With his wheels, nothing would stop him – he’d run over the foot of anyone that got in the way, as spatial awareness could be a problem. Four months after my father had passed away following a massive stroke, Flint, aged eleven years and four months, suddenly collapsed – with a massive stroke. I think I grieved as I had never grieved before.
LIKES food, especially stolen sandwiches
DISLIKES fireworks and gunshots
FINEST HOUR stealing a pork chop; frightening the French
Phillip Hayes, Ramsgate
Safie, mongrel
SAFIE AND her brother were the result of an illicit liaison between her very proper beagle mother and a feral Labrador. Dogs were not on our agenda, but our neighbour was desperate for someone to give a home to the puppies, so we succumbed.
Safie developed into a strangely put-together dog: a small but pretty head, with beautiful ears, sat at the front of a large, coffee-table-like body – all supported on four short, thin legs.
We lived on top of a hill in the Tarn region of France with ten acres of land and a vineyard next door. Safie was in heaven.
The beagle in her meant that she was prone to roam, and would sometimes return with a damaged tail or a burn on her nose. Between walks she would alternate lazing in the sun with the burying of bones.
Every autumn she would help to harvest the grapes and blackberries, eating them straight from the vine and bush.
Over the next few years, Safie travelled everywhere with us, sharing our caravan. She was selective with strangers, preferring to keep her distance – unless food was involved.
She was also anxious with other animals, sometimes with good cause. Torquay Thomas, a cat belonging to our younger daughter, would chase her and make her cry, and even Austin, our older daughter’s geriatric chinchilla, would get at her given the chance.
We moved back to England to live in west Dorset four months ago. The woods behind our house soon became Safie’s favourite place to walk.
She took to running around in circles when she knew we were going for a walk. She had finally learnt to hold her lead in her mouth instead of tripping over it. A perfect day would end with excavating, then gnawing, an ancient bone on the grass by the garden wall, always the same spot.
Not deterred by the hard frost in December, she was busy gnawing when she spotted a fox in the garden and, uncharacteristically, took chase, jumping the wall behind it. A passing car swerved to miss the fox but hit Safie, killing her.
The next morning, the outline of her shape on the grass was still unfrosted, and her bone lay where she had dropped it. That is where we have buried her. She was such a good dog; she even converted my husband into a dog lover.
LIKES being outdoors and burying bones
DISLIKES any sort of water
FINEST HOUR sitting on our hilltop, guarding her terrain
Cheryl Ashburn, Longburton
Hattie, French bulldog
A FRIEND in Kent, who breeds French bulldogs, gave us Hattie, as she was not show material and needed to go to a good home. For the next fourteen and a half years, Hattie transformed our lives; she was such a character.
She enjoyed chasing squirrels and birds. One day, when out for a walk, she tore after a seagull and, not looking where she was going, inadvertently launched herself quite a long way out into Chichester harbour, not seeing the end of the grass. She surfaced, looking surprised, and managed to turn around and swim back to dry land.
When we went on holiday, my mother loved having her to stay, but on two occasions she disgraced herself – once by eating my mother’s false teeth, which must have been taken out and placed within Hattie’s reach (a few odd teeth were found on the carpet). The second time was by hurling herself through the glass panel in my mother’s front door to get at the postman. Hattie was unhurt, but the postman was shocked. He then had to find a neighbour to look after her as my very deaf mother was still fast asleep.
Hattie hated letters coming through the door, which she regarded as an invasion of her territory. We had to build an outside letterbox after discovering a slightly bloodstained letter, possibly from the postman’s fingers! Hattie also managed to destroy several letters before we could rescue them.
Our grandchildren came late into Hattie’s life, but despite never having had anything to do with small children, she was marvellous with them, and happy to let them curl up with her in her basket and crawl around the kitchen while she was eating.
Later in life Hattie had corneal ulcers, resulting in five days of blindness. She never lost her love of, or faith in us during this time, and eventually her sight returned.
Her back legs finally gave out, and she was put to sleep cuddled up on the sofa between us, her nightly place when we all watched TV. Five years on, not a day goes by that we don’t miss her.
LIKES sharing the sofa, lodged between us
DISLIKES squirrels
FINEST HOUR harbour diving
John and Lynn Hooper, Chichester
Tatters, Yorkie
MY FATHER-IN-LAW had decided to buy our three young children a puppy. He had seen a Yorkshire terrier, and would pay all expenses. I didn’t really want a dog, but my husband thought it would be good for the children. So Tatters entered our lives.
I fell in love with him immediately – he was so sweet, perky and full of life – but at the time I was a busy mother getting over appendicitis, and had no experience of dogs.
Tatters was clever and soon got the better of me, however. He would steal the children’s toys to run off with upstairs, or hide behind the sofa, only to let go of the toy if he was given a treat.
At children’s parties he would run off with the dice or – even worse – the parcel from ‘pass the parcel’. An unsuspecting child with a biscuit was an easy target.
Tatters was always escaping from the garden: his favourite route was by climbing up the wire fence. Once at the top, his weight would bend the fencing and he would jump down. There was no way he would come back unless caught or given a sausage.
The children loved Tatters, dressing him up in a Cub’s cap and scarf or T-shirt, giving him rides in the doll’s pram. At Christmas, his basket would be decorated with paper chains and a stocking.
Sadly, as Tatters got older, he grew more difficult and demanding, to the extent that we discussed getting rid of him – but of course we couldn’t. He died quite suddenly, with a throat tumour, aged thirteen years. It was a very sad day.
LIKES food
DISLIKES obedience
FINEST HOUR dressing up
Sue Hare, Billericay, Essex
Sybil the sleuth
SYBIL CHOSE us. We were living just outside Brisbane on five acres, and decided to get a puppy. We had been told of a Border collie breeder close by whose bitch had just had puppies, so we went to view them. While watching them all playing, one puppy came up to us and started chewing my husband’s shoelaces. When we asked the breeder whether this particular puppy had been reserved, she replied that she hadn’t and that, because of her pricked ears, she wouldn’t be able to show her in competitions. We only wanted a pet, so that didn’t bother us one iota.
Six weeks later, we picked up Sybil. She was loving, very docile and beautiful, despite those pricked ears! And extraordinarily intelligent. Her pièce de résistance came one Sunday afternoon when we couldn’t find the car keys.
My husband had cleaned the car prior to us going out. When it was time to leave, he couldn’t find the keys. We looked everywhere and, in the end, had to give up and use the other set. As soon as we got home we searched the dustbins, the shelves in the garage – anywhere else we thought he might have put them. Sybil was following us round. I looked at her and said jokingly, ‘If you were a bloodhound you’d find our keys for us.’ She looked up at me, turned round and walked to the edge of the garden bed and stared into the grass. There they were! My husband and I looked at each other with our mouths open in amazement. It was as if Sybil had understood every word.
Sadly, at the age of thirteen, Sybil was diagnosed with a tumour on her liver and the vet said that she probably had only a few weeks to live. Six months later, she was still alive but was acting as if she had dementia, and we discussed the option of having her put to sleep because she was so confused. The vet came to our home to give her euthanasia, and she was buried beside a passion-flower plant.
LIKES any type of food but especially fruit
DISLIKES nothing
FINEST HOUR finding those car keys
Maggie Osborne, Thakeham, West Sussex
Gemma, swimmer
AS GEM was a cross, I had the best of two worlds. The collie half was intelligent and obedient, and the lurcher half gentle, calm and trustworthy. She loved to chase in the woods, but lacking the killer instinct, as soon as she got within grabbing distance, she stopped. Even when she accidentally managed to catch a rabbit, she let it go. When our old dog helped herself to Gem’s dinner while she was eating it, she backed off instantly as if to say, ‘You have that, I didn’t really want it anyway,’ and then looked at me for help.
I could leave her sitting outside the cake shop, holding her own lead in her mouth. When friends’ dogs forgot where they had dropped their balls, I could point in the general direction and say, ‘Bring it,’ and she would go off and find them.
The collie half of her loved to learn. She knew so many tricks, and she won her Kennel Club Good Citizen Gold Certificate. She could even carry raw eggs. We were briefly in a dog display team, until one day the lurcher half of her looked up at me in the arena and virtually said, ‘You know I can do this, why do I have to keep proving it?’ I realized that it wasn’t fun for her any more, so we stopped.
What was fun for her was her weekly swim. Usually a peaceful traveller, as soon as she saw me get out her stripy towel, she went into hyper-excited mode. In the car, instead of lying quietly, she went into a tense crouch, peering over my shoulder through the windscreen, panting and talking to herself. Woe betide me if I got caught up in any traffic, because she would complain bitterly (and loudly). It wasn’t so much the swimming she liked as the splat she made, hurtling into the water.
Sadly, my beautiful Gemma died recently. I will always remember the way she lived her life.
LIKES weekly ‘swim-swim’
DISLIKES loud noises
FINEST HOUR fetching me when my old dog fell into a pond
Sue Ajax-Lewis, West Sussex
Elsa, tortoiseshell cat
IWAS brought up in Kenya, so when I was given a gorgeous tortoiseshell kitten by a neighbour back in England, I had to call her Elsa. She was such a character, very playful, and I adored her. When Elsa was barely one year old she became pregnant. The day she went into labour she just wanted me to carry her around. Eventually I put her in the prepared maternity unit, a cardboard box with towelling in a corner of our en suite.
Unfortunately, her first kitten was stillborn, but she soon had two more and after cleaning them both, she settled down for the night.
Next morning I happened to be in our en suite, and realized she had just given birth to another kitten, thirteen hours after the others.
Then one morning I was suddenly aware of a cold, wet nose next to my arm and woke up to see that Elsa had brought all three kittens onto my bed for me to look after while she went outside. Twenty-five years later, it still brings tears to my eyes when I think of the trust she had in me. We had great fun watching the kittens grow up. When they were a few months old we found good homes for them and had Elsa neutered.
Elsa and I had a great relationship, and I am sure she understood a lot of what I said to her (though my husband pooh-poohs this). She loved playing games in the sitting room, hide and seek and tearing after a ping-pong ball – in fact, she would often push the ball back to me.
She was nineteen when she was too frail to carry on and we had her put to sleep. I was heartbroken, and still think of her, but I have been blessed with a beautiful painting of her looking down on me as I sit in ‘our’ favourite chair where most evenings Elsa would sit on my lap.
LIKES drinking water from the kitchen tap
DISLIKES other cats
FINEST HOUR becoming a ‘queen’
Deidre Hilbourne
Sheba, school dog
OFSTED HADN’T been thought of when Sheba the Dalmatian joined the roll of Holywell School, Loughborough where I was headteacher. Every morning, she jumped out of the car, said ‘hello’ to the little ones also waiting to start their school day, and then curled up either in the office or the cloakroom until morning assembly was over and it was time to do her morning rounds. She visited every class, checking on standards and behaviour and, when satisfied that all was as it should be, her lower lip would curl into a smile.
During breaks, she would be walked by willing volunteers, who also ensured that she didn’t starve at lunchtime by collecting leftover scraps. This was a chore taken seriously, but went awry the day I was delayed at a meeting and didn’t return until mid-afternoon. I was assured that Sheba had been properly looked after. Yes – she had been given twelve hard boiled eggs! The children’s maths proved correct when Sheba parted company with lunch in the car on the way home.
Sheba had two litters, and when the pups were six weeks old, they spent a day in the open-plan library where they could be seen by everyone. Dodie Smith’s novel really came to life then. Sheba had such a lovable nature that we kept Dodger, her son from the second litter, but this was to bring unplanned sadness. Dodger came back from a routine visit to the vet with the then practically unknown illness of parvovirus. He died within days, and Sheba was obviously suffering as well. For over a month she lingered close to death, but was kept alive by my wife’s gentle stroking and comforting words, encouraging her to fight and stay with us. It was a joyous moment when I returned from school to be met by a very tottery Sheba, who greeted me with her trademark smile. We all smiled too, and wept happily, realizing she was over the worst.
Sheba was to live another six years, but was no longer strong enough to return to school, so she was marked absent from then on. Even today, former pupils – now grown up and with children and dogs of their own – stop and speak with affection of the school’s pet. Sheba was fun, a perpetual teenager and a devoted companion.
LIKES children and going on residential stays with them, especially to Snowdonia
DISLIKES the polished surfaces of the school halls
FINEST HOUR overcoming parvovirus
Clive Williams, Loughborough
Rolly, back-seat singer
OUR FRIENDS, Roger and Val, bought Rolly as a puppy in 1995, so we knew him from early on. Whenever we would visit, this mad bundle of energy would rush around the room; he was never still.
After a divorce, Rolly stayed with Roger, but his health was declining and he asked us to take care of the dog if anything ever happened to him. When Roger died, we kept our word.
Once at home, he was confronted with Tiggy, our old blind cat. Tiggy spent the first two weeks upstairs until she finally plodded purposefully into the lounge, only to be confronted by a confused Rolly, whose experience with cats was limited. His inquisitive nose in Tiggy’s face was too much for her, and a well-aimed paw and the resultant yelp from Rolly restored the cat’s supremacy.
We took Rolly on his first holiday to a cottage in Devon and he was like a dog released.
The sight of the wind flowing through his fur on the boat made the other passengers smile. He also discovered that ponds are made of water and that, despite looking solid, you can’t actually walk on them.
We took him away every year, mainly to the Cotswolds, but also to France, where he was popular among the children, who had never seen a dog like him. They seemed to think he was a lamb.
We live near to a wonderful dog-friendly country-house hotel, and we got into the habit of turning up for Sunday-morning coffee and a walk around the lake. On the journey there, Rolly would start to sing in the back of the car as
it was by far his favourite place. In 2010 the old fella had the first of a few mini-strokes that slowed him down, and, at the age of sixteen and a half, we finally had to have him put down. We had him for a wonderful six and a half years.
LIKES chocolate brownies
DISLIKES other dogs
FINEST HOUR the first time he realized he could run flat out, unfettered
John and Pam Simons, Bexhill, East Sussex
Basil, retired athlete
BASIL FOUND us, via the pet-rescue column in the local newspaper. We’d recently taken on a bed-and-breakfast business, and my stepsons had started calling my husband Basil, after Basil Fawlty. He was meant for us. No big decisions over breed, size or colour. One telephone call, one walk, one inspection and he was home before the foot-and-mouth outbreak.
He wasn’t keen on the resident cat, Jessie, and, at twenty, she wasn’t keen on him, but she licked him into shape and he understood that she was boss. At the same time, he licked us into shape and we understood he was boss.
Basil settled well into his dual role of chief host and security officer at the B & B. He took both roles seriously: he knew he was on a treat bonus scheme, particularly if he got a mention in the visitors’ book. If invited, he joined guests for breakfast, partaking of three courses: cereals; the full English, heavy on the bacon and sausages, light on the tomatoes and mushrooms; followed by toast – wholemeal, of course. He was always happy to take guests on a tour of the area, so long as he could include a visit to the park for a game of ball, all part of the duties of a B & B dog.
In his early days he was a dreadful thief – half a pound of butter, a leg of lamb; even the mustard and chilli sandwiches didn’t deter him.
Basil was an athlete. He did everything at high speed: every walk, run or swim at 100 per cent.
Charmers and Rogues Page 10