For the Love of Daisy
My Dalmatian in a Hundred and One.
By Cas Peace.
Published by Can Write Will Write
Cambridge Lodge
Wanstead England.
Smashwords Edition.
http://www.canwritewillwrite.com
Copyright © Cas Peace 2010
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to another person. If you would like to share this book with someone else, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Cas Peace asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available in the British Library.
Typeface Georgia
12 Points
Forthcoming works by the same author.
‘Artesans of Albia’ A towering, triple-trilogy fantasy epic.
Proposed titles:
Artesans of Albia.
Book One: King’s Envoy.
Book Two: King’s Champion.
Book Three: King’s Artesan.
Circle of Conspiracy.
Book One: The Challenge.
Book Two: The Circle.
Book Three: Full Circle.
Master of Malice.
Book One: Scarecrow Roost.
Book Two: Scarecrow Vengeance.
Book Three: The Gateway and the Guide.
Please see
www.caspeace.com
Contents.
Appreciation and Dedication.
Foreword.
1. Ducks and Dragons.
2. Butchers and Breeders.
3. Dog Tails.
4. A ‘Messy’ Affair!
5. Charity Jumpers.
6. Firsts and Fears.
7. Name Games.
8. Hospitals and Housework.
9. Bitch in a Ditch!
10. Lifeline.
11. Diagnosis.
12. Dark Days.
13. Light in our Darkness.
14. Love is a Full Slipper.
15. A Vet on Our Side.
16. Harnessing Invention.
17. Overdose of Love.
18. Second Opinion.
19. Fusion Confusion.
20. Hot Dog!
21. The Gentle TTouch.
22. A Dragon Break.
23. Boots and Balls.
24. A Waterways Walk.
25. Triumph and Tinsel.
Author’s Note.
Contacts.
Author’s Request and Disclaimer.
Appreciation.
I would like to thank Barry Tighe for his editing help and Can Write Will Write for publishing this book. I must also thank George Netley for the stunning cover.
And my ever grateful thanks to Tracey Manning for the foreword.
Dedication.
This book is dedicated to my wonderful husband Dave and to my sweet little Pepper. I could not have done this without you. Also to my parents, Barbara and Dennis, for their love and support.
And to anyone facing a similar situation I would like to say this: Stay strong and believe in the strength of your love. There is help out there if you look for it.
Foreword.
This book describes an unfailing level of selfless dedication to a dearly beloved pet which I doubt in my career I will see equalled. For this dedication to be sustained there had to be a dog with an extraordinary temperament and owners with a phenomenal resolve to support that dog providing it was right for her.
It was a huge responsibility to be asked to pass judgement on the suitability of Daisy for ongoing treatment and she certainly forced me to ask myself a lot of questions.
For every case, whether it be medical, surgical or behavioural, there are so very many factors to be considered in formulating a therapeutic plan. Uniquely to the veterinary profession, in many cases an enormous consideration must be made as to whether any therapeutic plan ought to proceed at all. The condition the pet is suffering from and the pet’s nature and behaviour in different environments and circumstances have to determine the appropriate course of action, in combination with the sentiments and abilities of the owners to maximise the benefits of any recommended therapy.
Advances in the veterinary profession continue with great strides, as does the inclusion of complementary therapies such as hydrotherapy, physiotherapy and acupuncture which is inspiring to follow. Of course, ever-increasing costs accompany this progression, and this opens up a big issue. I am convinced that pets are good for us yet they are increasingly perceived as too expensive to own and play second fiddle to twenty-first century ‘must-have’ commodities and ‘must-do’ activities. The only way forward is through education - particularly of our next generation - about the wholesome, simple pleasures of pet ownership, as well as its benefits in teaching young people about respect, responsibility and commitment.
Those of us who were closely involved with Daisy, whether on a personal level or in a professional capacity, were in awe of her spirit throughout her illness and equally in admiration of her owners’ commitment to her. I believe anyone who loves their pet will identify with so much in this account. To care for and know an animal and its ways can only enrich one’s life. For those who have not experienced the wonderfully consistent relationship one can have with a pet, I would urge them to read about Daisy.
Tracey Manning. BVSc (Hons) MRCVS
Hook Veterinary Centre.
For the Love of Daisy
My Dalmatian in a Hundred and One.
1. Ducks and Dragons.
It all started on the twenty-ninth of May 2004, although at that point it had nothing to do with Daisy. We didn’t know it then but her story had actually begun in April, with an innocuous visit to the vet to investigate a slight and intermittent limp. This limp had been manifesting itself over quite a few years but it only ever lasted a very short time. I had always put it down to a strain, or something sharp pricking Daisy’s foot, but lately I had found a hard lump on the side of her right front paw. Considering she was nearly ten years old, I thought she probably had arthritis. Following an initial consultation, Sarah, our vet at the time, thought this was quite likely so we made an appointment for an x-ray to confirm the diagnosis. We thought no more of the consequences other than probable pain relief for the rest of Daisy’s life. None of us had any inkling at that time what the future held.
So, on this particular weekend in May my husband Dave and I, along with Daisy, a Dalmatian, and Pepper, a blue roan Cocker Spaniel, were having a quiet break on board our narrowboat, ‘Dragon’. She was a fairly new vessel, just a year old, although she was not our first. We were very pleased with her; a well-known boat builder had built the steel shell to our specifications and this had been professionally fitted-out, also to our design. Fed-up with years spent doubled-over in cramped, cold and hard-to-reach spaces carrying out engine maintenance in both sailing craft and narrowboats, Dave and I had decided that ‘Dragon’ would have a proper engine-room, where brass could be polished and paintwork kept clean, and where essential winter oil-changes could be carried out in the warmth and comfort our rapidly maturing bones craved. The previous year – long before ‘Dragon’ was anything more than a concept – we had acquired a wonderful vintage engine, a Russell Newbery. Once installed, it thumped happily along in pride of place in the engine-room, the heartbeat of our boat.
‘Dragon’ was beautiful; the culmination of holidays on board other boats, both sailing and canal craft, and four years with our previous narrowboat, ‘Madrigal’. We had decided that at forty-five feet long, ‘Madrigal’ was just a little too small for comfort so we conceived the sixty-foot ‘Dragon’. Perfect for those longer holidays which would be possible once my self-employed husband cut down his working hours.
Oh well, anyone can dream.
On this particular occasion we arrived at the marina where ‘Dragon’ had her mooring on the Friday night. Those who needed to know knew where we would be and apart from checking for messages in the evenings, we intended to be largely undisturbed. We tried to keep the boat a phone-free zone as much as possible, although the nature of Dave’s international consulting business made a certain amount of accessibility unavoidable. However, ‘Dragon’ was our bolt-hole, our escape from the pressures of business life, and there really is nothing like the slow pace of a canal boat and the characteristic measured beat of a Russell Newbery to ease away modern-day stress.
Narrowboats go at walking pace, perfect for watching wildlife and strolling with the dogs; and our two treated the boat as a second home as well as a convenient platform for duck-hunting. They viewed our different mooring sites each night as an extension of their own back garden and we were all looking forward to a peaceful weekend.
Saturday started out well enough; the weather was warm but not too hot, perfect for the jobs that needed doing. Although ‘Dragon’ had been professionally fitted-out – neither of us possessed the skills, or indeed the time, necessary to do the work ourselves – we nevertheless wanted to make our mark. Dave had already tried his hand at traditional narrowboat painting with some success; ‘Madrigal’ had sported decorative panels on cratch and hatches which he had designed and painted himself, and she’d carried Buckby cans on her roof which also showed off his talent.
He had received many admiring comments on these from passers-by as we cruised the canals, and ‘Madrigal’s new owners had kept the panels for they complemented her overall look. So it was natural to want to decorate ‘Dragon’ in the same way, and as I had designed and made a stained-glass roundel depicting a dragon head which gazed proudly out from her prow, Dave was keen to add his touch to her panelled side-hatches and doors.
The marina was a good place for painting. There was a firm pontoon running down one side of the boat, sturdy mooring ropes to keep her steady, and relatively still water so as not to rock the boat. When passing moored boats canal etiquette states that you slow down to tick-over speed so as not to make wash, which could be very dangerous to those in the moored craft, especially if they happened to be cooking. A speeding boat can also rip out mooring stakes, setting craft adrift, apart from being downright inconsiderate to those hoping for a peaceful afternoon. As in all walks of life though there are those who flout the rules and to whom courtesy is an alien concept. The marina was a convenient spot for us to stay and paint in peace.
We were in the newer part of the marina, which had been extended over the previous winter, and it was quiet. The dogs could amuse themselves, either lazing about on the boat or laying on the sun-warmed pontoon watching the hopeful ducks that plied the marina. This was Pepper’s favourite pastime and she could lay statue-still for hours at a time, just watching the ducks float by; but woe betide the bird that was confident enough to haul itself out of the water for a siesta! Then my soft and doe-eyed Spaniel would transmute instantly into a rabid killing-machine and would charge the offending duck, sending it squawking for its fellows in a flurry of wings and webbed feet. Fortunately, she never caught one.
However, you could say that a duck once caught Pepper, much to her indignant disgust. Back in 1997, when ‘Madrigal’ was new, we were asked to show her at a popular boat show which used to be held on the canal every May. We moved ‘Madrigal’ to a different mooring to allow the public access, and this site was too close to the towpath for the dogs to be left free to roam. So Daisy was confined to the stern of the boat and Pepper was on a long lead in the bows. It was a hot afternoon, all the crowds had gone, and the show was winding down. Pepper was lying on the pontoon next to the cockpit, which her lead allowed her to reach, watching the returning ducks. One of them, not noticing Pepper, decided to haul out on the neighbouring pontoon to preen and this, of course, was too much for my Spaniel, three years old as she was at the time. With a mighty leap, she went flying for the impertinent duck, which shot back into the water. Unfortunately for Pepper, her lead wasn’t quite long enough to reach the other pontoon, and she was snapped out of the air at the height of her leap and dumped ignominiously into the water, where she flailed and spluttered until rescued.
She stood dripping and shivering while raucous quacking laughter resounded round the marina. She never made that mistake again.
Having finished our painting for the day, we retired to ‘Dragon’s’ cockpit and sipped a well-earned glass of wine while we made up our minds whether to walk the ten minutes to the pub by the lock, or make our own supper on board. Dave reluctantly turned on the phone, not expecting to hear the message-tone. When he did, and accessed his voice-mail, I could tell immediately that something was wrong. I could vaguely hear the voice, but not enough to identify the speaker or understand the content of the message. I waited until it was finished, and then he told me the news. It seemed that his father, who was eighty years old, had suffered a collapse that morning and had been rushed into hospital. His mother had frantically been trying to reach us, as she was understandably distressed, and had left more than one message on his phone, as well as ringing my mother. That meant there were also messages on my phone, which I checked while Dave rang his Mum.
We learned that his Dad was comfortable in the local hospital and that he had suspected pneumonia. My mother-in-law, who was not in the best of health herself and who also suffered with depression, had calmed down by this time and our anticipated rush home that evening was put off. We told her we’d be home the following day, but although our minds had been put at rest as to their immediate welfare, we could think of little else that night.
We made our solemn way home the next day, worried for both of Dave’s parents as his Mum wouldn’t cope well on her own. It proved to be an apocryphal day, that sunny Saturday in May. Our peaceful weekend was well and truly over, as was an era in our lives.
2. Butchers and Breeders.
Let me tell you about our family and introduce you properly to Pepper and Daisy before the story gets too involved.
Daisy first entered our lives in September 1994 when we chose her out of a rubbery tumble of spotty puppies at her breeder’s kennels. It was my decision to get a Dalmatian, a fact my husband has never let me forget. He grew up with his parents’ dogs; first a Boxer called Toby, then a rescue mongrel, little silver Cindy; she was followed by a Labrador, Snoopy, and in latter years they had Cairns; Robin, whom they had from a pup, then two rescue Cairns, Pickles and Bobby.
My parents never had dogs as my Dad generally regarded pets as a tie and a responsibility he didn’t need, but we did once have a puppy, albeit briefly. Our next-door neighbours at the time had a rather snappy and not very friendly Dachshund called Mitzi. She must have got out one day and inevitably fell into the clutches of the local stud. Astonishingly, one of the resulting puppies found its way into our house. I am not quite sure how we talked Dad into accepting Buster, as we named him, but the pup obviously lived up to his expectations because he was not with us for long.
My few memories of Buster consist of me sitting in the middle of the dining-room floor helpless with laughter as he chased his own tail, pushing him round in a doll’s pram (which he didn’t mind in the least!) and being met at the garden gate when I came home from school. However, with two young children to look after, an over-exuberant puppy was not what my parents needed right then and Buster was eventually found a good home with people who had the time to cope with him. I am sure I was upset to lose him but I was a little too young to appreciate the work a puppy needs. I do now!
I have always loved animals of all kinds, but especially dogs and horses. In the days of my young childhood, the 1960’s, dogs could still be seen roaming the streets and those I met in our road were thankfully all good-natured. There was Butch, the grocer’s portly Beagle who often visited our house; there were two mongrels whose owners and names I never knew but who became ‘Friend’ and ‘Pal’ to me; but best of all there was Sooty – or ‘Zoot’ as his owner often called him.
Sooty was never allowed to roam; he belonged to my Auntie Margery. Not a real aunt but my Mum’s friend who lived in the next street. I loved nothing more than visiting Auntie Margery for not only was there Sooty to play with and take for occasional walks, but there was also Diana Dors, the tortoise that Sooty used to love flipping over onto its back.
Sooty was a thick-coated black mongrel, probably Labrador/Spaniel, with a white mark on his chest. He was a loving and nice-natured dog but he wouldn’t take any rough treatment. I was never one for teasing dogs but I do remember one occasion when I must have done something Sooty didn’t like. One stare and a low growl was all it took, and we never fell out again.
He did once try to kill me, though.
Maybe that’s a little harsh; it wasn’t really his fault. Sooty was a level-headed dog with few hang-ups, but there were two things he couldn’t stand. The first, rather surprisingly, was the smell of the butcher’s shop. Sooty would haul you bodily across the road rather than pass the door of the butcher’s shop, something I always found hard to understand. Surely, you would think, dogs would like the smell of all that meat? Not Sooty; he couldn’t abide it.
The other thing that terrified Sooty was the dustmen. He just couldn’t stand the noise. On one particular day Mum and I were out for a walk and we had taken Sooty with us. We were probably on our way either to or from the moat around Fort Brockhurst, a wooded area where we could let Sooty off his lead. He loved the game of seeking Mum as she hid from him behind various trees. He would never look for me, though, much to my disgust.
However, there we were; it was a cold day and I was proudly wearing a new coat which Mum had made for me. A warm green cuddly coat, with large and shiny buttons. I was even prouder because I had been allowed to hold Sooty’s lead.
You can see where this is headed, can’t you?
So could Mum who watched in horror as we came upon the dustmen. Sooty took off in fright, galloping down the pavement and towing me behind him sliding on those shiny green buttons like a sled on snow. I couldn’t let go of his lead because he had been entrusted to me, so I just slithered along behind him, right towards the road.
I have no recollection of how or why he stopped, but stop he did. I wasn’t frightened or hurt, but those lovely shiny buttons were shiny no more, thanks to Sooty and his dustman phobia!
Far from being disillusioned by this experience, I grew up wanting a dog. As I got to know more dogs and learned more about them, I became particularly enamoured of the hound type. Due to my early experiences with the snappy Mitzi, and also a rather ill-tempered Peke called Tikki in the neighbour’s garden on the other side, I was put off the smaller dogs and definitely didn’t like anything that snapped, had unnatural legs or body-shape, or had a flattened face. That poor Peke could hardly breathe, and its bulbous eyes were constantly running with mucous.
I began to favour hounds because all their bits worked; they had legs of the right length, they could breathe properly, and they had normal eyes which always seemed kind and warm. I am sure that Bulldogs, Pugs, Pekes, Dachshunds and the like have their redeeming features and that lovers of these breeds could defend them to the hilt, but I can never see past the damage that pedigree breeding has done them and I didn’t want to endorse such ill-considered tampering.
In my early adult life I was fortunate enough to own two lurchers, both rescue dogs whom I loved dearly. However, neither of them were puppies when I got them and they had both learned bad habits which were hard to break. So I really wanted the experience of training a puppy from scratch. I decided on a Dalmatian mainly because of their hound heritage, but also because I had read somewhere that their physique had not been much tampered with by man. This, I reasoned, ought to mean less in the way of inherited defects such as hip dysplasia, eye problems and the like. I knew about the deafness inherent in the breed and intended to take steps to test our chosen puppy, but in the sphere of pedigree dogs I hoped the Dalmatian would prove to be sound.
The other reason for settling on a Dally – and no, it was nothing to do with the film, there was only the original animated version when I bought Daisy – was the influence of an old children’s programme which I had always loved. Anyone of a certain age will remember ‘The Woodentops’ and Spotty-Dog was my favourite character. I once knew a girl who could imitate Spotty-Dog to perfection, both his ‘voice’ and his walk, and she was hysterical. That puppet show had imprinted on my mind the image of a friendly, intelligent dog and in that, I wasn’t proved wrong. Whatever other faults Daisy may have had, her temperament and intelligence never let me down.
So when Dave and I returned from three wonderful years living and working in Italy, we decided that I didn’t need to go back to a full-time job and we began our search for puppies. Dave wanted a Cocker Spaniel and preferably a blue roan, a colour I had never seen before. We knew even then about the temperament problems in the golden variety but had heard nothing bad about blue roans. We found a breeder in Kent who had puppies for sale, and after being given the once-over by her brood bitch and having been accepted, which I thought a very good way of vetting potential owners, we were allowed to see the puppies.
There were two bitch pups to choose from and both were adorable, but the markings on one appealed to us more than the other, so this was the one we chose. She was six weeks old. On the way home we chose her name – Pepper – because under her chin she had a sprinkling of tiny black spots that looked as if she had been dusted with pepper. Once her adult coat grew in they disappeared, but they could still be seen when she was trimmed really short for the summer.
We collected her three weeks later and immediately she began to live up to the nickname we later gave her: ‘the perfect Spaniel’. We took towels, water, tissues, polythene bags and a warm box with us, everything I thought we might need to cope with a frightened and possibly car-sick pup.
Pepper was lying peacefully in a puppy-pen when we arrived and the breeder opened the door. Pepper came straight into my arms as if she knew she belonged there. She lay down in the box by my feet in the car and proceeded to sleep quietly for the entire two-hour journey home. I was so astonished by her calmness that I had to keep checking her; I was convinced she was dead! When we got back, she strolled calmly around the house and quickly made herself at home. She virtually house-trained herself over the next few weeks and was never a moment’s trouble.
Oh, how different it would be when it was Daisy’s turn!
We had to wait to find a breeder of Dalmatians who had a litter planned that wasn’t already spoken-for. Coincidentally, when we did find one and booked the right to choose a pup, it would mean another trip into Kent. It was worth the wait; Dallies come in such a wide variety of spotting that we really wanted the chance to choose one for ourselves. We both favoured the black over the liver and we wanted a nice distribution of good-sized spots, with the overall look neither too dark nor too white.
We had also noticed that some dogs had narrower muzzles than others; thin and tapering noses that didn’t look quite right to me. I wanted one with a well-shaped head and ‘houndy’ muzzle and in that, we certainly chose well. Daisy matured into a particularly handsome bitch and received some very complimentary comments over the years; mainly from people who didn’t know her well!
When we went to select our pup we were faced with quite a challenge. There were about sixteen puppies in all, six weeks old, tumbling around our feet and generally making life difficult. However, nearly half of them were dogs and we wanted a bitch, so that whittled the numbers down right from the start.
We stood among the bundles watching what they did and slowly eliminated those whose spots were not quite right. In the end we were left with three; all sturdy, curious puppies with lively eyes and playful ways. It was almost impossible to choose between them but the task was taken out of our hands when one of the puppies, none of which had taken that much notice of us up until then, suddenly waddled up to me and began to chew my shoelaces. That did it, although perhaps I should have known better. I scooped the puppy up and from the moment she looked into my eyes, I was lost. The breeder applied a red marker pen to her tail and she was replaced with her litter-mates. We tore ourselves away and made the long trip home.
The choice of name was not as easy as with Pepper. I had made a list of various names I liked the sound of once we had decided on a Dally, but didn’t want to settle on one until we had chosen the pup. As with Pepper, we took photographs at the breeder’s so we could remember exactly what she looked like, and we had to wait to develop these before deciding on a name. How much simpler things are now with the advent of digital cameras.
I had a great aunt who had died some years previously whose name was Daisy. I had always liked the sound of this, and also liked the idea of choosing names for our dogs which meant something. Dave had always favoured the name ‘Sam’ and had intended to attach this to our Cocker, but as we’d decided to have bitches it didn’t seem quite so appropriate.
Pepper’s name was chosen for the reasons already given but I tended to shy away from the obvious for a Dally. I was sure there were already too many ‘Dominoes’ or ‘Dotties’ or permutations of the same; I wanted our dog to have something different. So when I suggested Daisy and gave the reasons why, we found that the name quite suited our pup’s face, and so Daisy she became.
We brought her home two weeks later. At six weeks old she’d been a roly-poly spotted-dick of a pup and could almost fit into one hand. Two weeks on and what a transformation! Daisy was now a small version of an adult dog, quite different to what I had expected. I couldn’t get over how fast she had grown and as we filled in the papers she investigated at our feet, taking no notice of us as her new owners. At least everything worked though, especially her hearing, and I scooped her up in my arms to carry her out to the car.
At this point, Daisy began to show us her character and started as she meant to continue. She always had a fascination for ears, both canine and human, and she loved to both lick them and nibble very gently. She investigated my left ear thoroughly while I carried her to the car but unfortunately – and before I realised what she was doing – she also decided to eat my earring. It was a small gold stud in the shape of a flower with a topaz in the centre. I had had these earrings for quite some years and I still have the one she didn’t eat. We never found the other and yes, I did look for it!
In the car, I had taken the same precautions as for Pepper; a lovely warm and comfy box for Daisy to sleep in, towels, tissues, water and poly-bags. The pup was settled into the box at my feet and we began the two-hour drive home. However, Daisy had decided she was going be nothing like Pepper. She refused to stay in the box and as she was already much the same size as the two-months-older Pepper, it was impossible to get her to stay. Worried in case she clambered out and interfered with the controls of the car – we had to travel the M25 and the last thing we needed was a loose spotty cannon – I decided to carry her on my lap.
That met with more approval than the box as she wanted to see where she was going, but it still didn’t satisfy Daisy. She wriggled and struggled and wouldn’t stay still, but the whining and the squeaking were the worst problems. Anyone who has travelled with quarrelsome children in the back of a car will know how exasperating and distracting such constant noises can be, and Daisy had obviously taken lessons from a master. No matter what we did, she just wouldn’t shut up; nothing would divert her from speaking her mind. I suppose we were lucky that Pepper didn’t join in, but as usual she was being ‘the perfect Spaniel’ and was laying quietly in the rear of the car, no doubt wondering what on earth we wanted this noisy spotted thing for. At that point, so were we.
We made it safely home, thankful our nerves hadn’t been more severely frayed, and we could now introduce Daisy to her new home and playmate. Poor Pepper! She, I have always thought, would have been quite happy being an only dog; she is a very self-contained and laid-back character, quite unlike the un-ignorable Daisy. Although she appeared interested in Daisy and they had a sniff and a play, it soon became apparent that this spotted holy terror was not going to be a peaceful addition to our household. She was also determined to be ‘top-dog’ right from the start and although Pepper couldn’t have cared less about the hierarchy of their relationship, she still suffered the consequences.
Daisy had been brought up in a litter of many puppies. Pepper had been largely hand-reared as the bitch had had too many to cope with, and she had become used to sleeping on her own. She’d settled at night very quickly with us and had been largely clean throughout the night. Daisy on the other hand wanted to snuggle up, and she soon clambered into the basket where Pepper had retired for a nap. They were both much the same size at that time and Daisy wasn’t yet too heavy, but Pepper still appeared less than happy to be sharing her bed with Daisy. It wasn’t long before she removed herself, leaving Daisy in sole possession. That set the tone for the rest of their lives, Pepper giving way to Daisy in order to avoid being squashed.
This issue aside, they soon settled down together and began to forge a friendship. Pepper had started puppy classes as soon as her vaccinations commenced and I intended to take Daisy once my vet had checked her over. However, a problem soon presented itself when it became apparent that the sickness and diarrhoea she’d come home with, which I had put down to ‘new-puppy syndrome’ – from which Pepper, or course, never suffered – refused to go away. After a few tests, it was revealed that Daisy was suffering from salmonella poisoning and the incubation period indicated that she’d had it when we’d collected her from the breeder. My vet recommended that we ring the breeder, just in case any of her other dogs or pups had it as well.
This was by no means a complaint against the breeder and when I rang them I made this quite plain. Daisy was being treated with live yogurt, which is effective against salmonella, and my vet wasn’t worried for her health. It was as much a courtesy call as anything else, to inform them of a possible problem, and I was quite surprised when their reaction to my phone call was hostile. The gist of their caustic comments was to imply that I was making trouble as no one else had complained. They also cast a slur on the professional skills of the vet who had made the diagnosis. Needless to say, I never contacted them again!
This episode did concern me though and I kept a close eye on Daisy’s development. We had tried very hard to find a reputable breeder as puppy-farms were beginning to be exposed, and the one we chose had come from a list sent to us by the Kennel Club. Fortunately there were no other worrying occurrences and Daisy soon recovered from the infection. It was then that I discovered just how much her natural exuberance had been suppressed!
3. Dog Tails.
It seems strange to me now but during both of the major events in Daisy’s life – coming to us as a puppy and then her later troubles – my in-laws were suffering their own problems. It is nothing but coincidence, but it does seem very odd. Both these periods were traumatic and both occurred just when we could really have done without them, but life has a way of doing its own thing and taking no notice of our desires.
So as we were bringing two puppies into our house and coping with all that this entailed, we were also trying to cope with a crisis in my in-laws’ relationship; something that distressed us all on a deeply emotional level.
They had been married for forty-eight years and were as normal and happy a couple as many. Dave’s Dad had originally been a salesman for a confectionery manufacturer but in later life – before I knew him – he had decided to become a vicar, much to his son’s surprise. By the time I came on the scene he had retired, only taking the odd service to help the current incumbent out.
His Mum had once run her own business but had long since given it up, and had thrown her weight behind her husband as she became a vicar’s wife. She was by no means archetypal – she was always very much her own person and never made concessions to other people’s preconceptions – but I don’t know of a single person who thought she did a bad job.
I think it is probably not unreasonable to have certain expectations of a vicar, retired or not, but vicars and their wives are nevertheless human and humans are by no means perfect. Mum had suffered for years from clinical depression brought on by the loss of an unborn child, and this can’t have been easy to live with. It certainly made her less able to cope with the harsher aspects of life and any change to her routine was deeply unsettling for her. So when Dave’s frail and elderly grandmother, Dorothy, was forced to go into a nursing home, the upheaval in their lives as they moved closer to the home must have been significantly difficult for them both. It was further compounded by the fact that Mum had always loathed the town to which she was forced to move. However, they found a nice little cottage, made the best of it and got on with their lives.
Even after Dorothy died things didn’t improve. My in-laws couldn’t face moving again even though Mum hated the area, and this must have led to many acrimonious arguments. By the time we acquired our new puppies, we were dealing with two very unhappy people.
Things had got so bad that they sensibly decided to have a break from each other so while Mum remained in the house, Dad took the current Cairn terrier, Robin, and went to a retreat. At first he was phoning fairly regularly but soon the calls tailed off. I imagine he found them hard to deal with for although he had left, the underlying problem had not. He never left a number or forwarding address and before we knew what was happening, we had lost contact with him.
This was unexpected and highly worrying for us all, especially Mum. She was very concerned about her husband’s state of mind and how he would look after himself. She, of course, was still living in a town she detested and was now trying to deal with her unhappiness on her own. That left us having to cope with an increasingly distressed person as she began to worry herself ever deeper into depression, and the trauma inevitably spilled over onto us.
At its worst, I would have her on the phone two or three times a day, either in a storm of weeping or a ranting rage, and sometimes threatening suicide. It was a distinctly unpleasant period in our lives and went on for far longer than we liked. It was further exacerbated by the physical distance between us, and after one particularly frightening day when I had been unable to contact her by phone and had actually called the police to check on her – to our relief it turned out that there was a fault on her phone-line – we eventually brought her up to stay with us. Our first Christmas with the dogs was also Dave’s first without his Dad.
We were frantic to find him and at a loss as to how to proceed but the authorities we contacted for advice proved helpful. We finally managed to track him down when the garage he had bought a new car from sent the MOT certificate to his old address by mistake. I think he was quite surprised at the lengths we had gone to in order to find him but by this time we were fairly certain that he wouldn’t return by himself. As is so often the case with such issues, the longer they are left the harder they become to resolve, and I think he had deliberately stayed away. He must have known how distressed Mum was and probably convinced himself that the mess was impossible to sort out. The worry of the situation had also affected his health and he developed a bad case of psoriasis. This was to prove a major factor in the final days of his life.
Troubled as these times were the puppies were a constant lifeline, refusing to be affected by the often less-than-happy atmosphere which pervaded our home. It was impossible to stay depressed when Daisy and Pepper wanted to play and they helped us keep our sanity, taking our minds off the weightier issues. It was during this time that Daisy first started to limp, but it turned out to be nothing more serious than a shoulder strain, brought on by too much running around on uneven ground.
During her puppyhood we tried hard not to let Daisy do too much while her bones and joints were still forming, but it was impossible to explain to a fit and healthy young dog why she shouldn’t tear around like a lunatic and jump on every other animal she saw. She managed to strain both shoulders in succession – at least she was consistent – and to cut a pad on glass, which meant she had to wear a bandage on the injured paw. I think it stayed there a couple of hours at the most!
By this time Mum had been living with us for two months, but at least the ice had been broken and she and Dad were talking again. They were also trying to find a house closer us and the strain of this was telling on us all. The day they came back from the estate agent with details of a house just four away from ours was a real test for our sense of diplomacy.
We were happy for them to be closer as it would make brief coffee-visits possible instead of the planned, all-day trips we had been used to, but neither of us thought that right on our doorstep was the ideal place. Due to the tensions between them and the consequences of Mum’s depression – for which she’d been having treatment – we had to tread very carefully and think through whatever we said. Any kind of negative comment or hint of disapproval on our part could instantly upset her, and then we all suffered the consequences. I remember that we came up with some very plausible and inventive reasons as to why they would not like that house in our road! Fortunately someone must have been watching over us and decided we’d been through enough, for the house proved too small and the one they finally bought was three miles away; the perfect distance.
While Mum was still with us Dave managed to injure his leg playing squash and although it was not a nice experience for him, it was a godsend to me. It turned out that he’d broken his Achilles tendon, although it took the hospital a long time to discover this. He went to casualty three days after the injury as his foot was swollen and sore, but they told him it was only badly bruised and sent him home. It remained painful however and got steadily worse, and ten days later he went to his G.P., who prescribed an anti-inflammatory. When this didn’t do the trick either, the G.P. made him an appointment to see a specialist at the hospital and finally, twenty-three days after the injury had occurred, a ruptured tendon was diagnosed. Dave was kept in and the operation was performed that same day.
When he was permitted home, he was in plaster from thigh to ankle and would remain so for three months. He had crutches but the plaster effectively immobilised him. This meant that he couldn’t escape from his Mum. Normally he worked in London and while the travelling and his job undoubtedly wore him out, it did get him out of the house and away from her constant circular arguments. We were both aware that she needed to talk and I’m a good listener, but it was wearing in the extreme and I was a captive audience. So I’m not ashamed to admit that I took full advantage of his enforced inactivity, as now the shoe – or rather the plaster – was on the other foot.
I gained some valuable breathing space which I’m sure saved me from a criminal act, as I don’t mind confessing that her frequent threats of suicide had caused me to cast ever more frequent and speculative glances in the direction of the gas oven!
One aspect of the dogs’ early training that I was keen to introduce was that they should learn to be left alone in the house for a couple of hours at a time. I also wanted them to be able to cope on their own individually, without the other one there. There was bound to come a time when they couldn’t be together, and an emotionally dependent dog I could do without.
This was one area where my mother-in-law and I disagreed; she and Dad had always refused to leave their Cairn terrier, Robin – whom they’d had from a pup – alone in the house. Perversely, they were quite happy to leave him in the car. I thought this was a grave mistake and could never understand their reasoning. I asked her about it one day and she told me that the first time they’d tried leaving Robbie, he’d cried, so they’d given up. I wouldn’t mind betting that he’d done the same thing in the car only they hadn’t heard him, but it was useless to say so. In defence of their decision, she would always say that Robbie ‘knew his Dad’s car’ and I never got a reply when I pointed out that didn’t he also know his Dad’s house? It was a subject we never agreed on and it later became a bone of contention and adversely affected her life.
Pepper had come home a month before Daisy’s arrival so she was already used to being alone for short periods. She was such an easy-going little dog that I don’t think it ever bothered her. Daisy however was a totally different character and the last thing I wanted was for her to become dependant on Pepper. So while they were still quite young I would play and train with Daisy until she grew sleepy, and then I would take Pepper out for her walk. If Daisy woke while we were gone, she would lie quietly in her pen, to be fussed and made much of when we returned. Neither dog ever showed any signs of distress at being separated from the other which held true throughout their lives; something we later had ample cause to be thankful for.
Another aspect of their training which occurred quite by coincidence was their habituation to noise. I am phobic about some noises and especially thunder – to a pathetically embarrassing degree – and I was fully convinced that the dogs would be the same, simply through picking up my fear. At that time we lived directly under the flight-path for Farnborough Aerodrome, and the biennial Air Show was a source of trepidation for me.
I didn’t mind the Airbuses, the transports and the stunt-planes, and I have always had a soft spot for World War Two planes, especially the Lancaster bomber. My father served in the Fleet Air Arm during the war and worked on Hurricanes and Spitfires; I love to see these veterans droning their way above. I simply cannot abide the modern jet fighters though, and the ear-splitting shriek of their engines as they are gunned to their limits, the planes screeching past scant feet above the treetops, can reduce me in an instant to a quivering wreck on the ground. Walks in our local woods while the Air Show was on were, for me, an embarrassing display of dodging and cringing, often with my fingers in my ears.
I think there must be something fundamentally threatening about that kind of noise. Maybe it rouses a subliminal and primal instinct for survival deep within me and that is why I react in such an extreme and unthinking way.
Or maybe I’m just a wimp.
Those same woods were MOD land and were used regularly by the Army, who would often stage mock battles with gunfire and rocket attacks. The sounds were clearly audible from our garden and both dogs grew up hearing it. They were so unmoved by it that I’ve seen them casually continue about their business even when a thunderflash has gone off, not ten yards from our path. In fact, Pepper would have made an ideal gundog, for not only is she bombproof around noises, she’s also a fine pheasant-flusher and a terror with the ducks. So mere thunder which, after all, is rarely intense in England, registered as little with Pepper and Daisy as a door shutting. We even once took both dogs to a firework display, where they watched the spectacle in perfect calm.
We hadn’t intended to do this but some friends we were staying with sprang the event on us. I was far more concerned about leaving the dogs alone in their house, or the car where who-knew-what might happen, than I was about taking them with us where we could monitor their reactions. So that is what we did. Their calm demeanour was much to the amazement of the RSPCA inspectors, who were attending the event and who questioned our decision. We were quite happy to be approached by them; they were doing a good job after all and there were other dogs there who seemed more nervous, and whom the inspectors watched fairly closely. Our assurances that our two would be fine were treated with the caution I would expect, but once the display started and neither dog reacted to the noise, the inspectors smiled in surprise and melted away.
Having known friends with noise-phobic dogs, and having seen the distress that this can cause both animal and owner, I am thankful that whether by training or by circumstance, this was one problem our dogs never suffered from.
So despite our personal circumstances, the dogs’ training continued as planned; both of them having attended puppy classes and both doing very well. They were firm friends by this time, although Daisy was definitely ‘top-dog’, and she had invented an irritating game of which poor Peps did not approve.
Daisy was always the more energetic and she was growing ever longer in the leg. Pepper was small and neat, just under average size for a Cocker bitch. She also had a docked tail, much to the disapproval of the vet who examined her as a young puppy, but I have to say in my defence that we had not intended to buy a docked Cocker.
The trouble at that time was that getting hold of undocked Spaniels was only just beginning to be possible, and to do so then – and sometimes even now, I believe – prospective owners had to inform their chosen breeder before the pups were born that they wanted one left with a tail. This meant that the breeder chose the pup which the purchaser was obliged to have once it was left undocked. At the time we wanted our pups – and we were working to a fairly strict time-schedule due to Dave’s business – it was difficult enough to find a breeder willing to do even this. As we wanted to choose our own pup, it was virtually impossible. So we ended up with a docked puppy which was a bit of a shame, but Pepper was such a fantastic little dog in all other ways that her stumpy tail didn’t matter.
It mattered to Daisy though.
For some reason, my mischievous spotty bitch seemed to find Pepper’s little black tail irresistible, and especially so when Pepper refused to play with her. She developed the irritating habit of sneaking up behind Pepper and grabbing her by the tail, which just fitted in its entirety into Daisy’s puppy-sized mouth. Then, before Peps could swing round and tell her off, she would run, hoping that an infuriated Pepper would chase her, which she invariably did.
What Daisy failed to realise though was that because she could run so much faster, Pepper soon tired of the game, knowing she would never catch Daisy. So Daisy would wait a few minutes and then the whole thing would start all over again, with Pepper becoming more and more irritated every time it happened. Eventually I would have to distract Daisy as I was worried she would damage Pepper’s tail.
I have called Pepper ‘the perfect Spaniel’ and in many ways she was, but nevertheless it was Pepper who gave me my first real scare, just before her first birthday.
The MOD land around us was a favourite spot for dog-walkers and those of us who walked each day at a certain time were almost bound to meet and become friendly. It was also a valuable opportunity for the puppies to socialise and the vast majority of the dogs were good natured. Pepper was inclined to be stand-offish and also a bit of a wimp; a trait she acquired, I believe, courtesy of Daisy’s heavy paws. Daisy, on the other hand, always loved meeting other dogs and while the animals frolicked and played, we owners would discuss our pets’ latest misdemeanours.
On this particular Tuesday a few of us got into such a discussion and we weren’t really watching the dogs. It must have been about twenty minutes later that the walk really got underway, but by that time I had realised that Pepper was nowhere to be seen. Not overly concerned – she had never strayed far from my side before – I began to call her and to look for her, aided by the other owners. When she didn’t immediately appear, I began to get anxious and we widened the search, some of us going in one direction, some in another.
Daisy was no help, being totally unconcerned about Pepper’s absence; after all, they were used to being apart and Daisy had other dogs to play with. I began to fear that Pepper might have tried to get down a rabbit-hole – my greatest nightmare while she was small – as she had often shown interest and gone sniffing round them. Those particular woods were full of rabbits and their holes were everywhere; I began to try and find them and listened at every one.
By now, some of the other owners had departed, having their own schedules to keep to, but a faithful core stayed to help me, while yet others continued their walk, pledging to watch and call for Pepper and to contact me should they find her. I was becoming frantic as there had been no sight or sound of her, and when someone offered to walk the five minutes back to my house to see if Pepper had returned there on her own, I gratefully accepted. I couldn’t have left the woods just then and I didn’t think Pepper would have gone home alone; there were two main roads to cross if she had and the hour was early enough that traffic was still fairly heavy. I was certain we’d have heard either the blowing of horns or the squealing of brakes if my Spaniel had tried to cross the road.
We kept up an intensive search, questioning everyone we saw, but no one had come across a Spaniel by itself. The investigation of my front garden had drawn a blank and I had even checked it again myself in case the wrong house had been visited. Now time was ticking by and I had other duties that day; I simply could not stay any longer in the search for my little dog.
In tears and frantic for her safety, I was forced to make my way home; kind assurances from the other owners to carry on the search no comfort to my racing heart. Pepper had my contact details on her collar and was microchipped so my best hope was that someone had seen her on her own and thought she was a stray; maybe there was a phone-call awaiting me at home.
Daisy and I walked the couple of hundred yards to the house and entered the front garden. It wasn’t large and was surrounded by a picket fence, some of which was hidden under a privet hedge. When the dogs had first come home we’d been worried they might squeeze through the gaps in the fence, and so chicken-wire had been stapled to the wood. This made the front garden puppy-proof.
The front door was at the side of the house and there was a passageway leading past it to the back garden; this was blocked by a solid wooden gate under which not even the slimmest of pups could have wriggled. We always took the dogs back through this gate and into the house via the back door, the easier to clean them off after running through muddy woods.
As Daisy and I came through the back gate, we were instantly greeted by a very relieved Pepper, who was obviously wondering where we had been. I just stared at her in total amazement before dropping to my knees and dissolving into thankful tears. I’m sure Pepper didn’t know what all the fuss was about.
To this day I don’t know how she got there and the thought of her crossing those two busy roads can still make me shiver. All I can think is that someone saw her standing outside the front gate and let her in, also letting her through into the back garden in case the front wasn’t secure. I had never thought to look in the back garden when I had checked it earlier on, as there was no way Pepper could have got through by herself. However it happened, I had my little dog back and my grateful thanks go to whoever let her in.