by Jean Gill
Nervous giggle from my Breeder. ‘It wouldn’t do if he escaped. I told you I take my responsibilities seriously. And he can reach the shed for shelter, he has food and drink, and it’s natural for a patou to guard his flock on the hillside. I think that’s how he sees all the other animals.’ Little Tab chose that moment to pay me a visit and I automatically bent my head down to receive a rub and a purr, and lick her in return before she went off on serious cat business.
‘Well aren’t you just gorgeous,’ the woman said to me, with no trace of the coldness that seemed to come and go in her tone.
‘So you’ll put him on the rescue website?’ my Breeder asked, selling voice back.
‘Of course! No question about that.’
‘I realise he’s too old and there’s no hope but at least he’ll have had his chance. And I can’t keep him indefinitely...’
‘I understand exactly what you’re saying.’ Real frost in the voice. ‘I don’t think you should be so pessimistic. There’s lots of good reasons why a dog might bite a child and of course I agree it’s too big a risk for him to go to a family with children, but there’s plenty of other homes. And there are advantages to having an older dog. He’s house-trained for starters.’ Doubt crept in. ‘Isn’t he?’
‘Well, he was,’ my owner answered, carefully, ‘but he hasn’t been near a house in... some time.’
‘I see. Well he’s over the puppy stages anyway.’
‘Oh yes, and he’s not at all destructive, at least not up here...’ she tailed off.
I was being treated to some regular back rubbing and then – oh bliss! – the side of my face was being stroked, delicately, from muzzle to ear along the lie of my hair, just the way that I liked it. ‘I’d take him myself if I could...but I mustn’t, not at the moment, not with a pup to bring up... can I take a photo?’
‘Go ahead.’
‘It always helps to have a photo. That and a name.’ And a really really sad story I thought. Yes, I knew the routine. And I looked straight at the camera. Read this really really sad story, I told the machine, as it clicked and whirred.
Then I had the chance of one last cuddle and I made the most of it, my aroundera saying everything that my eyes hadn’t already. ‘I’ll find someone for you, Sirius, I promise.’ I licked her face but that didn’t stop me thinking, just one more human promise to add to the collection.
Then they were heading back down the hillside.
‘And vaccinations?’ the woman asked.
‘He doesn’t need them where he is now...’
‘So you’re saying they’re not up to date?’
‘You could say that...you don’t know how hard it is to be a breeder. Last week someone tried to get a puppy out of me for free, told me their own, one of my last litter, had died of parvo-virus, but when I checked with the vet, they’d taken him to be put down because he had a bit of a limp – like patous often get when they’re going through the main growth stage – the vet refused euthanasia and found a home for him and of course I sent the couple off with a flea in their ear, but you can’t trust anyone these days and they’re all about money, money, money....’
I surveyed my animals, my mountains and my stomach churned. I’d forgotten what it was like, the connection with a Human, and now the memory was re-awoken, it hurt all over again. I couldn’t stay here, my Breeder had said. I would have to say goodbye to the mountains, to Little Tab, to Snow and Ulla. And I had to face the truth; no-one would come for me. Or worse than no-one. I was heading back to a S.P.A.. I was four years old and I knew what the S.P.A. thought of dogs over five. So that was my future.
When you Humans know you’re going to lose something, you react one of two ways. Either it becomes doubly precious or you give up on it completely and can’t enjoy it any more because you’re going to lose it. Dogs always choose the former. If you see the biggest dog in the world, swaggering towards you, growling, with his eyes on your bone, those last teeth-grinding chomps on your treasure are the most satisfying moments you have ever spent with that bone.
Every purr and head-rub, every cloud shadow on a mountain, every story at twilight was stored as treasure in my memory. Even when the wind blew up from stillness, under a blackening sky that rolled over from the invisible mountain-tops and the summer storm cracked open the sky with searing zag-zags of light to a background roar that shook not just my shed but the very hillside itself, even then I was not afraid. Instead I thundered back, rearing up with eyes shut in the rain that fell like stones, pounding on my muzzle. I became part of the storm itself, part of my landscape, the Great Pyrenees. How could I be hurt by weird light that flashed the landscape illuminated and then blacked out as if a great bulb were being switched on and off in the skies? What was there left to be afraid of? What could be worse than what was to come anyway?
I thought back over my life. I remembered how I used to sit on Marc’s lap in his low deckchair in the garden, my legs touching the ground as I grew bigger. Then the day Marc clambered into a new seat, slung between two trees. I jumped onto his lap as usual and this seat tipped us both out so Marc was flipped like a pancake to land flat on his face on the floor. Or the day Marc and the vet chased me round the surgery because I didn’t want her looking in my ears. Or the night Marc had taken me out for a pee and the door had slammed shut, locking us out. He hadn’t dared wake up Christine so we’d spent the night under the hedge, beneath the stars – until the sky clouded and the drizzle started. We’d been drenched when we sneaked in the next morning after Christine unlocked. Marc had rushed to the bedroom unseen so he could throw on some clothes and pretend we’d been for an early morning walk. I remembered the little daily pleasures. When Marc or Christine called, ‘Aperitifs!’ I would run to the kitchen and find them standing by a huge cold cupboard. They would push a button, then after a whirr and a clink, ice cubes would arrive in their hands and, one at a time, proceed from there straight into my mouth.
And I remembered Stratos. His betrayal. Humans are fond of an old, old story, about a Prince who goes hunting, leaving his faithful hound to watch over his baby son, who is sleeping peacefully in the cradle. When the Prince comes back, the hound greets him, covered in blood and the baby is nowhere to be seen, so the Prince puts his dog to the sword. Then, when he goes further onto his property, the prince discovers the baby, unharmed, in the cradle, and beside him the corpse of a wolf the other side of the cradle, a wolf killed by the faithful hound. Distraught, the Prince watches his dog die. Why do Humans love this story so? Why don’t they understand it better? And why don’t they at least realise that if it had been me or Stratos, or any self-respecting patou, the wolf would never have got so close to the baby?
Stratos had put his paw on something that I still hadn’t quite got clear in my head. He’d worked out what it was that all dogs want. But of course, being Stratos he didn’t know he’d worked it out and it was up to me now, to do the thinking for him, to make that his last gift to me. Remembrance, love’s last gift. What was it in all that he’d said which kept rumbling away in my brain like thunder in the distance, the storm never quite breaking?
It was while I was puzzling over such thoughts that I once more heard two voices. So this was it. I almost whimpered but I was determined to show more pride at the end. I listened.
‘Of course you’ve heard of Soum de Gaia. We have many Champions in our line. One of my boys. Savoie-Fer, is current Champion of France, Spain and he won Best of Breed at Crufts. And he’s Sirius’ brother... so you saw Sirius’ details on the Rescue website, you were saying.’
‘Yes.’ Just one word and my heart somersaulted worse than Marc’s hammock. I knew that voice. Someone had come to keep a promise.
Chapter 19.
If I’d been enthusiastic with the woman who came before, that was nothing to the show I put on this time. When I ran towards them, my aroundera was flagged up so high, I thought my hind quarters would lift off and when I reached my target, I was bouncing on my hind legs, my tong
ue greeting every patch of bare skin I could find as I barked, ‘What took you so long?’ with so much excitement I nearly choked. ‘Izzie,’ that familiar voice whispered in my ear, ‘oh Izzie’.
‘Anyone would think he knew you,’ my Breeder observed.
‘Mmm,’ was the noncommittal response, as my front legs were placed gently but firmly on the ground and a hand searched for the spot below my chin to stroke and scratch. I couldn’t stop whining and turning in circles while my tail wagged so hard I thought it would whirl off. ‘Would you take this chain off him, please.’ My breeder didn’t seem quite so pleased at actually hearing a fist of iron in a velvet glove but she obeyed the veiled command. For the first time in five years I was free. At liberty to run away across a thousand kilometres of mountains. And you already know what I did, don’t you. I carried on turning in tight little circles, smaller than the chain had ever imposed. I was already where I most wanted to be. It was my heart that was unfettered.
She had changed, my Princess. She was thinner and she seemed taller, though I think that was an illusion. There was a calmness about her, as if her energy was more contained, but that just made her glow even more. Just as she had all that time ago, she crouched down and held out her arms to me, holding a chain collar and lead. ‘Izzie,’ she purred, ‘come here my beautiful, sweet, little boy,’ and once more her eyes drew me towards her and I held her gaze, unafraid as she put my collar and lead on me.
‘You shouldn’t let him look you in the eyes, like that. It’s a dog’s way of challenging you and before you know where you are, he’ll be nipping and bullying, perhaps worse.’
‘So people say,’ Elodie replied, holding my gaze. ‘Good boy. Down!’ she commanded, and I lay down at her feet. We’d had too much fun with command words on the waste-ground for me to forget – and it was worth it to see my Breeder’s face.
‘I’m just trying to warn you to be careful... these big dogs need expert handling...’ I waited for the inevitable but she hesitated and decided against it, ‘... and as you know from the Rescue site he has bitten a child so I want to be sure you know what you’re doing. As I told Rescuemontagnes, you seem very young to me.’
‘I’m twenty two, Madame Berin, I have a Diploma as a Veterinary Assistant. I live in the countryside with my parents, who have two spaniels and five thousand metres square in land. For my birthday present, my godfather has offered to buy me a pedigree dog, with my parents’ consent and I wanted a Pyrenean mountain dog.’
My breeder’s voice was sugary again. ‘No doubt you watched Belle and Sebastien as a child... so many of us fell in love with Belle, in black and white for our generation but for yours it’s the cartoon of course...’
‘No, it was the real thing I fell in love with, not a cartoon.’ And her eyes on mine left me in no doubt who was the real thing.
‘But, forgive me asking, if you have money to spend on a dog, I still don’t understand why you don’t have a puppy. I have an outstanding litter ready for homes in two weeks.’ Money, I thought anxiously, hearing selling voice. Those steady hazel eyes reassured me.
‘I am putting the money to good use, thank you. I don’t see the point of spending all my money on a puppy and having none left to train him properly. Sirius is the dog I have chosen, for personal reasons, and I am using the money to go to the best dog trainer I can find in France, so I can learn alongside Sirius. And I aim to become a dog-trainer myself, so you see, that answers your questions.’ Elodie told me, ‘End it,’ and up I got, bang on cue. ‘Now then Madame Berin, we have some papers to sign, then I have a long way to drive so we’ll be on our way.’
It felt like a procession, walking down the hillside with Elodie and my Breeder, me wuffing farewell to chickens, horses, cats, especially Little Tab of course, but with no time to feel the leaving. Down the hillside to the gate, behind which my sister was barking herself frantic in circles.
‘I know,’ she told me, ‘I know, it’s wonderful, I’m so happy for you.’
‘I’m happy too, uncle Sizzie,’ yelped a youngster and I paused to admire the new generation of Soum de Gaia.
‘She’s beautiful,’ I told Snow, who felt a sudden need to bury her head in her daughter’s perfect coat and start the special fine nibbling that we do to groom ourselves or those we have bonded with.
Ulla wriggled free and Snow looked up. ‘One more time I wish you good hunting, little brother.’
‘Things have changed, Snow. This time I will miss you and it will be ten stolen cakes from the farmhouse kitchen warming my stomach every time I think of you leading the Soum de Gaia with Ulla beside you.’ Snow’s eyes flashed laughter, acknowledging the reference to a younger, wilder moment and then we rubbed muzzles before I was whisked on into the farmhouse for the paperwork.
‘He is in my name at present,’ my Breeder said. This was news to me. It meant that Marc had signed me away. One stroke of a pen gave you a family and another stroke abandoned you. Or worse. I thought of my brother, our argument over who had the better master and I apologised to Stratos. Equals, I told him, equally bad. So when Elodie signed to be my family, I didn’t feel the same rush of belonging, the same trust as I had first time round. Now, in her presence, I was sure of her love for me, but I had felt the same before, hadn’t I.
Can a dog love more than once? I have thought about this long and hard. After all, a dog’s famous for faithfulness and loyalty, for dying alongside his master – although I have to say that I have not come across any examples of this in real life, among the many many true stories that have come my way. No, there is no doubt about the answer; a dog can love more than once BUT. It is the nature of this BUT that you Humans need to think about a bit more because it applies to you as well. It is the same BUT as what was missing on our papers at the S.P.A., it is our past that is the BUT, along with all that it has created in us for good and bad. Second-time-arounders have expectations, fears, habits and reservations.
Elodie sweet-talked me into the car where my Breeder gave her brightest smile, all teeth and wished me ‘Good luck, Sirius, with your new family.’ There had been times I would have liked to give her my brightest smile, all teeth, but I knew better than to risk the consequences for a moment’s over-rated satisfaction. She was now my past.
And my present was lying along the comfortable back seat of Elodie’s car while she talked to me. I had forgotten the pleasure of being talked to, the range of emotions flavouring a human voice, especially when the topic was me. I half-closed my eyes, lulled by the hum of the engine, the vibrations of the car, the whizz of passing traffic and - thank goodness – no artificial orange/vanilla, just the sweet young smell of Elodie and the perfume essence she wore, sandalwood and jasmine, more adult than her previous scent.
Elodie waved gaily to my Breeder as she drove slowly off. ‘What a cow! I am so angry I could scream but if I’d lost my temper there I’d never have got you out! Even at the last minute she could have changed her mind and just gone ahead with putting you down. That would have suited her fine, nice and tidy. She gets all the credit for looking after one of her ex-puppies that inadequate owners have turned vicious – or so she thinks - with none of the risks that you’d damage her reputation if you’re out in the world somewhere.
And that chain! It’s just like Sara said it was. Your body looked after in a minimal way and your soul in hell. Your sad eyes! Oh Izzie, I promised you I’d come for you and I couldn’t help it taking so long, really I couldn’t.
First of all, that other cow at the S.P.A. got me banned from helping out, and I wasn’t even allowed to visit so I couldn’t come and see you at all. I told you I’d find out who your breeder was so I did, and I phoned her and she sounded so nice on the phone, so responsible and she was going to get you straight away so I thought you’d be fine and you’d be all right with her or you’d get a home. I did check up. I got someone else to visit the S.P.A. and see if you were still there and you weren’t. The other patou had gone too so he must have found a home �
�� I’m not surprised because he was so beautiful. He must have been pedigree too. Strange for you both to be in at the same time. I even wondered if you were brothers.’ She laughed. ‘Silly idea. I watch too many films. I know he’d been aggressive but there are people who can re-educate a dog and I’m glad he found someone.
Anyway, my friend even asked, to check up on what had happened to you, and she got told that your breeder had come to get you. So I was pleased for you and sad for me because I had this feeling that you and I were supposed to be together. I know that sounds soppy but it’s the truth.
But I’d had enough of the S.P.A. Sometimes I wonder if they want to find homes for dogs at all or just to keep the ones they’ve got in cages forever. I suppose they get bogged down in how impossible the job is but they could do it so much better... so then I started training and working at a vet’s and learning, learning, learning.’ She sighed. ‘And I kept putting off having a dog of my own. There was always something not right, what with living with my parents and their dogs, and me working so hard.
You get to hear a lot when you work in a vet’s, not just medical stuff, and people ask you about boarding kennels, about dogs they’ve found on the road and about putting dogs to sleep for the most stupid reasons. You wouldn’t believe it! We run a message board to try and help people and one day someone came in with a web address. She said that if ever there is a patou in trouble, there’s a site that helps them and finds homes for them, wherever in France they might be. I’d been thinking for ages and ages about a dog of my own and I just couldn’t forget you, Izzie, so I thought another patou might be the one for me, then with my godfather saying that I could have one as a birthday present, it all seemed to fit together. If I had a Rescue patou instead of a puppy, I could afford the best training in France to help me with whatever problems come with adopting a dog and start me off as a dog trainer.