Confessions of a reluctant dog owner

ALMOST seven years ago now, I was cruising in a hired boat down the sunny Canal du Midi in the Languedoc region of France at a near-horizontal six kilometres per hour.

With two teenage sons and their 79-year-old grandad all keen to take the helm there was little for my wife Lois and I to do other than eat, sleep and occasionally help navigate a tricky lock.

All seemed to be well.

But, malheureusement not.

For, observing that an uncharacteristic chill had overcome his Dad, perhaps induced by a heady lunchtime glass or two of Minervois, my 13-year-old leapt at his chance with all the opportunism of a Great Escapee. He decided that this was the time to up his game in the long-fought campaign for the family to acquire a dog.

I’m not quite sure why but on the scale where at one end are dog lovers – cynophilists (yes, it’s a new word to me too) – and at the other those for whom dogs are a pet hate, I have always been more sympathetic to the latter.

It might be because I still bear the scars on my right ankle from the early 70s when a neighbourhood Jack Russell thought it his duty to prevent his owner from having their Daily Express delivered. Or it could be the childhood memory of another neighbour’s barky German Shepherd, a teeth-baring beast the size of a small horse.

For whatever reason, I have never been particularly well disposed towards the humble hound. My wife grew up with a family pet dog but, thus far, I had managed to dodge the bullet, having compromised over two rabbits, Fluffy and Velvet, and Turpin, the cat who was part of Lois’s dowry.

As the cruiser slid down the millpond of a canal the young protagonist made his concise opening statement: ‘Dad, can we have a dog?’

This was far from the first time I’d been asked this question but there had been some respite and I was almost caught off guard, but not quite.

‘No.’

Love-fifteen.

He left it for a bit but then regrouped with a renewed dogged determination, taking every opportunity to reintroduce the subject.

‘You see how happy those people look Dad,’ pointing out a family strolling along the tow path. ‘It’s because they have a dog.’

There was more of the same over the ensuing days before I appealed to him to cease and desist on the basis that if the subject was not resurrected for the remainder of the boating holiday I would have another conversation with his mother. This duly took place and concluded with me saying that, if absolutely necessary, I might just be able to tolerate a female chocolate Labrador. Female because I’m not a fan of dogs cocking their legs every two minutes during a walk and a Lab because they tend to be friendly as dogs go.

My guard was down and, having given an inch, a full fait accompli was effected.

On returning home to Guernsey I left again, almost immediately, for an overnight business trip to London. I returned to find wife and son heading for the car ferry, having been up all the previous night researching female chocolate Lab pups and about to make a mercy dash to collect one from the Isle of Wight. This involved two ferries, very little sleep and a police-raid-style dawn arrival at the breeder’s home to beat the opposition.

Some hours later – enter Twix (the other name on the shortlist was Crunchie). Given all the above, it was perhaps odd that I had the honour of naming her, but, having got this far, I think the family would have been happy calling her Genghis Khan.

She was reportedly a pedigree, although we noticed later that one of her ears was smaller than the other and, after she’d grown a bit, it was clear that another dog had taken a bite from it – resulting in her own personal interpretation of the phrase dog-eared.

All these years later, Twix and I get on fine. I’m not going to admit to completely converting to devoted dog owner but I’ve been complicit in arranging my working hours so that she was not left home alone for too long and when spur-of-the-moment decisions are made to be away overnight or for a long weekend it’s usually me that says, ‘yes, but what about the dog?’ I also walk very much more than I used to and have discovered previously unknown country lanes in all parts of the island.

Our dog has retained a puppy playfulness, she thinks everyone is her best friend, wagging her tail so vigorously that it sends a wave down the whole length of her body. She is loyal, loving and forgiving, if a little stupid at times. True to her breed she wolfs down her meals in split seconds and, if allowed, would eat almost anything.

This just goes to show that there is a time to put dogmatism to one side, after all, life would be a little less sweet without Twix.