I don't intend to write a biographical account, as the novelist Elizabeth von Armin did, of my extraordinary life and dogs, because my life (thus far) has been unremarkable and without the milestones that most adults in their late-thirties have achieved (or failed at or had difficulties in): partners, children, fulfilling career and the like, so very dull indeed, but dogs I can remark upon, though none were ever truly mine.
They were the family's - belonging to the master of the house or to a unit, that being either my father or my grandfathers. Our dogs mainly looked to the men, except when it came to anything concerning food where the women were chief of that domain: the kitchen and satisfying the household's stomachs. Strange, that the dogs all picked up on that pecking order, not that the men had dominance overall, it was just how duties, for the most part, were divided. Where they naturally fell, but even then borders were regularly or occasionally crossed. My maternal grandfather made the morning cup of tea, baked bread and vacuum-cleaned, as well brewed beer and grew tomatoes and runner beans. And yet, Sam dog, my maternal grandparents' golden lab would fetch his tin of Chum and present it to my grandmother, before trying anyone else who could manage a tin opener.
Dogs have an uncanny ability to read and ingratiate their owners, and the owners either don't realise they're doing it or submit, meekly. You're part of the pack, though the dog is usually the Leader; you might think you are and the dog might let you think that, but in your heart you know you're not, because dogs lie close to our human hearts as if that organ were a cosy fire they were warming themselves by.
A home is not a home without a dog, preferably one dozing with one eye closed, the other half-open and listening out for a turn of a key and returning footsteps. Most dogs greet, unlike cats, and know before you do when you're about to arrive. The welcome you receive is pure joy, occasionally overdone as in you might be bowled over, literally to the floor, and licked clean, but it is, I believe, a show of genuine affection, though it can get wearisome, once through the door, if said dog continues to bounce at your heels or tug your trouser leg.
The Master coming home signalled Mini Cheddars or bread-sticks (I got some Cheddars and a sip, just a sip, of low-alcoholic beer), just as much as visiting a pub meant pilfered crisps under the table or a bit of sausage if a sausage was being had. I was, of course, allowed a Coke and to eat crisps or my scampi and chips at the table.
Dogs know. No other domesticated animal beats their extraordinary senses, nor powers of persuasion (well, children possibly), although I know in that regard I'm biased having grown up around them. I'm sure I thought I was a canine at some point, or at the very least that I had an unusually furry older brother who was once mortal but cursed at birth as in the fairy tales I was exceedingly fond of; or I thought I'd wake up one day and find he was wearing clothes like a character from Wind of the Willows or Beatrix Potter. I was an imaginative child and dogs were playmates who proved far more agreeable than cousins.
The fact of the matter was that I was an only. And when you're an only dogs make excellent familiars. The dog is always there to practise your reading to or listen to secrets; to watch cartoons with or share a game in the garden, so that it becomes unclear as to whom is the faithful shadow.
Picture credit: Jennie, Higglety Pigglety Pop! by Maurice Sendak
