The diary of a dog: As a puppy, I’m trying to understand the complexities of my new family. The youngest grandchild is so enamoured with me, I can do no wrong.
In a moment of over-excitement – I must be honest in the pages of this diary – there was inadvertent contact between my teeth and his leg. This elicited a moment of outrage, but not from the child.
The grown-up, who I’ve taken to calling Man, ran over and addressed the small boy. “Did Frank bite you?” Man said. He spoke in a tone which, were this a court of law, would be seen as “leading the witness”.
Luckily, the child, who is just short of three years of age, was having none of it. “It was just a little nip,” he said, and I must say I think we’ll be friends for life. No one likes a snitch. Better still is a person who will assert a barefaced lie in defence of a beloved puppy.
I could probably remove that child’s whole right arm, and he’d say, “It’s nothing but a flesh wound.” But here’s the point: I would never harm him in any way. The boy, who I think of as Sweetpea, is now my best friend. We are now comrades, compatriots, compañeros. Choose whatever term you prefer.
Man, on the other hand, is overly sensitive. In a desperate battle against the effects of ageing, he stages, every morning, what he calls “my gym session”. This takes place on a tatty blue exercise mat, placed on the kitchen floor. He lies on his back and makes various tiny movements involving his legs and arms, all while bellowing in pain like a harpooned walrus.
When I first came across the scene, I assumed it was staged for my amusement. Keen to take part in any frivolity, I jumped on his chest, licked his ears and then bit his toes. Again, outrage. I was placed out the back door and told: “Behaviour like this is not allowed in the gymnasium. Users are not allowed to lick other gym members.”
Man was chuckling to himself as he said this, for reasons that I found unclear. I ended up stuck on the other side of the glass door, viewing the “gym session”, which, I must say, continued to deliver a spectacle of visual amusements. The scene of Man trying to touch his toes was particularly risible.
Later that morning, after an exhilarating game of soccer, we practised the lessons we’d learnt at puppy school. This is held in a classroom at the local vet, and involves four families learning the ropes.
I was there, the night before, when the main method was explained. If the puppy starts nipping, the “owner” – I hate that term! – should grab a toy and have a glorious play-fight with the puppy for the possession of the toy. That way, the puppy will forget about the nipping.
It is such a great system. Whenever I want Man to play with me, I just give his knees a little nip or two and out comes the toy. Puppy school is great! The poster says “fully trained in five weeks”, and, in my case, I think my humans are already well ahead of schedule. One nip and the toy comes out almost immediately.
My main point of disagreement with my new family involves the dangers of the neighbourhood. I don’t mean to be sensationalist, but it’s a pretty bad “hood”. There’s a very barky dog on the corner – yes, behind a fence, but how strong is that fence? – and also some large trucks, constantly thundering past. Jet planes fly overhead! There are birds! Big yellow garbage bins lurk in the street, like hulking hoodlums, just waiting for trouble.
Of all these perils, the dogs are the worst. So loud. So barky for no reason. Are these not public footpaths? Do we not have rights?
It’s my understanding that Man and Lady have paid their taxes to governments – local, state and federal. They are law-abiding citizens. And yet, according to the barky dog on the nearest corner, all that counts for nothing. We have no right of passage. There is no “freedom of the highway”, that ancient principle of the common law.
No, it’s just bark, bark, bark. “Go away. This is my house. You may not even walk past.”
I sit down, refusing to go a step closer to the peril. The person who I call Man adopts a patronising tone. “Oh, come on, Frank. It’s just a dog, he’s behind a fence, we can just walk past.” But does he really know? Does Man have an engineering degree? Has he assessed the structural integrity of that fence? Does he know the breed of the dog?
It falls to me to steer our walking party onto a more cautious path, down a different street to a more peaceful part of town. Thank God they have me!
And, dear diary, thank God I have them. Especially my favourite, my nearly-three-year-old friend, that barefaced liar, the kindly Sweetpea.
