Those of you who’ve been following along for a while will know that for many years we had a lovely black Labrador named Lottie. Sadly she’s no longer with us, but now that our sons have grown up, they’ve both followed in the family tradition by getting Labradors of their own.
Our eldest son’s Labrador, Maggie, came to stay with us recently for a little holiday. She’s still only six months old, so although she’s growing rapidly, she’s very much still a puppy and absolutely full of boundless energy. Maggie is lucky enough to live near a large park, but she’s a city dweller at heart, so coming out to stay with us for a few days opened up a whole host of new horizons and a vast assortment of enticing scents.
You can see from the photos that she had a whale of a time running around in the nearby field. We’re lucky in that a public footpath runs through the field and the path isn’t fenced off, so the owners don’t seem to mind people and dogs having the run of it, as long as everyone cleans up after themselves, which of course we did.
When you’ve had an older dog who’s grown very calm, relaxed and, dare I say it, a little set in her ways, it comes as something of a shock to have a six month old puppy dropped into an unfamiliar house and garden with unfamiliar routines. Maggie is a lovely dog in many ways, but I’d forgotten just how much energy it takes to look after a young dog.
In many ways it was a genuine delight to have a dog around the house again, but in other ways it was a little tricky, especially now that we’re perhaps the ones who’ve become a little set in our ways. We quite missed Maggie when she went home, though. There’s something very lovely about a friendly dog greeting you with wild excitement even when you’ve only been out of the room for ten minutes. She treated us like long lost relatives every single time.
But if we found Maggie’s energy a bit tiring, I’m sure she thought that some of our little ways were utterly bewildering.
It seems my habit of singing to myself as I wander from room to room going about my daily chores was a particular source of concern for her. I’m not entirely sure how long I’ve been doing this, but most of the time there’s no one here to mind, and Mrs C has no doubt long since grown used to my noisy behaviour.
I have an excellent memory for lyrics, but I’ve never been blessed with the ability to sing in tune. For Maggie, my vocal offerings were clearly a cause for alarm. She didn’t seem to know whether I was in distress or simply unhinged, and there was a definite look of dismay on her face whenever she heard me. And being a dog, of course, she could hear me wherever I happened to be in the house.
When Maggie had gone and it was just Mrs C and me again, the house seemed very quiet (apart from the singing), and the peacefulness was lovely in its own way. Still, it doesn’t stop us dreaming about having a dog again one day. We certainly notice whenever we pass a lovely dog out on our walks, and we often ask the owner if we can stop and say hello. It’s a kind of vicarious dog ownership, really. We get to have a stroke and a little fuss, and then we walk away leaving the owner to deal with the muddy paws and the poop bags.
We are definitely dog people, but there’s something to be said for a quieter life with fewer responsibilities. And of course it means I’m free to carry on with my singing.
I suppose most people would consider that a dubious advantage at best, so if Mrs C turns up one day in possession of a new puppy, we’ll perhaps be able to guess the reason why.
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