Grace had been rescued from a premature watery fate. A pupil at the school where my mum worked announced her dog had had puppies, and as her dad was a Neanderthal, he was going to drown them. Desperately, she begged her teachers to save them, which thankfully they did, my mum among the saviours. Thus began my affair with rescued dogs. I have never quite understood the concept of choosing and paying huge sums for a particular breed in much the same way you would choose a car or a handbag. I can understand a preference of breed, but for those lives to be reduced to a commodity has never sat well with me; but then I am a hopeless idealist.
In the wake of Grace's death, a rescue dog was what I needed to sooth my damaged heart; easier said than done when a puppy is the preferred. I began examining flapping bin bags on motorway carriageways in the weird hope that they might contain a needy life, but more often than not they revealed rotting human detritus as you would expect from a bin bag. Gladdened I didn't encounter such animal cruelty, (the stories are abundant) I sent Bob along to Battersea Dogs Home to scout for a puppy, knowing I couldn't go within a six mile radius of the place and not come out without their entire stock. He returned empty handed and I felt the hole in my life grow to the size of the Mersey Tunnel. Eventually we found just the thing in an advert in the newspaper Loot (the Internet was still in its embryonic stage). Her story was a similar tale to Grace's as it transpired the family dog had fallen for a local rogue and been left with a kiss and a promise and six puppies in the oven. Before you could say "typical bloke", we were holding a tiny, black blob of fur who fitted snugly into Bob's palm.
We had to wait four weeks until she was old enough to leave her mum at seven weeks of age. I suppose I should have been wary when, after three weeks I received a phone call asking me to take our puppy early as she was "Disturbing the rest of the litter."
"How?" I asked.
"She cries all night long."
"And does that then make the other puppies cry?"
"Well, no."
"So you mean, she's disturbing you?"
"When you put it like that, yes, I suppose so."
I refused her request, believing a puppy should stay with its mum for as long as possible. The woman begrudgingly agreed but not before I caught her whisper to an unknown person, "I've got a right one 'ere!" We collected Heather one week later and as she chewed on my finger with her needle sharp teeth I couldn't imagine such an adorable creature ever disturbing me.
I had read a few doggy books since my haphazard rearing of Grace and now fancied myself as the Queen Bitch, so from that first night I was determined to teach Heather that her place was at the bottom of the pack and I was Alpha dog. I lined my bedroom floor with newspaper for the inevitable accidents and settled into bed after tucking Heather into her own plush cushions. Ha - how misguided the naive can be! She was up in an instant, pacing around the room while the newspaper crackled under paw. Then she shredded the newspaper, then she shredded my toe she found dangling from the bed. Before long, she became bored by the little sport to be had with the newspaper, and as my toe had been swiftly withdrawn, she began scratching and whimpering at the side of the bed. Within half an hour, I felt my self-appointed, elevated status fall to below that of a flea as I crumbled like a digestive biscuit. She snuggled into the crook of my arm and slept peacefully for the rest of the night with her head on the pillow next to mine where she remained until that fateful day in Percy Street.
She was nine at the time of her demotion to second in command after Chicken and was very gracious about her long drop down from her superior pedestal. By then, it had been impossible to miss that Heather was a special case in canine terms. She was skittish (jumping at the slightest noise), picky ("You don't expect me to eat that do you?"), unpredictable (running off in the park for no reason leaving us to rely on sharp witted strangers to grab her as we panted frantically behind her) and more neurotic than a junkie. She developed a habit of licking her bum incessantly, a habit which vexed me to distraction as her preferred spot for the pastime was our bed or the sofa so as to give her nose a nice soft cushion. Large wet patches were left in the wake of her habit quenching, instantly divulging her pursuits while our backs had been turned; that and the permanent ring of sodden fur around her bum like Californian surfers in a wet gel commercial.
We spent a fortune at the vet and tried every manner of cure from evening primrose oil to steroids, but we were always left scratching our heads at the heap of failed attempts. We even tried a homoeopathic vet who suggested a diet of raw meat that most dogs would bite your hand off to have, but not Heather; she dragged the raw slabs of liver from her bowl and left them lying in the middle of the kitchen floor as though Hannibal Leckter had been round for tea. The licking persisted and was joined by a new friend to add to her long list of neurotic tendencies - a violent trembling brought on by loud bangs. Eventually, the bangs didn't have to be that loud, a clearing of a throat was enough to bring on the shakes.
But all of that barely scratched at my nerves in comparison to her barking. Her bum licking was only interrupted on her detection of an ant walking along a wall ten streets away when she would break into ferocious barks to demonstrate her displeasure at such cheek. Everything set her off in a frenzy of inexhaustible woofing. Have you ever tried getting, not to mention, keeping a baby asleep with a dog that bursts into violent barks every couple of minutes? As much as I loved her, I wanted to kill her! Something had to be done.
We called in a dog psychiatrist. Yes, a doggy shrink! Remember that herbal remedies, raw meat and hard drugs had not eased her symptoms one jot; so, clutching at straws, we explored the possibility that her issues were psychological and not physical. Believe it or not, it really helped. At the very least I learnt to love her again rather than focusing on the nuisance that she had become. Shrink lady helped us to see that Heather's neuroses were more than likely a result of our treatment of her. What? I was shocked; all we'd done was love and adore her; how could her damaged behaviour be our fault? It transpired that, in treating Heather as a human rather than a dog, she had become confused with her role in the family believing she was the Alpha, primarily adopting the role of protector, hence the barking. Shrink lady also believed the incessant bum licking was a manifestation of the pressure she felt at being the Alpha but with no real responsibility. Oh the guilt!
We were given techniques to help ease her burden by enforcing our role as Alphas so she could rest easy, with simple tricks such as making her wait for our command before she could eat. We were supposed to ban her from the furniture too but we found that impossible to impose after so many years and were forced to let that one slide. We were told to ignore the bad behaviour and reward the good, much the same as child psychology, so we ignored the trembling and bum licking and praised the silence. We were amazed at the results, particularly with the barking; that reduced to a manageable level before ceasing altogether. I began to build a little shrine to Shrink lady, complete with incense, until we realised she'd only stopped barking because she'd gone deaf. I didn't hold that against Shrink lady, I was relieved regardless.
The shaking definitely reduced due to our implementation of the ignoring technique making bonfire night a far more pleasant evening. Apparently, my comforting arms had been misinterpreted by Heather (being a dog) as confirmation that her fear was justified. Oh the guilt! Again! But I was amazed to see how quickly she was cured of that particular issue, unlike the bum licking which only abated marginally; I guessed that habit had become so deep rooted, nothing short of a chastity belt could have stopped her! (I did try a nappy once with no success - surprisingly!) I suppose you can't teach an old dog too many new tricks. Perhaps that was why I didn't stick to dogs.
Heather 1994 - 2007
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