She placed a fluffy treacle-coloured cloud of fur on the floor. ‘He doesn’t have a name yet.’
The cloud of fluff waddled over to us, his tail twerking imperiously behind him. He looked up at me through ombre highlights, tiny pink tongue poking out, glossy brown eyes assessing me curiously. His front paw scratched briefly at the sofa leg and then stopped.
‘He wants to come up, it’s so sweet!’ said Mimi.
I picked him up and buried my nose in his fur as he wriggled around my hands snuffling. He licked at my chin a few times before settling into my arms with a tiny sigh. He didn’t look like a puppy. More like the result of a one-night stand between a Wookie and an Ewok, with his teddy-bear features, penetrating gaze and shaggy hair.
‘It’s funny, that one doesn’t bark, he makes a little grunting sound,’ said Theresa, as right on cue he let out a yawn that sounded like Chewbacca heralding an approaching Storm Trooper.
‘I used to have a Chewbacca diary,’ I told Mimi. ‘I wrote all my entries to “Dear Chewie.” Until Mum stole it after a fight and wrote “Dear Chewie, why am I so MEAN?” across all the pages.’
Mimi laughed and I stroked his tiny soft head.
‘He’s good as gold that one! Such a happy, loving little chap,’ Theresa said. ‘Not a bad bone in his body.’
I released him on to the floor and he wiggled over to the puppy pad, sniffing the edges before releasing a spot of yellow. He made his way back, placing his paws flat on the floor while poking his rear in the air, as if he was trying out a yoga pose for the first time. Then he rested his head on my trainers and fixed me with a devoted stare.
‘He’s my dream dog,’ I said. Exactly what the experts advised against doing. Think about it before finally committing. Don’t go for the first one who shows you attention. Visit several times. Assess behaviour for potential signs of conflict with other members of the litter. But he was simply the most vivacious and loving little thing I had ever seen. He made my heart burst.
‘Can we meet his mum?’ I asked, deciding to observe at least one rule. And hoping it went better than some of my previous meet-the-parent sessions. (One involved a boyfriend’s father whispering to him, ‘Don’t use the Gordon’s today please – get the Sainsbury’s gin out of the cellar.’)
Mimi and I went into the kitchen and I was introduced to a slightly larger, more worldly version of the Ewok puppy. She looked at me expectantly as I squatted down to offer her my hand. She gave it a lick, as if to say, Yep, this passport seems to be in order.
‘I promise I will look after him for you! And he’ll always be safe and loved,’ I said.
She didn’t respond – because dogs have a habit of not doing that. But I said it out loud anyway, confident that this was the kind of house where solemn vows to dogs w
eren’t seen as potential mental health issues.
‘FFS, it’s just a dog,’ would, by the way, not be an unreasonable response to reading this. I realise that dogs’ hobbies don’t extend much beyond, shitting, pissing, eating, begging and running. I know that Hitler loved dogs – so yes, I’m in great company. I also appreciate that getting a dog is not exactly some huge achievement. Homeless people with a range of massive practical problems still manage to look after their dogs. And I know that it’s easy to love a dog because they don’t answer back. I have no logical argument to rebut any of this. The very nature of keeping a dog is illogical. Dogs are here for a good time, a fairly basic time and crucially not a long time. You nurture them, structure your life around them and love them with all your soul, knowing that this story is destined to end in heartbreak and loss.
But I simply couldn’t argue with how this little chap made me feel. Loving. And loveable. For once, I listened not to my fearful, rationalising adult voice but to my childish unspoilt heart.
Mimi and I went back into the living room. The Ewok waddled towards us and glanced up at me. ‘You have to have him, Em,’ Mimi said. ‘You just have to.’
It’s true what they say – when you know, you know.
‘How soon can I bring him home?’
Chapter Fourteen
‘Is he dead? Oh my God he’s dead. I can’t see him breathing.’
This was pretty much my running commentary (press the red button for paranoid hysteria) as I drove home to London with Ray a few weeks later. Honey, my youngest goddaughter, had come with me for the pick-up. ‘But I have to be back at 3.00pm for my therapist, okay?’ she told me, with the impressively uncomplicated candour of a Gen Z-er.
I was grateful to have her along as a comforting lap for Raymond on the journey back, as I lurched from one imagined catastrophe to another. Honey and I had developed a close friendship of our own now, the kind that transcends generations. And she came in handy when you needed to ask a question like ‘How exactly do I “air drop” something?’
Honey reassured me that Raymond was definitely breathing. Which was a huge relief. If my friends had to hear about any more deaths on my watch, they’d probably react like that woman who went viral when she was once vox-popped on the news about the snap election. ‘You’re JO-KING. Not ANOTHER one?’
Raymond was curled up on his pink fluffy blanket inside his carrier on Honey’s lap, head placed snugly on his tiny paws, adorable dreamy grunts filling the car as he drifted into REM sleep.
I decided to fill his dreams with exciting adventures – runs through wet grass, country excursions so he could leap in fields, neighbourhood strolls where he could christen every lamppost and dog dates with eligible males and females. (I already had a feeling Raymond ticked the LGBT box.)
‘There is a big BUNCH of preparation to do for when your new fur baby comes home!’ I had been advised by one American dog book. The book’s daunting localisms filled me with panic. ‘Make that yard doggy friendly!’ Find ways to prevent ‘puppy biting Momma’s pant legs!’ And find ‘a RELIABLE doggy holistic practitioner for your best bud.’
I needed a yard? A yard sounded utilitarian and vast, the sort of thing men in baseball caps hosed down while listening to ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ as they cracked open a Coors. My ‘yard’ was a tiny concrete patio with some Nineties decorative pebbles and defunct fairy lights that foxes had chewed through. The kind of garden used for cigarette smoking in your twenties rather than the daily exercise space for a dog. And I would have loved to locate a ‘RELIABLE doggy holistic practitioner’ if I’d had any clue what that even meant.
Luckily there was a friendly woman in my local pet shop who helped me prepare for Ray’s first days. I emerged with some of the ‘basic essentials’ …
1 ‘super soft’ luxury doggy bed
1 ceramic blue food bowl
1 ceramic blue water bowl
2 packets of puppy pads
2 large bags of dry food
10 small pouches of wet food
2 bags of treats
1 box of cleansing ‘banish gunk!’ eye pads
1 bottle of blueberry-scented shampoo
1 tartan harness
2 leads
1 green Gonzo lookalike toy
1 fleece-lined car carrier
1 polka-dot carrying sling
1 tennis ball
1 rose gold poo-bag holder
100 poo bags
1 tube of fresh breath gel
1 packet of chewy dental twists
2 super soft blankets
1 puppy playpen with gate
1 brush and comb set
1 furry meerkat in a Santa outfit
Look, I never said I wasn’t going to spoil him.
The first thing I did was turn the playpen into his own little bachelor pad, but instead of an Xbox and old pizza crusts I filled it with fluffy pink blankets and bowls of Evian water. (I know, a bit Kardashian.) The good news was dogs rarely soiled their own bedding area – only on occasions when they felt they had no other option. To be fair, I knew a bloke at university who was a bit like that.
But Ray’s legs were too short. I’m not body-shaming him – they were genuinely too tiny for him to make it into his new pad. I improvised a makeshift step up to the puppy pen using three paperbacks – Cesar Millan’s How to Raise the Perfect Dog, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying by Marie Kondo and Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes. I liked to think he would be inspired by the contents of all three.
Ray investigated his cosy new apartment, which I had placed next to my bed – ignoring his cries would make me feel like less of a sociopath if I was at least in the same room. He descended the paperback books warily and padded around the bedroom exploring plug sockets – ‘No Ray!’ – chewing the hairdryer cable – ‘Stop it, Ray!’ – and munching on something that his terracotta-stained grin later identified as Chanel bronzing powder. ‘Jesus, RAAAY!’
I was basically sharing my living space with someone who had the experimental urges of a teenager at Glastonbury. I was in a constant state of high alert, convinced his first sneeze was a heart attack, worried about him tumbling down the stairs and terrified of eating chocolate in case he got toxic poisoning from licking up a crumb. I could already hear the vet gravely dictating the death certificate. ‘Time of death – 2.00pm. Cause of death – Cadbury’s Celebrations.’
But it was a fear tax I was willing to pay – because I was stupidly overwhelmed with love for this silly little thing. I watched him when he was snoring, resting his head on the tummy of his hippo toy, jabbing at an enemy with his paws as he dreamed. I laughed when he leapt around on my duvet before collapsing exhausted on his back, extending his soft belly to rub, rolling his eyes in bliss. Or when his bottom wiggled into the laundry cupboard and he emerged with a pink satin bra strap clenched in his jaw. Ray lifted sadness with his endless good-natured enthusiasm. He gave me a reason to wake up and face the day. He made me deliriously happy just by existing.
There was simply nothing I would change about him.
Until I discovered something called ‘stubborn Shih Tzu syndrome’.
‘Come on, Ray Ray! Come, walkies!’
I think it was Nietzsche who said, ‘All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.’ Ray didn’t agree with Nietzsche. He stared at me with cool disdain. Before lying on the floor, paws stretched out ahead of him, as immovable as a decorative stone lion.
I waved treats in his direction, squatted down on all fours to coax him, even stamped my feet frantically to demonstrate the excitement ahead. ‘Ray Ray loves walkies!’ But he was not about to be swayed. He was committed to a life behind closed doors.
This battle of wills continued for weeks. I begged; he resisted. I tugged the lead; he stiffened, threatening to drag himself on the pavement like Hector paraded through Troy behind Achilles’s chariot.
‘My dog won’t walk?’ I asked my friend the internet, throwing in ‘Why is my Shih Tzu sulking wi
th me?’ I finally got in touch with a dog trainer for advice.
‘Refusals often hide nerves,’ she explained and suggested propping a small piece of wood between my patio and the kitchen door, then placing several treats along the pirate ship plank. ‘Make him think it’s his idea.’ I remembered Rach once telling me that that was the secret to a lasting relationship, so I figured it was worth a try. It took him at least fifteen minutes of deliberation to travel two feet down the ramp to the first treat.
‘Do I have to do this every time?’ I asked the dog trainer, appalled.
‘Just be patient,’ she said with a smile. ‘There’s no rush. Dogs respond well to calm encouragement, not panic and frustration.’
I wasn’t known for my patience. I interrupted people, willing them to get to the point. I stifled screams when the person paying before me started asking questions about loyalty cards. I performed dramatic three-point turns in traffic. But I simply couldn’t be intolerant with Ray. He was too vulnerable, too sweet, too basically decent for me to lose my temper with him. So he forced me to adopt some self-control over my slightly antsy style.
I tried to approach our walks with a slightly more ‘Romantic poets’ mindset – for their own sake rather than as a practical dash. No mobiles, no sighing, no angst.
‘Oh, we’re doing this,’ I told him as he glowered at the lead. ‘I’m not having you turning into one of those weirdo teenage sons who never leaves the house.’
We hadn’t made it far before he adopted the stone lion pose. Sometimes he did full-on Superman-in-flight – paws stretched ahead, stomach welded to the pavement. I could be locked there for up to twenty minutes in a total stand-off, whispering gentle encouragement. People would burst out laughing when they saw us. ‘Look at that woman’s dog – he won’t move!’
But eventually he started to experiment with wobbling down the street. His waterfall tail swished as he discovered the joys of leaves and approaching cockapoos. I was proud that my new managerial tactics had paid off, that I had swapped my archaic ‘shouting from the technical area in an anorak’ style for a more modern ‘calmly offering support in tailored suits’ approach.