As luck or the irony of the universe would have it, the day after I posted my last, a friend gave me a clipping* from THE TIMES** that he thought I might be interested in, he being somewhat acquainted with Genghis.*** The headline reads: MY RESCUE DOG IS A SNARLING HELLHOUND.† I’d give you a link, but it’s behind a paywall.†† If you want to try to find it yourself, the author’s name is Georgia Stephens, & the article begins: ‘Let me tell you about the biggest mistake I ever made. Her name is Maggie, she weighs 16kg & she’s a rescue dog from the streets of Bosnia . . . This is a dog that has laid waste to Tunbridge Wells . . . car chaser, dog gnasher, child snarler, 2-time doggy day care reject . . . ’
Yeah. I can relate.††† I was planning to write a ‘um, actually Genghis is a very nice dog in a lot of ways’ post to follow the last. Yes, he is a handful, in fact he’s several handfuls, & it’s unfortunate humans only have two hands per. I haven’t even tried to find a doggy day care that would take him, partly because I burnt out badly on professional dog care people back in Hampshire, & partly because the other local GWHPs are doggy day care rejects, & Genghis mostly makes these others look like Crufts obedience finalists. I will have both hands wrapped through his harness while he stands on his hind legs paddling the air with his giant whirling paws, while I’m trying to have a conversation with one of the other owners, & their dog(s) are just standing there on a loose lead looking mild-mannered & butter-wouldn’t-melt-ish.‡ ARRRGH.
HOWEVER. He does not chase cars. Mostly. Occasionally one is wearing a Running Deer Costume, unrecognisable to the mere human on the other end of the lead, & then . . . shoulders like a stevedore, I have mentioned this before.‡‡ & he doesn’t gnash other dogs, he wants to play with them, it’s just his idea of playing is to LEAP on them with all the force of his slightly-more-than-16kg‡‡‡ frame, which other dogs, not to mention other dogs’ owners, may not appreciate. He would adore children if I let him—in both cases, other dogs & kiddies, you can see his heart’s in the right place by the angle of his ears & the frenziedly, one might almost say ferociously, wagging tail—but, ahem, if a kid wants to pet him I usually not merely wrap a hand through his harness, but lean on it so he can’t express his immoderate enthusiasm by jumping up.
The bottom line about Genghis for me, however, is that he is always in a good mood. ALWAYS. Happy & cheerful & hoping for the best.ɸ & ridiculously glad to see me.ɸɸ I’ve told you about my first glimpse of him, when his previous owner brought him round for us to meet, that bright-eyed whiskery face, emerging above that last top step into my garden from the street gate, looking around eagerly & interestedly. Expecting the best. Where did he GET this?? He was a street dog! A rescued stray from—Serbia, I think. Somewhere that involved a long & inevitably alarming journey to Scotland.ɸɸɸ But if there is one character trait a cranky old introvert, solitary, works-from-home woman should have in her companion animal, it’s A POSITIVE ATTITUDE. Which the cranky old woman herself lacks. If there are small lacks & large lacks about things like cheerfulness & a positive attitude, mine is a large lack.
& hey, I don’t like seagulls anyway.
Oh, & the rest of the headline quoted above is . . . ‘& I won’t give her up for the world.’ The last line of the article is: ‘And she is, & for ever will be, mine.’
Yeah. I relate to that too. I’m a soppy cranky old woman.
* * *
* Yes! A clipping! A real, live, hard copy, instantly-inky-fingered newspaper CLIPPING!
**Yes. I have at least one friend who reads THE TIMES—any of you^ who have the faintest of faint awareness of the political leanings of UK newspapers will immediately realise that a hardened, not to say deranged^^ GUARDIAN reader such as myself^^^ will walk delicately in the company of a TIMES reader.
^ approximately .000765% of you, in my best scientifically-arrived-at+ estimate
+ I have a really excellent trance state, which I can turn on with a flick of the ME, & from which, whilst floating therein, I can pluck all kinds of fascinating factoids & nonfactoids & general sedfjhucolk, straight out of the universal aether#
# which are sometimes ironic, sometimes excruciatingly earnest. Now, is that due to the mood of the universe at that moment, or the bit of it I’m floating in? Discuss.=
= Um. On second thought, don’t discuss
^^ yes, okay, you predicted this footnote, right? It goes ‘all right, do say deranged’
^^^ & just so you’re clear about what you’re dealing with here, the GUARDIAN, which is the refuge of wet knee-jerk liberals, I being proud to count myself a member of this cohort & in serious need of such refuge, is way too moderate & middle of the road for me. & they absolutely suck on alternative health. They’re just better than any other national newspaper. & for you .000765%, yes, I pay for my on line subscription, because I do try to put my money where my mouth is at least occasionally. I also pay for the weekly hard copy round up, although this may chiefly be so I have something to throw against the wall when they or their op ed writers are pushing my buttons. & paper, thrown against the wall in a rage, still makes perfectly good fire-starter for the woodstove(s). The bigger problem in this house is finding a bare bit of wall I can safely throw something against which is, furthermore, over a bare bit of floor it can safely fall on.+ Ahem.
+ & to think I’ve only lived here 5 years. The acquisitional future is terrifying.#
# I know that ‘if it’s books it’s not hoarding’, I wear that t shirt= too. Books, however VALID an accumulative item, still take up space.
= or rather, hoodie. In NE Scotland you get a lot more wear out of hoodies than t shirts.
*** My beloved, & still much missed, hellhounds^ had beautiful manners. Well, mostly. Readers of the old blog are allowed to guffaw loudly here.
^ I can’t believe I’ll never see them again, you know?+
+ Chaos would be delighted to play with Genghis. Darkness would do his elder-statesman routine, which he started developing at a young age, probably because he felt Chaos & I were too frivolous.# Maybe some of their good manners would rub off on Genghis. Maybe Genghis could teach them to like food.
# It’s worse, somehow, missing the hellhounds. I only had Pav not-quite-8 years, & the whole awful business of her having bull-terrier-genetic kidney trouble, & dying of it during lockdown, is so traumatic, that to some extent I’ve blocked her. & the original whippets I shared with Peter, so losing them is also mixed up with losing him, even though he knew & loved the hellhounds too, but he was already starting to get frail by the time I brought them home=. The hellhounds were MINE, body & soul. It’s going to be very, very, very, very bad when I lose Genghis, who is also MINE, body & soul==, but he is HEALTHY=== so I’m hoping for a lot more years. A lot. A Methuselah among dogs. Despite his many drawbacks, which is theoretically where this post started . . . but then maybe by the time he’s, oh, 18, he’ll have mellowed.====
The basic problem is that the older you get, the more people you love, however many legs & however much fur they have, die. Ugh. This is a rotten way to run a universe. Just saying.
= as tiny insane puppies
== & large snoring lump taking up most of this theoretically three person bench which is my desk chair any more. The measurers of garden benches are not allowing for large spread-out dogs. Anyone else who owns even a small dog knows how they suddenly get larger as soon as they get on a bench/sofa with you & lie down.
=== AS FAR AS I KNOW. EEEEEEEP.
==== HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
† Especially the Genghis who, visiting any other house, requires a constant background descant, shrilling above what should be the relaxed & engaged human conversation, singing GENGHIS. STOP CRUISING FOR STUFF TO GET INTO^ & LIE THE SCREAMING DOODAH DOWN.
^ the legitimate resident dog’s secret stashes of tennis balls, all over the house, for example, which no mere human can find, or the bowl of apples on a shelf that is THEORETICALLY tall enough to be out of reach, but dogs get taller when they’re away from home like they get larger when they’re lying on the sofa, or the grandchildren’s toys which are clearly toys, & Genghis isn’t particular about provenance, in plain sight under the coffee table.
†† Of course it is. Someone tell me if there’s a respectable economic reason for the absolute paywall almost every newspaper^ & magazine is now behind on line, or if they’re doing it because they can. Back in the bad old days of hard copy only, if you wanted to read your news new, yes, you had to buy something. But yesterday’s news was free, possibly because there was no technology to make yesterday’s newspaper disappear in a puff of smoke at midnight.
^ except the GUARDIAN
††† I wonder what the seagull situation is in Tunbridge Wells? It should be far enough inland, but I’m sure the SEAGULL TIMES is spreading the word that they’re legally protected from nasty human interference & only dangerous criminals & people who own GWHPs are any kind of threat^, good-quality garbage is fully available inland, & fish is overrated.
^ & possibly a few careful & responsible car drivers who are just minding their own business but, you know, baby seagulls are DUMB AS BRICKS.
‡ I feed him too well.
‡‡ Two-stroke motorcycles, however, are THE ENEMY.^ If I hear one coming soon enough, I will loop the lead a few times around a lamppost. If I don’t, well, shoulders like a stevedore.
^ I don’t remember Sauron driving a two stroke???
‡‡‡ He’s about 40 lbs. A little heavier than Chaos & a little lighter than Darkness. 40 lbs of rocket-fuelled steel springs however.
ɸ Especially if he has some expectation that it might include food.
ɸɸ Very very glad to see me.^ Of course I am the Provider of FOOOOOOOD & WAAAAAALKS but it’s one of those things that domestic pets really have down, persuading you that it’s not only food & walks or fancy toys or whatever your species prefers that make them love you.
^ YO STOP THAT. The huge brown eyes & the wag-blurred tail work pretty well on me generally, but the whiskery muzzle with the cold wet nose attached thrusting under my wrist with a violent upward jerk IT’S TIME YOU PETTED ME AGAIN is not popular when I’m working. & before you tell me it’s my own fault because of the bench we share, he’s plenty tall enough to do this standing flat-footed on the floor.
ɸɸɸ & it’s not that he doesn’t have his quirks. I think I’ve told you he is dementedly afraid of fireworks—he turns into some other dog when he hears fireworks—& I can’t use a fly swatter around him, he gets down on his belly & scuttles away, frightened & miserable. He’s clearly been beaten—his previous owner thought so too—& the trip to Scotland? & how many temporary homes did he blast through before he came to me?—why does he still view humans with such joyful ardour??