Gone to the dogs

Gone to the dogs she must be, hacking her graveyard cough behind the closed front door where her stumbling greyed and matted old dogs whimper and scratch to get in . They know no better. What was she doing in there ? The dogs wandered the streets of Sneinton, explaining some of the stinking piles hurrying the children to school and the continual skids of unobservant locals treading blinding filth in to carpets. Outside the carpet shop was a bowl of dried dog food, revealing an expectant perhaps reluctant benefactor, and following the mother's pointed finger, I found two bowls of water outside the rattle of an old woman who cares less for herself than for her neglected charges. Myself and a passing dog walker agreed to report our discovery, realising that the matted fur and community kindness revealed a hopeless lack of resources to care or to help and that the plight of those sweet greying mutts would likely be worse than that of their owner. I imagined taking them home, facing incontinence, staggering limbs, dribble and the onerous task of washing those who can no longer mount the stairs. I wondered less about the bitch.