Our beloved Tibetan Terrier, Sooty, died a few weeks ago at the ripe old age of 16 - 112 years old in human years. Actually the last four years were a bonus, because I ran him over in 2003.
It was one of those truly terrible moments, where you wish so desperately that you could rewind time, just those last thirty seconds and everything would be all right again. I had got into my car to run a friend to the station, reversed and felt a bump. It was Sooty, who had been enjoying a sleep in the shade of the rear wheel of my car, on a hot summer afternoon.
Incredibly and to our joy, after a touch-and-go twenty-four hours following emergency surgery, he not only survived, but within a couple of months he was back to running every day with myself and the other two dogs and killing rabbits - some bigger than himself!
But for weeks after, I replayed that moment of starting up the car and running him over again and again in my mind, with a sick, hollow feeling each time. The only thing that gave me comfort was that he had survived and was ok. I don't know how I would have coped with my guilt had he died.
I know from my own experiences and from those of many friends, that losing a pet can be almost as harrowing - and sometimes even more - than losing a human friend or family member. Dogs in particular are so non-judgmental. I was brought up in a household with dogs, cats, hampsters, rabbits, fish, budgerigars and sundry other domestic and wild creatures, but it has always been dogs that I love the most. You could go out, murder five people, come home and the dog will still lick you and love you. I'm not so sure a cat would... In my novel Looking Good Dead I quote my favourite feline line: "Sometimes when I am playing with my cat, I wonder if, perhaps it is not my cat who is playing with me."
It is a strange thing, but dogs seem to know when they are going to die, and they seem to face death without any of the fears we humans have. When my beloved Hungarian Puli, Jesse, died back in 1991, he just waddled out of the back door and sat down, staring at his favourite view across the lawns, down towards the woods and the lake with the ducks he liked to bark at every day, and slowly passed away.
My then wife and I were almost inconsolable, because Jesse had been something of a child substitute for us. The house had a beautiful little railed-in pet cemetery, dating back hundreds of years from the markings on the gravestones, that was beneath a quite beautiful 700 year-old yew tree. (Interesting diversion: Do you know the reason that yew trees are mostly found in English churchyards? It is because their leaves are poisonous to cattle and churchyards were one of the few places that were railed off in the Middle Ages. The yew was needed to make the bows for the archer soldiers.)
We had been keeping very expensive oak planks in the house for a year to season them for a new kitchen floor, but then someone told us that it was important to bury a dog in something solid, in case foxes tried to dig up the body, so we ended up using part of the oak to make a coffin for him! And I wrote a one hundred line long poem which I put in the coffin - gosh it sounds so slushy, but hey, I may be a crime writer but I can do slush...
The title of this blog is taken from a wonderful book of short stories by the writer Susan Perabo. When poor Sooty died, Helen sat down with Phoebe, our five-year-old German Shepherd and Bertie, our fifteen year old super-bolshy but wonderful Hungarian Puli and explained that Sooty had died. She swore they listened and understood, although for days after Bertie would sit at the bottom of one staircase, looking up, as if waiting for Sooty to appear...
Oscar
Now we have a new canine family member, Oscar, a five-month old rescue pup, who was found by the RSPCA just wandering the streets. He is pictured on his own, with a sock. Oscar is, we think, a Labrador/Border Collie cross and has made friends with everyone. Even grumpy Bertie tolerates him, which is quite something! He has one of the nicest temperaments I have ever experienced in a dog, and is a really happy, lively soul, but he seems so chilled at times we wonder if he has a secret stash of dope...
I like all animals, except mosquitos, wasps, and certain bottom feeders from the human gene pool who throw rubbish out of car windows. I remember some years ago talking to my friend Dominic Walker, the Bishop of Monmouth - who is also the chief exorcist of the Church of England - or Minister of Deliverance, as the Church prefers to call it - about questions we would ask God if we met Him face to face. Dominic made me smile when he said the first question he would like to ask Him would be why had He made mosquitoes?
Which reminds me of a wonderful sign I once came across on a tour of the Body Shop's factory in Littlehampton (well worth a visit): "If you ever thought you were too small to make a difference, you've never shared a bed with a mosquito."
And should you ever make the visit (assuming they still do tours) ask them to open the curtains that shield off from public display a splendid photograph. It is of someone Anita Roddick, the Body Shop's founder, encountered in the Amazon rainforest whilst on a research trip in search of natural remedies. He is a rather fine and sturdy example of our species, and particularly well endowed. He is seen carries six bricks in a sling hung from his erect penis. Beats builders' bums any day...
Not sure how I managed to segue from dead dogs to the Body Shop, but hey, it's Sunday afternoon...
