A Man's Best Friend

Norbert

Chapter 28

A Man’s Best Friend

We visit the kennels on Saturday afternoon. The Unloved Dog’s Home for Rejects it says over the gates. It’s a good job dogs can’t read. Before being admitted, you have to rinse your hands in disinfectant and place shower caps over your shoes. I ask the lady next to me if this precaution is to stop us infecting the dogs or the dogs infecting us. She turns to her husband: ‘I told you this isn’t the Garden Centre.’

The back to back cages are in rows of ten and most are full. Some contain single dogs, which I assume are the abandoned ones and the strays, others house litters of puppies. Cute as they are, we are looking for a mature dog. Rearing and training a pup will double my workload and defeat the object.

It is very noisy and very smelly. After numerous circuits, we have narrowed the choice to three – an intelligent-looking Border collie, which I fear might be smarter than me, never mind Nunky, a doe-eyed golden Labrador bitch and a mongrel with a limp. This is Nunky’s favourite. He figures it will be a slow walker and not want to go very far. He is surprisingly astute today. ‘I need a loving companion, not a personal trainer,’ he points out.

On the final pass we notice that what we’d earlier taken to be an empty cage does in fact contain a large German shepherd, which must have been asleep in the shadows. The second we pause, it hurls itself at the wire mesh, snarling and slavering like a rabid wolf. I jump back in alarm, but a petrified Nunky stands rooted to the spot in fear.

It’s a terrifying looking beast, wild-eyed and with jagged scars visible through bald patches in its dishevelled fur. The tip of one ear is missing and its nose looks like it’s been rubbed with a cheese grater.

A member of staff rushes to our aid and tasers the wire, the swift jolt of electricity forcing the beast back, but it stands its ground and continues to growl. The sound reminds me of an unmuffled engine responding to regular touches on the throttle.

‘Sorry about that,’ the man says. ‘Reggie doesn’t like being stared at.’

‘How do you manage to get close enough to feed him?’ I ask.

‘We let him pick off the stragglers in school parties,’ he jokes. ‘Reggie has been with us longer than all the others put together.’

‘I’m not surprised. Who in their right mind would take him home? He’s a killer.’

‘What’s his story?’ Nunky asks.

‘Ever heard of the Hardfist estate?’

‘More than half of the clients that pass through our A&E department come from there. Muggings, assaults, drug addicts, wastrels, battered wives, we get them all. Most have got season tickets.’

‘Reggie was leader of the pack of feral dogs that roam the estate. Whilst the rest of the pack mugged takeaways off people and lived off scraps, Reggie preferred the bits cut off in bar brawls and on the upper deck of the 46 bus.’

‘Gruesome.’

‘When he took to patrolling playgrounds and schools, the council decided enough was enough, and laid down poisoned meat in isolated places where Reggie was known to hole up. But like all successful gangland bosses and medieval kings, Reggie had a food taster, and therefore learned never to succumb to the temptation of a free meal.’

‘He is smart, then?’ says Nunky.

‘Cunning is the word I’d use.’

‘So how was he caught?’ I ask.

‘The council got one of those wildlife fellows down from a Safari Park with a tranquilizer gun. It took him four attempts, upping the dosage each time. To be honest, I don’t know why they didn’t just use a bullet. It would have been the kindest thing to do for everyone, including him. One can only imagine the pain and suffering he’s been through. He would have been constantly beaten, starved and neglected from being a puppy to end up like this. No creature is born evil. It’s the cruelty of man that made him this way.’

I wonder if this is the same Reggie they talked about in the pub, the vicious thug, but canine rather than human. I look at him and feel a kinship. My life has been like his, though whilst he turned to extreme violence in order to cope, I gravitated towards medicinal and sexual self-abuse. Reggie looks back at me without any consanguinity whatsoever.

Nunky drops to his knees, grasps the wire with both hands and presses his face to the mesh. ‘Nunky knows,’ he sobs. ‘Nunky understands. Me and mi babby will love you. No one will hurt you again. You’re safe now.’

We both lunge and try to pull Nunky away, but he screams like a banshee and grips even tighter. The dog’s hackles rise, inflating his size. The rumble in his throat rises to a menacing growl, but he doesn’t attack.

The man notices that the hate in Reggie’s eyes is directed at us. He lets go of Nunky and squeezes my wrist, encouraging me to also let go and step back. Nunky is still sobbing and blubbering like someone at a funeral, having just been told they’ve been omitted from the will.

Reggie’s hackles lower and the growls diminish. Through sheer power of will he seems to be commanding us to step back further, because we both simultaneously do so. Reggie then slowly approaches the mesh and stands eye to eye with Nunky. Through his tears, Nunky sees the dog and stretches his fingers through the wire. ‘Mi Weggie, mi Weggie,’ he cries. The dog stretches out his mangled snout and sniffs. He turns his head to the left and sniffs the outstretched fingers and then back to the face. He opens his jaws and the vast pink tongue lolls out once more, dripping saliva. I dread to think what his breath smells like, but Nunky seems oblivious. For a minute, they stare into each other’s eyes, the dog panting softly, Nunky quietly repeating ‘Mi Weggie, mi Weggie’ over and over.

The man looks at his watch. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, ‘but we’re closing now.’

I step forward slowly and touch Nunky on the shoulder. He jumps to his feet. ‘What? What?’ he says in surprise.

‘The kennel is closing. We have to leave now. We’ll come back tomorrow if you haven’t yet made up your mind.’

Nunky takes out his purse, opens it and tips money into his hand. ‘I’ve saved up seventeen shillings and four pennies in old money,’ he says to the man. ‘Is that enough to buy Weggie?’

‘Come on, Nunky,’ I say, gently. ‘We’ll come back tomorrow and buy the one you like with the limp.’

‘No, mi babby, Weggie wants to come home with us now. He told me. He isn’t going to eat you, I promise. He says there isn’t enough of you for even a snack, and anyway you look sickly.’

‘Cheers, Reggie.’

‘It’s Weggie,’ Nunky insists. ‘His name is Weggie. He’s says Reggie is what criminals are called and he doesn’t like it.’

‘I didn’t think he’d be that sensitive.’

‘He’s got feelings, mi babby, just like everyone else, but you have to be special, like me, to see inside his head and understand.’

‘You can have him for nothing,’ the man says, insistently, ‘but the minute I … I mean you … opens his cage, he’s your responsibility. Agreed?’

‘Deal,’ says Nunky.

The man strips a key from his keyring and passes it to Nunky with alacrity. ‘Don’t open it until I’ve locked myself in the office.’ He sprints off.

‘Wait,’ I yell after him. ‘I want some advice.’

‘Cover your gonads and run like hell.’

Nunky opens the cage. I stand motionless, cover my privates, hold my breath and close my eyes.