He turned up one day, sniffing round the bins at the front, all panting slobbery mouth and big trusting eyes and a huge black fluffy tail, the kind that knocks things over. I thought, he must belong to somebody. I asked the neighbours but they hadn’t seen him before. So I texted my sister Gwennie and she said I should take him to the vets to see if he had an electronic tag. It turned out he didn’t. The vet said she could pass him to the RSPCA. She said he might have been dumped by someone who couldn’t keep him anymore. ‘Give us a call when you know what you want to do,’ she said.
I said I’d sleep on it.
There wasn’t room in my life for a dog. Too much responsibility, and I’ve never coped well with responsibility. I’ve had some issues in the past, I’m divorced and I live alone. I don’t mind living alone; to be honest it’s simpler and sometimes it feels like enough work just getting out of bed in the morning. Gwennie’s got kids and they’ve already got an old cocker spaniel. She says she’s too busy and too broke for another dog.
I check in with a couple of mates but no one wants a dog. I get off the phone and he’s sat there looking up at me, and there’s already so much love in his eyes. I haven’t seen a lot of love in my life, so just then I decide to keep him.
If I’m sleeping late he comes in and pushes at my hand with his wet nose. If I don’t take him for a walk he whines, bloody annoying but it gets me out of the house (eventually). I have to budget a bit to get him fed, but he’s my mate so it’s not like I won’t feed him. Sometimes I think he eats better than me! I don’t like to leave him home alone so if I get some shifts I try to take him round to Gwennie’s for a couple of days or ask the neighbours to look in on him. I know I’ll be too knackered to walk him much. But then I make a big fuss of him the rest of the time and he seems to understand. Most of all he loves to go up in the Malvern Hills so I take him up there for a run around every few weeks.
He’s a great dog and when I take him out anywhere loads of people stop to say hello and give him a pat. In fact, that’s the biggest change he’s made to my life: people used to just pass by on the street not talking, but with a dog they will often stop and chat and be friendly, and that lifts my mood. I would say to anyone if you think you can take care of a dog, do it.
I never gave him a name and some people think that’s strange, but it’s because I feel like I don’t really own him; he chose to come to me, so I don’t have the right to give him a new name. He’ll always be just Dog to me.