Charmers and Rogues

by Ann Cuthbertson

  In March 2009, Eleanor, then fourteen, was walking with friends when a driver lost control of his car and mounted the pavement. She died four days later.

  We all now realize why Dexter came into our lives. In those first days of grief and shock, he gave us routine. We felt like shutting ourselves away, but we had to walk him and face people. Whenever anyone visited to offer their condolences, he broke down any awkwardness. People would be struggling to find words of comfort and the ice would be broken by a spaniel humping their leg!

  He would sneak upstairs but, poignantly, would not enter her bedroom – just lie outside her open door. Two years later, and he accompanies us to our nearby churchyard every day and sits quietly by her grave. His ability to judge our mood is amazing. Life moves on, and we have had to learn to carry on without our daughter, but if we ever feel down, he is on our lap immediately. A bracing walk with him is the best therapy.

  We are so grateful that Eleanor wore us down four years ago, as we are not sure how we could have coped without him. Some things are just meant to be.

  LIKES food – both his own and anybody else’s

  DISLIKES animals on the television

  FINEST HOUR saving our sanity

  Gillian McGrath, Essex

  PART NINE

  HUNTERS AND GATHERERS

  Bella, pursuer of pheasants

  THE FIRST smooth fox terrier that I owned was called Bella. She had a brown, well-marked head and her bright, intelligent eyes were rimmed with black markings that gave the appearance of exotic kohl make-up. She looked as though butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. One of our daughters bought a name-tag in the shape of a heart, inscribed with ‘Bella’ and our telephone number. It hung from her collar like a piece of jewellery.

  Training went well. Bella was allowed off the lead and came back to heel with the promise of a biscuit. What a good dog, and well behaved.

  But one day it all went wrong. A pheasant started up in the field before her and fluttered and fumbled its way back towards the woods with Bella in hot pursuit. I shouted and ran after her, but biscuits and praise were no longer of any interest. In the dark of the woods I could hear birds calling hysterically and thrashing about in the undergrowth. There was no sign of my dog. But then she came out of the trees, hot, panting and triumphant, with an extremely large hen pheasant clamped firmly in her jaws. And, as it is with terriers, she would not let go. I had to walk the length of the village with my small dog determinedly carrying her very large, dead pheasant. I breathed a sigh of relief once inside our garden gate. No one had seen us.

  My husband was impressed. The bird was prepared and eaten – delicious. We had got away with it! But the following day, the head of the local shooting syndicate phoned.

  ‘Bella there?’ he asked. ‘She’s left her heart on a branch outside the pheasant pen!’

  LIKES lying on her side with all four paws strategically placed against the Aga

  DISLIKES travelling in the car

  FINEST HOUR catching the pheasant

  Rosemary Atkinson, Bath

  Rufus, rescue cat

  LIKE A mother deluded by love for her son, I thought Ru, as he was nicknamed, was the innocent victim in his many fights, but the vet always reckoned him to be a ‘bruiser’. When we first met he was a tiny rescue kitten with huge alien ears. He was plopped unceremoniously into a cardboard carrier and we took him home like a takeaway with lashing claws. With hindsight, he always had the makings of being neurotically territorial. Over the years he perfected a scary bantam-cock strut, but privately he was into cuddling and sucking jumpers.

  While young, he became dangerously ill with hepatitis, and his chances were slim. The adult cats in the village took turns watching over him, and one critical day, when he’d refused every food we could think of giving him, a big male cat came and caught a bird for him, which he ate, and which may have been the turning point.

  That hot summer cats came and went, checking on their invalid friend – something none of them had done before – and, after his miraculous recovery, never did again.

  There weren’t many people he liked. He had dreadful manners, spitting with contempt at neighbours, but to me he was loving and special. He trailed me loyally, barely left my side if I was ill and took pleasure in bringing me gifts – birds, mice, shrews and once, a bat. One summer he acquired a new friend – a tiny wild baby rabbit. I got sporadic reports of their unlikely marriage until eventually the bunny vanished and Ru came in with a look I had got to know rather well – it said: ‘Anyone asks, bud, you know nothing . . .’

  LIKES playing football in the kitchen with balls of tin foil

  DISLIKES punks on his turf

  FINEST HOUR alerting me to a burglar in the house

  Jill Maughan, Co. Durham

  Madge and Mabel, the twins

  IT WAS love at first sight: two gorgeous black bundles in a litter of ten Staffy/Labrador/whippet crosses from Animal Rescue. Our lovely dog Molly had just died, and we were in desperate need of doggy comfort. But, as we found out to our cost, ne’er buy twins. From day one, they were in charge. We were besotted, and oh were they naughty! We have done so much dog training it is coming out of our ears, and we have finally achieved results. They can be very obedient. But it’s hard work, as they are always a jump ahead.

  Madge (short for Madonna), certainly lives up to her name. She is beautiful, but she is also bossy and has to be in charge. She is a keen swimmer, and appears to be training for the Olympics, as she practises most days in the stream at our park. She fetches the ball for Mabel, who does not like getting out of her depth.

  Mabel is more timid, very loving and yet a killer. Squirrels are her number one interest; she has killed six and has the battle scars to prove it. We spend so much money at the vet that we joke that they could retire on our contributions alone.

  Believe it or not, they can both tell the time. They know precisely when it is four o’clock and time for dinner. They also recognize the music at the end of programmes such as Casualty and Silent Witness, as that’s when it’s time for biscuits. They come running.

  They race each other around the garden, and have tried very hard to ruin our prize lawn and flowers, so we built a fenced-off racetrack.

  The twins continually make us laugh. We have so much fun that we could never be without them.

  LIKES food, swimming, sunshine and radiators (Madge); being outside, hunting, sunshine and radiators (Mabel)

  DISLIKES squirrels and cats (Mabel)

  Jane Walker, Leicestershire

  Casper, thief

  THEY SAY that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, but I really wish our dog, Casper, didn’t take it to heart quite so literally. Let’s face it – Casper is a thief. At the beginning of the year he was pinching a few broad beans off the stalk, but as the year has gone on it’s been the runner beans, and the tomatoes in the greenhouse if you are careless enough to leave the door open. Now he has been beadily watching us pick anything edible in the garden.

  Lately, I have been carefully hiding from him the fact that there were a few courgettes that hadn’t turned to marrows. When I went indoors, however, he pounced. But he mistook the bed from where I had picked the courgettes for the one next door, and helped himself to a whole raw beetroot belonging to the neighbour.

  Really, is nothing sacred? Mind you, it’s always been the same. Some years ago, I greeted my daughter, who I don’t see very often, with, ‘Hello, darling – come in, I’ve made a cake . . . Oh – half a cake.’ The other half was under the table, half eaten.

  Last Christmas, having been asked to make a Christmas cake for a great friend, I had to excuse the strange shape of the finished article, saying that I was ‘experimenting’, when actually a great wedge of it had been stolen from the spare-room shelf!

  He’s really a big softie, though. Some four years ago, when his ‘mentor’, our other springer, died, he visibly went into mourning. He wouldn’t eat, and became an ‘old man’
almost overnight. So we got him another ‘rescue’ springer as a companion. Although he was a bit fed up with having a woman around the house, he perked up, and they are now inseparable, although he wouldn’t admit it!

  LIKES vegetables

  DISLIKES having his ears brushed

  FINEST HOUR capturing a pigeon in full flight, and then not knowing what to do with it

  Pippa Pettifer, Devon

  Hector the Hungry

  IT WAS a dark and stormy night, shortly before Christmas 2007, when Hector the Hungry appeared in my garden. I could hear him but could not see him, despite my torch. Every time I approached, he melted into the darkness. I gave up, thinking it must be the tabby belonging to a neighbour. But next morning, when I went to feed the birds, he reappeared and started to eat the bird food. I began feeding him, and within days he had moved in. He was about eighteen months old, a large, underweight, affectionate and friendly lost cat.

  I would have been heartbroken to lose such a magnificent beast. So I tried for months to trace his owners – he was not microchipped. But despite putting up posters, placing newspaper ads and uploading his picture on a lost-and-found website, his owners never came forward. Then I tried to rehome him, but after six months I realized he was a fixture, and a very welcome one at that.

  He’s a Just William sort of a cat, a swaggering, bumptious hayseed. When he comes in, I can track his progress through the house from the twigs, leaves and mud he trails in his wake – he is semi-long furred. He frequently brings in live mice and drops them once he is bored, leaving my old deaf cat Hamish to deliver the coup de grâce. This autumn, he has even brought in two large slugs – the brown ones with the orange frills – on his fur and dropped them on the kitchen floor. Worse, he appeared in bed in the early hours recently with a large one encased in the fur on his stomach – the first time I’ve shared my bed with a slug.

  He’s very brave, unless another cat stands up to him, when his bravado evaporates. But he is adept at catching young rats (several neighbours keep chickens, which have boosted our local rat population).

  And last year he became a blood donor at my local veterinary hospital. So far, he has donated twice. One recipient was severely anaemic as a result of a flea infestation, and the other had liver problems. Both are now back on their feet, with Hector’s blood coursing through their veins.

  It is the first time I’ve had a young cat for several years and he has been a joy, full of playfulness and joie de vivre. He weighs in now at 4.5 kg and has huge feet – one of his would make three of those of my delicate silver tabby, Dido.

  LIKES being cuddled and having his tummy rubbed

  DISLIKES his companion Hamish who, despite being half his size, bullies him

  FINEST HOUR becoming a blood donor

  Jasmine Profit, Somerset

  Dino, red setter, rabbit chaser

  DINO WAS a six-month-old Irish setter given to my ex-wife after his first owners sent him back to the breeder. They said he was giving the youngest child epileptic fits. He was named after Dino Ferrari, or so I was told; I think it was more likely the pet dinosaur in The Flintstones.

  I took him to live with me in the sergeants’ mess on an army aviation base at Netheravon, not easy as I was aircrew, but no one said anything. He grew up with helicopters and spent his early years chasing and dispatching rabbits along the airfield perimeter while I was flying, or with me on small-arms ranges.

  He had a natural gun dog’s instincts; sometimes he would scare up a pheasant then turn and look at me as if to say, ‘Are you going to shoot that bird, or what?’

  Flying did not bother him. He would jump on board a Lynx, look for a comfy spot such as someone’s bag, and go to sleep.

  When I was posted back to Northern Ireland for another two-year tour, he obviously could not go with me. My father then looked after him: I believe that walking Dino extended Dad’s life. Dino would sit, bring his head back and howl as my dad played blues music on a harmonica.

  Once a month I would come home on leave, but I hated leaving him. He would go mad on seeing me, but at the end of my visit would sulk with his head on the parcel shelf of the car and not look at me at all as we returned to the airport.

  As an ex-rufty-tufty soldier, I cried my heart out when he had to be put to sleep at the age of twelve. I still miss him.

  LIKES blues music, doggy chocolates, Christmas crackers

  DISLIKES any small furry things such as cats, rabbits, wild birds

  FINEST HOUR stalking a rabbit on his belly for twenty minutes using the only available cover: a small red fire extinguisher

  Paul Crooks, St Helens, Merseyside

  PART TEN

  DEARLY DEPARTED

  Oliver, the Peter Pan of dogs

  WE WENT for a walk one day, Oliver and I, when the dew was still on the grass and only a few dog walkers roamed the fields around our home. Bounding like a gazelle, his energy was a joy to behold, his dappled colours of red and white catching the morning rays.

  I bought him when he was seven months old, all legs and bewilderment. His owner, a lady in Rotherham, couldn’t cope; a common thing with setters, due to their free spirit.

  Red and whites were, I’m told, the original Irish setters, but breeders phased out the white, presumably as it wasn’t conducive to hunting, but you can often see them in old hunting scenes.

  Oliver’s instincts for retrieving clearly show on his walks, as he always needs to carry a branch or stick, the larger the better. He could never have been a gun dog, being scared of his own shadow, but he has made up for his shortcomings by becoming our soulmate.

  Having had a red setter, I knew that the breed are a challenge, and Oliver has been no exception. I remember one episode when, in a desperate attempt to get him to come back to me, I had to take his food bowl up to the field. But gradually he calmed down to the sensitive and affectionate creature we know and love.

  Alas, my walk was a solitary experience this morning as Oliver is no more, reaching his journey’s end in February this year. The beauty of setters is that they are the Peter Pan of dogs and never actually grow old, but we miss him like crazy.

  LIKES his family, cheese

  DISLIKES black dogs, loud noises, the vet

  FINEST HOUR his first time on Harlech beach, when he was so overjoyed with the space he barked himself hoarse

  Lesley Miller, Worcestershire

  Charlotte, traffic warden

  OF ALL the cats I have had, the oddest and most lovable was Charlotte, whom I got from the Cats Protection Society.

  As far as information is available, she came from an ideal home with a loving mistress. After her owner’s death, Charlotte was a stray for nigh on three years and must have suffered much, especially in winter.

  Eventually, she got run over and lost nearly all her teeth. She could not groom herself properly, and I’d take her to the vet for grooming every so often.

  Charlotte loved all creatures and immediately made contact with half a dozen local cats – in fact, she opened a sort of club, inviting all and sundry to her table, often for big eats.

  She spent much of her time in warm weather on a cushion on the garden seat under the cherry tree with her friend the blackbird, who wandered under the seat picking up seed scattered for his benefit.

  Charlotte also had her own traffic control! She would walk in a dignified manner down the centre of the highway and let the traffic settle to the side – which it frequently did. She would sometimes stroll over to a car, stand up and receive a stroke and hello before turning down the path.

  Sadly, Charlotte died (she had deteriorated over some months). She was a few weeks off twenty, and had certainly lived an active life. One evening, she asked to be picked up – I nursed her; she purred then later cried, the only cat I have ever known to do so. I put her to bed at midnight.

  She was still breathing but was gone by four in the morning. The vet had her cremated, and she is still with me, never to be forgotten.

>   LIKES her friend the blackbird, other cats

  DISLIKES the cold

  FINEST HOUR her traffic-calming measures

  George Henry Underwood, Forest Row, East Sussex

  Flint, Great Dane

  THIS IS a story of Flint, our incredibly handsome but stubborn-as-a-mule blue Great Dane. My first dog, he came into our lives at eight weeks old with his direct stare and ‘Nora Batty’ stockinged legs. In his first year, he grew into the long-legged head-turner that earned his photo on tourist cameras from Canada to Japan.

  Flint was the firstborn of his litter; he trained well and would do almost anything, but if he decided that he didn’t want to, he’d plant his feet and that was it. Try picking up ten stone of Dane! At six months, he picked a fight with a swan in a pond and after fifteen minutes of swimming, guess who had to wade waist-deep in stinking water to haul him out? At nine months, he broke from his lead to chase a sheep, and fell ninety feet over a cliff at the Worm’s Head – and walked away with only scratches!

  But he could be so gentle. Surrounded by a class of thirty six-year-olds, he would stand and take the pats until an anguished look would say, ‘Can we please go now?’ Babies would be stepped over after having being inspected and deemed safe. Small dogs were beneath contempt, and large ones received a hard stare. He attracted attention whenever he ventured out, gaining fans.

  His finest hour was on the steep, narrow streets of Mont St Michel; I might as well have had a leopard on a lead for the effect as the crowds parted, flattening themselves against walls as Flint passed with the arrogance of a medieval prince.

  At nine years old, he was diagnosed with dilated cardio-myopathy, and so began a drug regime that kept him alive but ultimately affected his appetite, and thus his condition. His hind legs became weakened, so we got him a ‘chariot’.