Dogs

“Splotch is only supposed to have wet food, but I’ve tried what his owners gave me and he wouldn’t touch the stuff. I experimented with a couple of other brands and he wouldn’t eat them either, so I gave him some dry food and she loved it.”

 

If I was writing a novel I wouldn’t begin with my mum talking about dogs. It’s the most boring thing in the universe. Nobody would get beyond the first line, not even my best friends, not even if the book was on the curriculum. People like my mum are the reason that books are never like real life, some people are just too boring ever be written about.

 

“So just give him the dry stuff then,” I said. Mum’s always called dog biscuits ‘dry food’, like a snooty food critic. I think it dates back to when I was a child and she didn’t want me thinking they were biscuits and eating them. Typical of my mum, what she failed to take into account is that dog biscuits taste disgusting, so it wouldn’t matter if she called them ‘yum yum, Mike will love these yummy snacks’, I wouldn’t go near them.

 

“I can’t give him just dry,” mum said, “It makes him constipated. So I had the idea of mixing some dry into the wet food, and he lapped it up.”

 

“Getting ‘em to eat’s the main challenge,” dad said. “If you can get ‘em to eat they won’t die on yer, so you’ll probably get repeat custom.”

 

Not killing the dogs is a bonus at the Evans Dogs Home, although in her sales pitch mum always stresses the personal attention the dogs receive, the special sheltered canine facility and the long walks the dogs get every day in all weathers. I guess she saves the “Plus we’ll do our best not to kill your pets,” for special customers.

 

By the way, guess who does the ‘long walks every day in all weathers’. I’ve give you a clue, it’s not mum or dad.

 

xxx

 

Mum gave up proper work a few years ago when she had a falling out with a work colleague. Or when she threatened to stab a colleague with a pair of scissors. It depends which story you believe.

 

I prefer the threatening colleague with scissors story. After all, it was me that made it up.

 

Looking after dogs began as a way of making money in the short term, while she decided what to do next, but it quickly grew into a business in its own right. These days it’s positively booming, there’s rarely a time we’re without a dog in the house, even in off-season and at the moment I’m walking no less than six paying pets.  ‘There’s no business like dog business’ I sing to the tune of no business like show business, every time I clean the shit out of the kennels.

 

xxx

 

There’s an art to walking a pack of dogs, or maybe a knack. The key is identifying the leaders and followers in the pack and assigning the leads accordingly. You don’t want your dominant, male mastiff stuck behind an insecure poodle.

 

It’s not an easy thing to do, especially when the dogs don’t know each other, don’t know you and don’t know the area they’re walking in. If you give them half a chance they’re stopping at every lamppost to mark their turf.

 

“Didn’t know you had brothers.” I hadn’t noticed Jasmine Womble approach; she must have come out of one of the houses. “Pity they got the looks.”

 

“All right Jaz, didn’t know you lived around here.” I knew for a fact that Jasmine didn’t live around here, these were the posh houses, Jasmine lived in a former council house on the Abandon Ye All Hope Who Enter Here estate.

 

“Na, don’t live here, just leafleting.” She passed me one of the leaflets, which advised me to Vote Labour.

 

“I trust we can count on your support,” she said.

 

“Oh yeah,” I said, “Love that Milliband chap. Definitely going to be going out all weathers to vote for him.”

 

“It’s the party that you vote for, not the leader,” she said. “If you don’t vote the Tories will get in again, then we’re all screwed.”

 

She looked suddenly angry, as if I’d insulted her. I was pretty sure it had been Ed Milliband I’d insulted, not Jasmine, but I thought very carefully before speaking again, not wanting to add to my offense. It proved the wrong tactic, as she stomped away, down the path of the next house, even though it had a Tory poster on the front lawn.

 

“If you’re going to shit on the floor,” she said as she left, “The least you can do is clear up your mess.”

 

I looked down on the floor, where, sure enough, Splotch had left his own sweet comment on my performance. Thanks Splotch.