Letter from Vimer : 18/02/05

STAYING WITH a friend in St Albans at the tender age of 11, I remember we spent a lot of time copying cartoon drawings out of a book called How to Live With a Neurotic Dog.

I can remember the title clearly – but sadly, not the author. That sort of detail wasn’t as important to me then as being proud that I understood the title.

For most of our married life, there has been at least one dog about the house and, on occasions, the odd cat or two (although they wouldn’t fare well here today with five dogs and two pups that chase anything that moves).

Each dog has had its own character. Pip used to grin as we walked up to the house, baring her teeth in a smiley way and wagging her tail like mad.

Sam looked proud and strong like a lion, but he was the sweetest-natured dog, and Flossie turned her back on us and sulked if she thought we were talking about her.

Dad Green did a very good job of converting a stable into a mutiple kennel, where each dog is housed individually behind a wire mesh door so that they can see what’s going on, but they have their own space, with straw on the floor and a wooden ledge to sleep or eat on out of the draught. This proved to be a haven for Maggie when she needed to get some respite from her 10 pups recently, she could survey them from above and eat in peace.

Then we have Max. Some of the dogs eat normally, some of them hide their bowls in the straw, but as for Max, he drags his bowl, spilling the entire contents all over the place.

If I put the bowl on the shelf, he drags it onto the floor and into the straw. If I put it on the floor, he grabs the rim in his mouth and lifts it up onto the shelf. It’s very frustrating – it’s very hard to tell how much exactly he manages to eat.

Tim’s dad tried to solve the problem by making a wooden frame on Max”s shelf which I could slide his bowl into then secure by lifting a long nail and slotting it over the rim to hold it fast – but by tipping the bowl he manages to ease it out of the frame.

I got cross with him the other day because he”d wasted all the gravy (I love gravy) and he made such a mess in his box. I shouted at him and slammed his door shut leaving the familiar sound of his bowl being dragged along the shelf and onto the cobbled floor behind me. He must have felt guilty because when I went in the next day he had licked his bowl clean then lifted it back up and dropped it back into its wooden frame.

Maybe now, all these years on, I need another look at that book about living with a neurotic dog.