Four Legs Good - Cassie and Crombie

We’d had cats, hamsters and gerbils when the children were small. What they really wanted was a dog. When the last of the gerbils passed away, the pleas began again.  It wouldn’t be a problem, after all, I was a stay-at-home mum. Well, that’s how it looked because I was home when they were. The five days a week I spent working in the infants’ school had clearly gone over their heads. A dog. A responsibility. Another family member. My husband and I thought about it.

A lot had been going on in our family. The children had been faced with both parents having serious illnesses which had turned their lives inside out and upside down for the best part of a year. I was convinced that we weren’t both going to make it – we did, there we were and here we still are. The experience changed my attitude about some things. Should I become ill again and not survive, didn’t want the children to have a lasting memory of me, a mean mother never letting them have a dog. There were conditions, discussed between ourselves before involving the children. Firstly, no puppies. We would find a rescue dog. The chosen one had to suit everybody because it would be a family pet and looked after by all. Everyone had to feel comfortable taking it out for a walk. We studied the traits and behaviours of likely breeds and decided to approach Spring Spaniel Rescue. Before going ahead, we involved the children.

We sat round the table at tea time. Everyone had a small piece of paper, placed face down. Stay with me on this, I don’t need to explain how (daft) we are sometimes. It’s just family stuff. With much giddiness between the four of us, it was time to reveal our ‘words’, starting with the children. I had the last turn. Child 1 ‘We’, Child 2 ‘Are’, Dad ‘Getting’, Mum ‘A Dog’. Delighted, excited children.

Cassie was the perfect dog for us at that time. She was an old lady of a Springer Spaniel, thought to be ten years old, taken in by Springer Spaniel Rescue after her time as a breeding bitch ceased. They couldn’t tell us much, except she had been in sad, neglectful circumstances. The rescue centre had looked after her, restored her health and ready to be rehomed, she was ours. Love was all she needed and we had an endless supply. She was too old and infirm to chase balls or do much running about, but she loved her daily walks. Four legs nearly good. We know we gave her the best we could in her twilight years. It was heart-breaking for all of us when despite the efforts of our vet and our constant care, Cassie couldn’t recover from what we believe was a stroke and we had to say goodbye.

The level of grief was enormous. No more dogs.

The ‘no more dogs’ didn’t last very long. Our son helped a friend out by having her dog stay with us for a few days. She wanted to rehome him, but unfortunately he wasn’t a dog for us. Having him around showed me what we were missing. A compromise. We couldn’t keep this dog as he was too big and strong for me to handle, but if everyone agreed, we would approach Springer Spaniel Rescue again.

Crombie joined us as if he’d always been part of our family. Four years old and full of beans, he spun me round and round in the kennels car park before leaping into the hatchback, eager to get strapped in and make the journey to his new home. Bursting with energy and always raring to go, this was a springer behaving like a springer. Cassie had paved the way, building our confidence, preparing us for Crombie. He was a perfect dog for us, as Cassie had been, but in a different way. Springers are intelligent dogs, needing lots of exercise and challenges. Crombie, trained to Kennel Club Gold standard was exceptionally good company. Our children and later, grandchildren adored him. He must have covered every blade of grass on the field close to our house every day. He learnt his way round Dumfries and Galloway, instantly recognising where he was when we turned off the main road and followed the lane to the lodges where we like to stay. He wasn’t best friends with the vet in Kirkcudbright, but he knew he needed help and was respectful. We both whimpered with seasickness on the long journey to the Isle of Barra, but soon recovered to run on the beach. Part of the family he really was and we took him everywhere. Four legs good. Old age and infirmity began to compromise him. We knew what was coming. I couldn’t face up to it until we really had no choice.

Three years on and we still miss him, but I really mean it when I say ‘No more dogs’.

I found this,

The Power of the Dog

“There is sorrow enough in the natural way
From men and women to fill our day;
And when we are certain of sorrow in store,
Brothers and sisters, I bid you beware
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.

Buy a pup and your money will buy
Love unflinching that cannot lie –
Perfect passion and worship fed
By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head.
Nevertheless it is hardly fair
To rick your heart to a dog to tear.

When the fourteen years which Nature permits
Are closing in asthma, or tumour, or fits,
And the vet’s unspoken prescription runs
To lethal chambers or loaded guns
Then you will find – it’s your own affair –
But, you’ve given your heart to a dog to tear.

When the body that lived at your single will
With its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still)!
When the spent that answered your every mood
Is gone – whenever it goes – for good,
You will discover how much you care,
And will give your heart to a dog to tear.

We’ve sorrow enough in the natural way
When it comes to burying Christian clay.
Our loves are not given, but only lent
At compound interest of cent per cent.
Though it is not always the case, I believe,
That the longer we’ve kept ‘em, the more we do grieve.

For when debts are payable, right or wrong,
A short-term loan is as bad as a long.
So why in Heaven (before we are there)
Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?”

Rudyard Kipling 1865 – 1936

Thanks for reading, Pam x

Read More

Forelegs Good!

Quite how we ever learned to balance so well on our hind legs without the assistance of a powerful tail we shall never know. That secret (along with the tail) lies lost, several millions years back along the evolutionary trail, in the East African Rift Valley of our distant ancestors.

We've gotten to be pretty useful with our forelegs though, more so than any other species on the planet. We learned how to make tools and clothes, how to dress ourselves, how to tear our hair out, how to draw, paint, write, play musical instruments, pick our noses, drive cars, fire guns and press nuclear buttons.

Of course this week's theme of Four Legs Good (which I've wilfully misinterpreted so as not to repeat what others have already written) derives from a slogan coined by George Orwell - 'Four legs good, two legs bad' - in his political allegory of the Russian Revolution, Animal Farm, a story in which the animals of Manor Farm rebel against their two-legged overlord, Farmer Jones.

Orwell, born Eric Blair in India in 1903, chose his pen name for his love of the Suffolk river Orwell. He could conceivably have gone for Horatio Stour or Rudyard Gipping (for the Stour and the Gipping lie in close proximity), only he didn't - and that's enough about him for now, although he remains one of my favourite English authors of the mid-20th century.

In his famous farm fable, Orwell wrote about how the pigs, leaders of the revolution, gradually became more like the oppressors they had overthrown as power began to corrupt their ideals. The slogan was amended to read 'Four legs good, two legs better' as the pigs took to aping men (ding! - pun intended) by strutting around upright  on their rear trotters - a wicked satire, though fanciful, of course.

It got me researching four-legged creatures that actually do stand on their hind legs at times so as to put their forelegs to good purpose. The list is a long one, when you think about it: bears, meerkats, squirrels among the most obvious. I knew about hares boxing on hind legs but I was intrigued to discover that foxes do the same.


Fox Boxing Day!

They rear up on hind legs and face off in feats of strength, usually resting their forelegs on their opponent's chest or shoulders and pushing as hard as they can. In truth, it's probably closer to wrestling than boxing - and even closer to plain shoving, but fox boxing has a ring to it (ding again!) so I'm going to stick with the more resonant phrase.

Cubs acquire this behaviour as early as ten weeks old; it forms part of their learning play, is used to settle sibling squabbles and to establish a hierarchy. Male foxes occasionally indulge in the practice to settle territorial disputes (though they more commonly resort to ground-level tussles involving much rolling and nipping).

Sometimes a dog fox and vixen act in this way (as photographed above) and the almost dance-like quality of such performances has given us the term foxtrot for the lively ballroom dance consisting of quick and slow steps. However, I was delighted to learn that fox boxing is most common among vixens. Go bitches!


Vixens Mixing It!

The females of the species resort to fox boxing to settle domestic squabbles, competition for male attention and general uppityness. The rules of the game appear to be very simple: you rear, you engage, you snarl (as shown above) and you just keep pushing until one or other fox falls over. A single fall or submission decides the bout; last fox standing wins; and there is rarely any physical injury sustained, merely loss of pride for the loser.

I thought I'd have a go at writing a poem about boxing foxes with foxgloves off, inspired by my research - but it's not made the cut, so will get completed at a later date. In its place, a brace of foxy loxy poems by a couple of poets I admire. I hope they serve as adequate substitutes.

The first is from the wonderful John Clare (1793-1864).

The Vixen
Among the taller wood with ivy hung
The old fox plays and dances round her young.
She snuffs and barks if any passes by
And swings her tail and turns prepared to fly.
The horseman hurries by: she bolts to see
And turns again, from danger never free.
If any stands she runs among the poles
And barks and snaps and drives them in the holes.
The shepherd sees them and the boy goes by
And gets a stick and progs the hole to try:
They get all still and lie in safety sure
And out again when safety is secure
And start and snap at blackbirds bouncing by
To fight and catch the great white butterfly.

                                                               John Clare

The second is from the equally wonderful Ruth Padel (1946 -     ) from a series of twelve monthly poems about her urban neighbours 'The King's Cross Foxes'.

Excavation

Travelling ends. Fur's losing condition.

Each ginger hair-tip will snap. Rubbed patches appear

on the rump as they squeeze into underground tunnels,

flatten themselves under fences in wet sieve of rain,

scuff through concrete holes, four inches square.

Greeting the year with a clear soul, the looks

for a family earth. Her mother, her grandmothers, dug

in cement - under lock-ups, a doorstep, a grave;

this tower of Ford Capris in a breaker's yard.

Try these twigshadow brambles, back door to the Free

Metal disco, a narrow space in Argyle Walk above

a fourth-floor false ceiling; the architects' office.

Flub in through an air-brick and broken pane

to some under-the-kitchen haven in Brill Place.

Go on, sweetheart, look, all dry; and warmed

by the cladding and pipes. Room for the cubs to play...

No way. Fifty days pregnant, three to go, she's eeling

under a flatpack shed on Coopers Lane.

                                                                Ruth Padel

Thanks for reading. Have a happy Bank Holiday weekend, S ;-)

Read More

Four Legs Good - Thanks, George

“Four legs good, two legs bad.”

Later, “Four legs good, two legs better.”

 

An unwelcoming, imposing secondary school full of strangers in a small, unfamiliar town. I was a reluctant new girl wearing the uniform of my old school, being stared at, but not spoken to. I kept silent and avoided eye-contact.  I was in an English class faced with an impossible task from a flustered and unfriendly teacher.

“Write a review of Animal Farm. Remember what we discussed about Russia,” she barked. She had her back to the class as she chalked something on the board. I approached her, close enough to explain that I was new and I hadn’t read the book.

“Do the best you can.” She didn’t even glance my way.

It wasn’t the first time I’d encountered differences in the curriculum between the education departments of Lancashire and Cheshire County Councils. This time it concerned work I’d done in preparation for my ‘O’ levels and which might now be wasted, leaving me faced with a great deal of catching up to do. It was another good reason to leave school, if only I could persuade my father.

I did as I was asked. I wrote an essay explaining that I hadn’t read Animal Farm, nor did I intend to as a book about talking animals taking over a farm was far-fetched and of no interest to me. The essay got me into trouble with my English teacher. She seemed to take my opinions personally and she accused me of not knowing what I was talking about. That was ridiculous. Surely I was entitled to speak my mind about why a book remained unread and was unappealing to me?

I knew everything when I was fifteen and rebelled against anything and everything. I was a stroppy, cocky madam. I was also a square peg in a round hole, uprooted from everything I knew and cared for and put in a place I had absolutely no interest of embracing or making my home. Luckily for me, the move was a bad one for the whole family and we came back after a few months.

I am so embarrassed now by what I did then, especially because I’ve come to love George Orwell’s work. I share his politics. He was a genius author. His novels explain socialism and why it matters. He died too young with probably more to say but he left an important legacy.

 

It can only be this poem,

 

Comrade Napoleon  (from Animal Farm by George Orwell)

 

Friend of fatherless!

Fountain of happiness!

Lord of the swill-bucket!

Oh, how my soul is on

Fire when I gaze at thy

Calm and commanding eye,

Like the sun in the sky,

Comrade Napoleon!

 

Thou art the giver of

All that thy creatures love,

Full belly twice a day, clean straw to roll upon;

Every beast great or small

Sleeps at peace in his stall,

Thou watchest over all

Comrade Napoleon!

 

Had I a sucking pig,

Ere he had grown as big

Even as a pint bottle or as a rolling pin,

He should have learned to be

Faithful and true to thee,

Yes, his first squeal should be

"Comrade Napoleon!"

 

George Orwell (1903 - 1950)

 

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x

Read More