Tea and Dog Biscuits (2 page)

Like two cowboys in a Western, this dog and I faced each other under the hot sun. Who would draw first?

I suddenly remembered that Cecilia was still with us. Without moving my head I managed to look sideways: she was a third motionless figure, a spectator. I was about to tell her in a calm voice not to make a sudden movement when she raised her arm and began jabbing a finger in the direction of the roadway. A coach was pulling up by the end of our drive, some two or three car lengths from where I stood. A coach? It came to a halt, the passenger doors opened, and a tall man in a uniform jumped out.

‘Right,' he said in a loud, authoritarian voice.

A small, ginger-haired lad was the first to follow him, leaping off the step. Then the others. Squeezing out of the coach, spilling onto the pavement and the verge. Thirty? Forty?

On a Tuesday afternoon in our peaceful, isolated village – a village with no shop, no school, no pub, where the most exciting thing in the village is the pillar box, where the only people I ever see on foot are the Commander taking his dogs for a brisk walk and the vicar – a troop of Scouts landed at the end of my drive. I know very little of the modern Scouting movement and do not know whether today they go on route marches, but with their clomping boots and commanding leader the small boys certainly had a military resemblance.

My eyes swivelled round to the Lion-Maned Dog. His ears had gone up; he had turned his head to look behind him. Almost certainly he could not have seen a Scout troop before. Almost certainly it was far more human beings than he had ever seen before all at once. What would he do? Possibilities rushed into my head. Would this guard dog start barking at all these people who had suddenly appeared? Would he rush over and leap up at them? Drag them off? Savage them? Would he savage
me?

Then the lawyer in me thought, have I used reasonable skill and taken reasonable precautions to control and secure this dog? I have not.

The last of the coach's occupants jumped out: the others were forming themselves into a column, just the other side of our low garden wall, which had shrunk since the last time I looked at it.

Having no children of my own I'm not very good at guessing their ages but I supposed these were Cub Scouts. They were surprisingly quiet for a large group of young boys; perhaps they had been instructed not to disturb the peace of the village residents. This may have contributed to the Lion-Maned Dog's puzzlement – I'm sure his brow was furrowed – and left him wondering how to react.

‘Barrie!' I heard Cecilia speak in hushed tones. ‘Barrie, he was originally a police dog. That's good -he's used to doing as he's told. Give him a command. Tell him to sit or something.'

Well, that probably is good news, I thought. Yes. She should have told me that before. Yes, that's what I'll do.

‘He was definitely a police dog, they just couldn't keep him because he wouldn't let go of people once …'

Her voice trailed off. Even she realised this had not been the right moment to tell me that.

I was just about to give the dog a command when the troop leader turned and spoke to his charges.

‘Ready?' he asked.

This prompted the ginger-haired lad to point at the Lion-Maned Dog in the middle of our lawn. ‘What a big dog.'

The troop leader turned round and looked at the dog. Then in a booming voice he shouted, ‘Right – COME ON!'

The Lion-Maned Dog spun round. His body stiffened. Oh, my goodness. Was he about to join the Scouts?

For several long, long moments he made no further movement. He gave no sign that he was interested in or disturbed by the troop leader and his invading force outside the garden.

Then suddenly he sprang off- in the opposite direction to the Scouts. I was left gawping, then turned to see his tail disappearing round the corner of the cottage. He was gone. On the loose, no lead, not even a collar.

My mouth was as dry as an old bone. I took two or three deep swallows and made off after him, taking strides as big as I could. I made it to the corner of the cottage in seconds and rounded the corner, my face screwed up. What was I going to see? What – or who – had he gone after? The gate to the back garden stood open. I shot past a large sign I had nailed to the fence when we first started taking dogs, painted in blood red:
STOP! DO NOT ENTER
–
ALSATIAN MAY BE LOOSE IN GARDEN.

I stopped to look around. At the far end of our long garden, beyond one of the flowerbeds, I could see next door's cat running – although not seemingly in too much of a hurry – towards a gap in the hedge, followed a few yards behind by a large German Shepherd dog, also seemingly not in too much of a hurry. The cat disappeared through the gap; the German Shepherd crashed into the hedge. His head disappeared into the gap, then his body writhed and wriggled for a few seconds. He pulled his head out of the gap, shook himself, ran off along the hedge in search of a bigger gap, found it, launched himself into it, and got stuck again, but further in this time. After more wriggling he pulled himself out and set off along the hedge again to another gap. He was having fun.

Another twenty or thirty yards and there was a gap in the hedge that would be big enough to take him through into an adjoining field and freedom. Freedom to roam the village – and beyond. There are people out there in the big, wide world who have an unreasonable fear of German Shepherd dogs, who will cross the road to avoid one, or who will pick up their children or their Yorkie if one approaches. This would be his chance to meet them.

Earth, dust and dead leaves were flying up now from the current gap in the hedge, which Lion-Maned Dog was making bigger.

I put my hand to my forehead. If Dorothy were here she would say, ‘Calm down. Don't panic, Mr Hawkins.' I quickly took some deep breaths. No, take s-l-o-o-o-w deep breaths.

Think! It's no good me running after the dog – he can run faster than I can. But I can't call him, he hasn't got a name. Just try calling him without a name? And look welcoming?

‘Come on, boy! Here!' I called out. Lion-Maned Dog looked round momentarily then promptly ran on to the next gap. What would a dog trainer do? Or a police dog handler? And while you're thinking, walk slowly towards him.

I took two or three slow cautious steps. Lion-Maned Dog looked up and bolted on to the next gap. I didn't go any further.

Since we had started the rescue work we had become friends with a police dog handler. Now I realised the truth of what he had told us: you haven't got control of a dog unless you can get it to come. The secret, he had said, was to be more interesting than what the dog was doing. His advice was to squat down to the level of the dog, so you're not towering above him like a threatening giant. Then waggle your fingers about in the grass as if you are trying to find something.

I squatted down. Immediately, I realised that my head was about level with the dog's teeth. My movement must have caught the attention of Lion-Maned Dog; he turned his head. I put a hand down and wiggled my fingers about.

Some dogs have faces which allow you to read more easily what they are thinking. Lion-Maned Dog had such a face. And it seemed to me he was thinking, What's that idiot doing? He quickly turned back to resume his excavations of the current gap.

‘ooohhh… What's this?' I said. Then, excitedly, ‘ooohhh – look what I've found!'

Lion-Maned Dog turned his head for the briefest of looks then hurried on to the next gap. The next gap was the one big enough to provide his ticket to freedom.

In case Finding Something Interesting hasn't worked, our dog handler friend had gone on to reveal the Technique That Never Fails. He told us that he himself had only ever done this once. It had been taught to him at police dog training school as the ultimate weapon. He told us it took guts.

From the squatting-down Finding-Something-Interesting position, roll over onto your back. Stick all four arms and legs up into the air and move them all about simultaneously in a cycling motion. Think of a beetle that's rolled over onto its back and can't get up again. No dog can resist that, the handler said – he'll have to come over to see what's happened.

I rolled over onto my back in the grass. Through my shirt I could feel I had dropped onto something sticky and damp. In fear and dread that Lion-Maned Dog would disappear through the next gap and be gone to wreak havoc and terror in the village I thrashed about wildly, arms and legs flailing.

Lion-Maned Dog stopped his excavations. In fact, he froze and stood staring.

I pedalled faster. ‘Good boy! Good boy! Look at me! What am I doing?!' But Lion-Maned Dog wasn't looking in my direction. I turned my head to follow his line of sight.

My heart must have missed a beat. There at the top of the garden stood a grey-haired lady. She held a collecting tin. She was staring at me. I scrambled to my feet. ‘Go away! Can't you see the sign?' I yelled. ‘Go
away!'

‘It's all right. Dogs like me,' was the reply.

Lion-Maned Dog stiffened, then launched himself off in the charity woman's direction.

He was racing past on the other side of a flowerbed. Somehow, both feet at once, I sprang up into the air -and then forward. I felt myself actually sailing through the air, then down on top of him.

Sixteen stone of me came from out of the sky, landing squarely on him. He crashed to the ground, his legs splayed out to the sides.

For several seconds we both lay there motionless, me covering him completely. I looked down, resting my chin on my chest, and could see his head underneath me. I raised myself up a couple of inches to give him some air.

For a moment I thought he was dead. I lifted myself up a bit more but with my hands clasped round his neck. Then he made a sound like the noise made by a balloon when the air escapes.

‘Thhwwmiuuuuuwrr.'

Like a rider getting off a horse, I lifted a leg up and dismounted, still with those hands firmly round his neck. Lion-Maned Dog jumped to his feet, taking me by surprise. Then he shook himself – but I hung on. He finished his shake and just stood there, gathering his thoughts. our eyes met.

And then the Lion-Maned Dog grinned.

This was a game. He was having fun.

His great tail swept the air. I felt my eyes glisten over with relief. Perhaps this was the first time anybody had ever played with him.

My grasp around his neck became a hug.

I had something to tell him and was about to say his name when I remembered. I paused.

‘Number Seven,' I said, ‘you're a good boy.'

And this time, I meant it.

It had been a very long journey. The trolley had squeaked its way along what seemed to be the longest corridors I had ever seen. One lot of swing doors after another. Through a waiting area. Then a long wait for a lift. The last set of swing doors brought us into this windowless place, in which Dorothy had been trolleyed to the far end.

I turned my head to the right. A very old man, his face all wrinkles, awaited his turn on another trolley, unmoving, eyes closed. During the weeks Dorothy had been in hospital, most of the patients on her ward had been so elderly it had made me ask the resentful question, Why should this happen to her at this age? So I looked away from the very old man.

Turning away to the left took my gaze to a wall painted for its entire run of some forty or fifty feet with a mural. I found myself staring at Mickey Mouse.

I blinked at him. Are they mad? Why on earth have they painted the wall outside an operating theatre with scenes from Disney? The people here are waiting for serious surgery. Then I realised it had been painted for the sake of the children. I remembered that the hospital was famous for its work with youngsters as well as the kind of work they were doing for my Dorothy. They would have had lots of children in this room, waiting.

I lifted Dorothy's hand towards the mural. ‘Look,' I said.

She turned her head. ‘Have you only just seen it?' She smiled at me. ‘How could you not see that?'

It was giving us something to talk about.

‘There's Pluto,' Dorothy said.

Mickey Mouse was not her favourite Disney character but we both liked Pluto, who for some reason had been drawn bigger than the other characters, with huge friendly eyes.

‘Oh, yes,' I said. I didn't know much about Pluto and tried to think of something to say about him. I wanted to talk about anything except the operation Dorothy was about to have.

‘He looks like my dog,' said a voice from behind us. I turned. The very old man's head was tilted to one side now and his eyes were open, fixed on the mural. He had come alive.

‘Does he?' I said, to keep the conversation going. This was a welcome interruption.

‘What's his name?' Dorothy asked the man. I knew immediately that her motive was to take his mind off things. There was nobody with him.

There came a very long pause.