Riches from Rags

I was burbling the other day (was it really only yesterday?) about the disadvantages of dog ownership and ended by saying that there is a flip side. ‘OK,' you say, ‘convince me.' Well, one big advantage to owning a dog is that you have to walk the animal, thereby giving you the double benefit of fresh air and exercise. Yes, I know one doesn't actually need a dog in order to take exercise by walking in the fresh air. Indeed, there are many people who actually go jogging on an almost daily basis without the benefit of canine companionship but I know full well that I wouldn't do so. Without the dog I would rarely, if ever, take exercise - and certainly not when it's cold or raining. Even the bad weather has its advantage. Rather like enjoying the relief when you stop banging your head against the wall, coming back into a warm, dry house and a mug of hot coffee is a real pleasure I wouldn't be able to feel without having been in the cold rain before. I suppose all I have done so far is convince people that I am either a masochist or a raving lunatic. Let me try to put that right.

During our married life the Old Bat and I have owned four dogs at one time or another. Each has had their own distinct (and discrete) character but I will tell you about Rags.

Rags was our second dog. Our first had to be put down because of old age and illness and all four of us, perhaps especially the two boys who were then aged about four and one, felt the loss acutely. Within a couple of weeks my wife and I had decided that we needed another dog in the house and agreed to look out for a retriever. We chose that type because although we had been lucky with our previous rescue dog (a collie cross) we wanted to be reasonably certain that the new dog would be good with children. It just so happened that I was glancing at the small ads in the local paper one day during a break at work when I spotted it - the ad for a flat coat retriever. I rang home and my wife arranged for her mother to babysit that evening while we drove nearly 50 miles to see the dog. He was the runt of the litter, considered too small to be useful as a gun dog, and the last remaining pup.

We really should have done more homework and learned a bit about the breed first, but we were enchanted, paid over the necessary cash, and brought home the still nameless pup. To start with, we put him in the back of my estate car, but he wasn't having any of that and whined until I stopped and he was allowed on my wife's lap where he dozed quite happily as we drove home. For reasons I don't need to into here, the elder son decided the pup would be called Rags.

It wasn't long before we discovered the down side of owning a flat coat retriever. The breed is highly intelligent but notoriously difficult to train, and Rags was true to his breed. He quickly learned that he was supposed to come when called, and he would - but in his own time. He learned to climb the chain-link fence down the side of our garden and scramble through the top of the privet hedge the other side so that he could explore the neighbourhood. He grabbed any food that had not been put right at the back of the kitchen working surfaces. Furthermore, a quick twenty-minute walk was hopelessly inadequate. He needed a couple of hours exercise a day and with two young children (three before too much longer) in the house and me working, sometimes long hours, that was a bit difficult.

But exasperating and infuriating though he was, Rags was a fantastic dog with children. They could do anything with him. My daughter learned to walk by clinging to him. He would happily let children dress him in jumpers, dark glasses and funny hats - and then sit for his photograph to be taken. He was pleased to play the part of a doll, being put to bed with a pillow under his head and a blanket covering him. One of my daughter's friends had been mauled by a dog when just a toddler and was, understandably, scared of all dogs thereafter. Rags was big and black, so naturally she was scared of him. That didn't last long. Rags knew she was scared and took his time getting close to her. A neighbour would leave her two daughters at our house to be taken to school. Her marriage was rocky and the girls, especially the younger, were frequently upset and tearful. One day my wife discovered the younger girl in the dog basket with Rags. Just who was cuddling whom was uncertain, but Rags was like a comfort blanket. He would even let a child take away a bone he was chewing. All he did was look at my wife as if to say, ‘Can't you teach that child better manners?'

Before our children were of an age when they could go to and come home from school on their own, Rags' biggest treat was to be taken to meet them at the end of the school day. Other children would crowd around him - Rags was well-known at the school gate - and as far as he was concerned, this was like his birthday and Christmas rolled into one. Later, when the children came home from school on their own, he knew exactly when they should be back and if one was late because of an after-school activity, Rags just could not settle until all his flock was safely home.

I was becoming increasingly unhappy at work for various reasons and on many days I when I came home the children would disappear upstairs and the dog down the garden to get away from me, but at weekends I would walk Rags for hours over the Downs and he would walk right by my side as I told him all my troubles. I have never known a dog be such a wonderful listener.

He was his usual energetic self right up until one Saturday morning he had trouble getting out of his bad. I had to help him down the garden and to stand while he had a pee. Putting him the car to take to the vet, I knew this was the end. The vet confirmed this, saying that Rags had a large tumour. I held him as the vet injected him but I managed to keep the tears back until I got home. I had said goodbye to one of the best friends I have ever had: exasperating, infuriating even, but good-natured, loyal and affectionate to the end. In all his twelve years there had been not the faintest hint of a growl.

And that, perhaps, is the true downside of owning a dog, being unselfish enough to know when it's time to say goodbye.