ROLO's roots

The original Lakeland Terrier was bred in the Lake District. They were bred to fight the giant Westmoreland Fox, which was the greatest threat to farmers’ chickens and livestock, particularly the lambs. The Lakie should have a narrow chest about the same width as its head, so it can scoot down burrows to grab the fox cubs. Proudly displaying its bottom sticking out of the ground ready for a farmer to pull him out by his tail, ‘Good boy’.

A Lakeland Terrier’s coat must be warm and waterproof, full of curls and strong wiry hair. Imagine a coat that let in the whipping wind and rain off the fells, it would be a death sentence for a working dog in the north of England. The breed also had to have game – that’s spirit to attack even when they’re of a smaller size than their prey treading that fine line between courage and stupidity.

ROLO is part Lakeland Terrier and part Patterdale Terrier. Both breeds originate from the region we went to on a family holiday around the astonishingly beautiful Lake Windermere. I had no idea England had lakes and mountains like these, it made me feel like I could have been in Canada or Switzerland (both places which I have also never visited).

On the first day where there was no rain and low sun ROLO pondered the Lakes. She sniffed the air and rushed through the damp undergrowth of lush ferns, chasing scents and running wild. She had returned to her roots. However, her paw hurt. That night while she was conked out on the dog bed, I removed a tiny stone from her paw leaving a hole.

The next day the forecast looked clear, but we encountered strong winds as we climbed a moor then scrabbled down a fell into woodland. ROLO’s paws were constantly cold and wet from the mud and hard granite. The sheer number of puddles ROLO had to jump over to avoid getting drenched grazed more skin off her paws. At night I cleaned the wound with saline solution while she and her compatriot, Mac the Bedlington Terrier Whippet Cross, snoozed in front of the fire. 

The next day we ventured into Grizedale, which in Old Norse means Wild Boar Valley, where it rained pretty much all day. I had forgotten my canine’s coat, so ROLO progressively became sodden and shivery; unlike her ancestors her fur was not wiry enough. On another walk the loose jagged rocks underfoot had got too much for her and she had to be carried. At one point I looked round and found her sat with eyes half-closed looking very wet and zen sheltering beneath a small bush.

Don’t get me wrong, at times ROLO looked majestic on the moors. Standing tall in the land of her working dog cousins. Remember, the Lakeland Terrier was bred to hunt the legendary Westmoreland Fox, which is now extinct thanks to her bloodline. But, as ROLO found out on the walking holiday, it forever rains in the Lakes and she is a dog that likes to stay dry.

In London she is a pub dog, who sits on people’s laps while they quaff beer and discuss politics. She rides on public transport, gazing out of the top deck window of a bus while it careens around the busy streets of the metropolis. ROLO has a dog bed in every house and workplace she visits, which are all well-insulated establishments that hold the possibility of treats. 

And ROLO realised that the city creature comforts she had grown so accustomed to like the sniffing of the butts on the common; the organic dog chews; her Summer and Winter dog wardrobe had led her life to be removed from that of her ancestors. And she felt pleasantly surprised that she was in fact a different dog to what she had been bred for, and she liked her life just the way it was, which made her tail wag.

Lakeland terrier history sources:

https://www.lakie1.com/history.php

https://nationalpurebreddogday.com/a-snippet-of-lakeland-terrier-history/

I managed to sharpen the knives

My dog and I have been ill like “baton touch” as the Japanese would say, which means, as if we were running a relay race and passing on the baton of illness to one another. 

First it was my dog’s ears, I believe. They became infected after she scratched them to bits, possibly because she had an allergic reaction brought on by the summer’s heat. Ah – the summer. 

Yet even though it’s October the warm sunny days seem to be here to stay. Nothing wrong with that, apart from when I was ill and bed bound, I was forced to watch the beautiful blue sky days pass by through my windows. 

In the garden I felt the warm summer breeze caress my dry skin, my tan already faded to old terracotta. In the bathroom I squirted aloe vera gel onto my arms and legs and wondered when did summer happen, exactly?

When I talk with my Obaachan in Japan the summer has definitely been happening. Too much, too hot – unbearable. 

People ask me how is your grandmother doing? I tell them, well, she’s doing well but she’s almost ninety and we’re going back to Japan to see her for her 90th birthday. Then I follow up with the caveat that because Japan’s summer has been so hot, so humid, she’s housebound. Everyone needs an air-conditioner to survive; she can’t get out to walk to the shops or meet her friends, so she feels weaker. Also, bored. The old people in her area are all locked up in cooled rooms, like during lockdown.

I’m getting married next year. Which is why I’m going to Japan for Obaachan’s birthday and also taking an entourage of English folk with me who are all related to my husband-to-be. There will surely be a lot of culture-shocks form both family clans. I’ll have to be the translator. The lone translator between ten people all of whom want to understand one another – I’ll not think about how difficult or fundamentally impossible this task may be until I’m on the very expensive flight to Haneda, to save my wits.

The reason I got ill is because I was trying to be good at all my jobs and it took its toll. I have my paid job then my charity job then my wedding job then my house job – all the while pulling along my little brown dog ROLO with me wherever’s dog friendly. (I also think I have an aversion to rest, or I’ve taught myself how to tolerate being too busy, whichever it is, my habits aren’t great.) No wonder the two of us get ill together.

Here's how it went: I was thinking about different people and languages, and working to a school calendar at the same time as the standard calendar, and then my dog hurt her paw, so she was a hob-along in bandages wearing dumb paw-boots; I did First Aid Training which made me afraid of everything killing everyone, specifically through catastrophic blood loss, then I gave a speech in front of an audience at a Japanese festival on an unseasonably hot day and cried in front of everyone when I mentioned my dead mother, then a girl wearing a green headscarf and pink kimono (rad combo) handed me a tissue from the crowd; I got thrush and back at home I curled up in a heap under a cheap blue velvet duvet with my dog and slept for 80 hours. 

The torrent of activities made me miss summer, during which I had this strong desire to use my whetstone I had bought a year ago to sharpen the kitchen knives. I was slicing some chilies and realised the knives were blunt – right after my First Aid Training course – and freaked out about the dangers of blunt knives, so became determined to sharpen them. 

But alas, I went to Norfolk to visit friends who have a little girl and live next to the ruin of a Norman castle. Then I went to my fiancée’s family home to help clear the garden because they’re hosting our wedding next year. I also went to Oxford to walk through ancient Wytham woods with a friend. 

The rail strikes finally put an end to my weekends away. Once the plug got pulled on my adrenaline, I got ill and then all my other inane worldly tasks were forgotten too, like updating Instagram or boiling eggs.

It then became October and half-term was being mentioned and it was still unseasonably warm. The charity has finally begun to close down, and I’ve had some rest, and I’ve even stopped drinking alcohol to give my immune system the helping-hand it was crying out for.

I’ve spoken to my Obaachan, and she says it’s finally started to cool down in Japan as well. She tells me she is able to go outside again; she is so grateful for Autumn. 

I have noticed the immense number of spiders living in and around my house. Munching flies and leaving their corpses dangling by threads like mobiles from my ceiling. They’re fattening themselves up and I say go ahead, just please don’t be poisonous. ROLO ate some poisonous red berries from a yew tree, and I had to go to an emergency vet to get her stomach pumped. I wish she had more canine street-smarts, but in good news, I am no longer ill.

Today I have turned a momentous corner in my life. I managed to sharpen the knives. I know that the seasons are turning, and I’m pleased with the way things are going. Even though, when I look at my garden the tulip bulbs I planted three days ago have been unearthed by some squirrel (or my dog), I know I’ll live to fight another day.

What I do when left to my own devices

I’m woken by a yelp. 

Groggy with the taste of gin and the sound of bass fading back into sleepy memory, I listen in bed hoping that it wasn’t my dog downstairs making that high-pitched whine. Yelps again. Yes, it was. My bones creak and I look at the alarm clock which says something like four in the morning. Admittedly it is dawn outside and she can sense these things. I hear the first birdsong through the crack in my window. I pad downstairs, open her crate door, thump back upstairs and go back to bed. 

My second awakening is more at my own pace but still I wish I had had more sleep. I open the fridge to find the coffee from yesterday, now chilled. I pour it into my blender with ice cubes, oat milk and Oreos and make myself a cup of coffee-Oreo milkshake. I scoop the delicious sludge into my mouth with a spoon and drink the dregs. 

I look through catalogues and newsletters which have been posted through our door. One is the local Borough’s newspaper; we’ve got a new mayor and they’re holding a sheep shearing demonstration next Saturday at the park which has a deer enclosure. I hadn’t known they kept sheep too – saying that I did spot a lone goat behind bars there. I flick through wines you can buy per bottle or in crates, browse seedlings and bulbs which could be planted in our unsuccessful flowerbed, and put tick marks next to natural dogs treats I’d like to buy. All the while listening to BBC World Service with their eclectic range of current affairs programs.

I stretch, I yawn, I scratch. Unload the dishwasher. Decide to take ROLO on a big, long walk as the weather has been too hot for those recently, also I went out last night leaving her alone for ages, so I owe her one. I put on an outfit worthy of a Pokémon trainer (cap, backpack, trainers) and head out towards Crossness. It’s about a 3-hour round walk barely crossing any roads, so it’s safe for ROLO to be let off-leash a lot of the time.

The grass is dry and patchy. The path is dusty and at points dotted with dried desiccated turds. Buddleia are growing up and up, and there are these small faint pink flowers on spiky stems which are buzzing with bees. (Later on, I’ll find out online that these bushes are probably Hawthorn trees). There are new residential buildings being built on brownfield sites and a train station is undergoing major maintenance works. Everything on the outskirts of London is having to be resized and reinforced for more people. We are at the point of perpetual growth.

The sun starts to come out and ROLO is panting. We sit on a bench. I give her a long drink of water and some dog treats while looking out across the Thames River where there’s a huge recycling centre on the other side with cranes and diggers shovelling mounds of rubbish. When we get home I give ROLO dog food and myself some homecooked Japanese curry with pickles. I sit outside in the sun and drink a tall glass of water with ice cubes in, enjoying the garden, which is pleasantly tranquil with all the bamboo swishing around.

I’m getting the fold-up chair at the bottom of the garden ready to have a doze in, when I notice there’s a dead pigeon behind it on the ground covered in flies. The pigeon is lying face down with its clawed feet sticking up in the air, looking like something had attempted to bury it and then gave up. The bird’s greyish blue feathers are open at the chest where I can see into its bloody cavity and discern a dark red heart within a gaping hole. 

I look at ROLO who is nonchalantly lying on the sunny patch of grass. I look back at the pigeon. Something killed it. It’s too bloody and torn up for it to have “passed away”. A fox may have dropped it. My dog still looks nonplussed as I go inside to fetch a plastic bag and some disposable gloves. I can’t be sure what happened but I’m about 60% certain that my pet killed this pigeon. I’m almost sick when I put the surprisingly dense carcass into the bag and drop it into our black bin outside. I immediately regret not double bagging it.

I go back inside and wash my hands thoroughly and go put on a quiet podcast through my Bluetooth headphones. I sit back in the chair at the bottom of the garden and peep out from under my cap. I can see a satisfying slice of blue sky and the yellow-green of the bamboo shoots. The sunshine isn’t strong, and I’ve got sunscreen on and a bottle of water on my lap. Listening to some people speaking about poetry I un-reluctantly drift off into a light sleep. Even though I’m not quite awake, I can still sense the pink sunlight behind my eyelids and I’m content.

 

Busy busy end of the year

Even though I had the month of December off it feels like I did more in it than ever before. It was probably due to the lack of routine, which makes every experience feel novel, firing off synapses at a more rapid rate than my dull-wired brain is used to.

Therefore, I have a newfound respect for my nomad comrade friends gallivanting out there in the world, meeting new people and speaking many languages. I raise my glass to you!

I travelled to Manchester to see my friend’s play A Christmas Carol, which was a total festive treat. I was fending off a cold at the time, so I think spending a day in the cavernous cold space of the Manchester City Library with its grand oculus finished me off. I had a fever for two days and lost about two-weeks in a fug.

The best thing about this time of year is that friends who live abroad or far away come back through town. I got to host many a Christmas meal; some more successful than others. All I can say is if you intend to cook a Korean feast but omit all the chillies (due to a spice intolerance in some of the guests) then what you get is a very very salty meal. Yet we popped open about five bottles of champagne to celebrate various things I can’t remember clearly anymore.

Me and the dog went on a day trip to West London: what a charming world! My writer friend Eloise took us to a pub with a roaring open fire. When we entered there was a man reading a real newspaper with a brown speckled Dalmatian sitting calmly at his heels. I ordered a mulled wine which came to £9.50! The Fox & Pheasant could never become my local, but we can all dream.

I tagged along to a friend’s family walking tour of London. It had been organised by Una who was visiting her UK family with her American husband. The tour guide, Terry, didn’t know how to pitch his material as the majority of the walkers were familiar with London and this country’s archaic/feudal system of property/land ownership. 

I learned a lot, like how Westminster Abbey is a called a Royal Peculiar because it doesn’t belong to any parish thanks to the way the old kingdoms were sliced up in Britain. My favourite factoid was why the Australians call the English poms. It’s an abbreviation of Prisoners of Millbank (POM) as many convicts were transported to Australia in the 19th Century from this Thames riverside prison, which no longer exists.

After seeing friends and recovering from flu, I set out on an epic journey to Orkney. My family up in the beautiful remote isles hosted Christmas, and me and the dog trundled up there by train to Edinburgh > train to Aberdeen > ferry to Kirkwall. An overall journey time of 18 hours, however, the strikes and the storms did not get in the way! A Christmas miracle. 

It was a quiet time spent with books and going for walks – weather permitting. On Boxing Day as the heavy clouds rumbled across our island, I took the dog for a walk, but when we reached the crest of a hill it started to hail. The hailstones were as big as salt crystals, so I ran to a stone house and sheltered against its wall. ROLO jumped head first into a bush. I peeked at her from under my pulled down hood as we got pelleted by ice. Her small gingery tail, shivering poking out from a hedge. 

A Christmas seal sighting

  

Xmas Decor

We’ve put up the Christmas decorations. It makes me happy. 

The Horror Nativity is out again in the fireplace, it’s like a menagerie of eerie and monstrous figurines made from lurid plasticine that we moulded one sad Christmas. There are two red and green balls hanging from a nail in the kitchen. One lonely Santa hat sits on a shelf looking like a leftover prop from an office Xmas party. I think the look is almost complete. 

Let’s shine the light on Groot for a moment. The pot plant who has had many manifestations over the years he has been in our lives. Abandoned and picked up off the street somewhere in Victoria. Re-homed in the flat Groot grew taller and was re-potted one Spring in Vauxhall. 

During Covid Groot decided to grow even bigger, probably because we were indoors all the time pottering about and watering him maniacally. His roots got all entangled and made a bird’s nest around the bottom of the pot. That was the summer when everything was closed. I remember going to a nursery garden to ask if they had any discarded plant pots I could forage. We picked one that looked more like a bucket with holes in and carried it back to the flat. Voilà Groot got an even bigger pot.

When we moved house and got a dog, I found out that Groot’s species was poisonous to pets*, but we couldn’t give him up. So, we moved Groot upstairs into the bedroom where dogs are not allowed.

But when Yuletide comes around it’s Groot’s time to shine! 

He is hauled back downstairs in his upgraded edgy stylish pot (which looks a bit like a burnt bird cage) and given pride of place. We wrap a wiry set of fairy lights around his tropical-looking foliage and hang a single ornament from his branch of a dachshund wearing a Santa Claus outfit. Groot marvellously plays the role of our Christmas Tree.

*ROLO is wholly uninterested in Groot even when he’s looking so great as a Christmas tree.

Halloween Monday

It was a Monday night. We were sat around a dinner table and outside was a downpour. The rain had been incessant lately. I couldn’t remember a time when the rain was so constant in England, but then I had a terrible memory. However, indoors it was very nice. Emma had cooked delicious chicken stewed with segments of orange – but she didn’t serve herself any of the citrus because she said she had a difficult relationship with fruit. Today was in fact Halloween and the roasted vegetables and soft cherry tomatoes in the dish were meant to give an autumnal vibe. We questioned whether it was more of a Halloween spread because it contained pumpkin? Emma didn’t think so. She reminisced that when she was a child during this holiday ex-pats from America would give the children ghoulish foods like eyeballs made of lychees, which coincidentally was where her suspicion of fruit stemmed from. 

The delicious vapours from the kitchen wafted out of the patio doors, which were open a crack and at its base sat my little brown dog who was looking mournfully out at the sodden garden. She was afraid of everything: at the commuter trains passing by upon raised train tracks, at the fireworks going off for Divali, and at the prospect of getting wet. I asked whether the house got any trick-or-treaters? Another guest said they overheard a dad outside warning his children not to knock on this door because, ‘Emma wouldn’t like it.’ Last year her partner had appendicitis on Halloween, and so Emma had to go to the hospital and left a pile of sweets outside the front door with a passive aggressive note saying, ‘Don’t knock sick person inside but help yourself to sweets’. This probably gave her the reputation of being someone cantankerous.

The rain was not letting up. We were now on to desserts of freshly oven-baked chocolate chip cookies (crunchy on the outside, chewy at its centre). We tried to remember what our first ever Halloween costumes were. Annina and I were obviously vampires; unoriginal yet very in keeping with ye olde traditions of All Hallow’s Eve. Char who heralds from the States went as Mickey Mouse aged four. Emma dressed as something not as good as her younger sister and remembers feeling petulant about it. Aidan had a costume made of leaves to dress as the literary version of Peter Pan. The last guest remembered how he went to a church gathering instead called a “Hallelujah Happening” where they were discouraged from dressing up as anything to do with the devil, so he wore an orange t-shirt.

Being good tired

June has happened without much deliberation. The onset of summer is heady, and I get filled with the prospect of late summer evenings drinking beers on rooftops and in open fields. Wedding after wedding have filled weekends, a panoply of love. Friends have flown in and stayed at our house enjoying the cosy offerings of the “Japanese Pub”. 

ROLO has acclimatised to new people arriving and has slept on the floor beside them, snuggling into their sleeping bag and pretending they are their own pack, away from civilisation. One guest awakes saying that I tap away at my keyboard ‘just like a drummer’ with intent and in short bursts.

We’ve gained a beautiful bouquet of flowers from friends who stayed here – but didn’t get to set eyes on because we were at different weddings. They left lilies and carnations in a vase, alongside a nice bottle of gin, classy. A new shiny soap dish that’s like a thin polished piece of wood has appeared on my bathroom sink to help out my formless disintegrating soap. 

As they sleep upstairs on the futon, I’m downstairs tap tap tapping away furiously. I’ve met old friends I haven’t seen in years and made new ones who happen to be in London. It feels good for once to be tired because I’ve been spending my time trying to fit it all in. I’ve learnt a new word too: orchidaceous.

For the love of England

First run of the year. Running up the hill being chased by my dog, we run parallel until I am an inch ahead of her then she races ahead leaving me in her tail’s trail.

I have been away a lot recently, traversing the country. I have seen sea, tilled fields, rocky cliffs. Once I found myself staying in a fairy tale place with a stone castle stood in the middle of the village. It dates back to the time of early Christendom and is contemporaneous with the Tower of London, I was told. Now a ruin on an escarpment; sturdy, thick-walled, held together by clods of flint. You couldn’t bulldoze it, but it has been worn down over millennia by forgetfulness. 

Some entrepreneurial agriculturalists used its fortified plains of grass to graze their sheep. People looted the castle remains for building materials. Feudal systems waned, industrialisation peaked, people got replaced by other people and they forgot why the castle was built.

ROLO accompanied us on all these journeys to bygone picturesque places around England. We walked as a pack along the white cliffs of Dover. I kept her on a leash as one unflappable guide at the lighthouse at the end of our walk told us a dog ran off the side of a cliff only the other day. No fences. Not at a National Trust site – where talk of carving a giant bust of Vera Lynn was met with grand disdain – for the love of conservation!

Last weekend I found myself staying in the middle of a field in a tastefully converted ginormous farmhouse. Nothing for miles apart one tractor working its engine off. Tilling the land with heavy machinery. Couldn’t think of anything I had less knowledge of. I met a boy that day wearing a T-shirt with a tractor design on its front, and I couldn’t be sure, but these were my only two touchpoints to tractors. Tractors as a symbol for something like toys? Big cars? Horses? And then an actual tractor (with me watching it move slowly across the landscape) hurling piles and piles of dusty earth in its wake. 

What was it doing? I asked the Uncle of the family horde. He said it was probably churning fertiliser into the ground. Oh right, I said. From that point I couldn’t even extrapolate what happened next. Does it have to rain for the fertiliser to work? What then grows? How long does it take? Basically, what steps need to take place before the fruit/veg appear on the shelves of Tesco? I couldn’t tell you. So, experiencing the real tractor in life made me question food supply chains and reminded me of the rising cost of living. How milk now is £1.10 and I swear it was 90p quite recently. Maybe this is just London prices and milk goes up arbitrarily like the cost of pints. I wondered then whether the alt-milk movement was pushing up the price of milk as there was less demand.

I was glad that family weekend offered much free booze and many distracting conversations otherwise my city brain might not have coped. ROLO was also put in kennels for this episode, so I yearned for her whilst the others tempered my flurry of emotions and told me she was having a good time playing with other dogs. Making new dog friends. I texted the kennel owner – Ronnie and he texted back saying she was ‘very nervous’. My extended family are very kind to me.  I’ve learned from watching them and being amongst them that love knows no limits. 

The Kings Arms

The Kings Arms is a pub in Waterloo 

Rating: 3 paws out of 4

Arrived on a busy Wednesday night to a packed pub tucked in the damp alleyways behind Waterloo Station. You can sense there’s a rat at least five meters away from you at all times. ROLO didn’t seem to notice even though she’s a ratter, she was too busy trying not to get trodden on inside this old-time boozer.

An independent pub with an independent spirit. Lots of cask ales and bitters on tap. However, no real refreshing lagers and so, the joint loses a point. 

It was dog-friendly, in the sense that no one seemed to mind the presence of our pooches (ROLO had her mate Echo with her that night). Echo clambered on top of a pile of coats that some women had thrown down next to the bar, in the vein of nightclubs of the pre-pandemic era.

The King’s Arms carried a very English charm and swagger – you know – brass knobs and frayed curtains. There were lopsided lampshades and an old flat-screen TV propped up in the corner that wasn’t turned on. Ceiling fans rotated in ennui overhead at the post-industrial post-imperial landscape. The crowd was older, the music was quieter. There was a humdrum atmosphere to the place. It was the feeling of getting by.

Over yellowing wallpaper hung framed black and white photographs of the Waterloo area. The Cut and Southwark all getting dredged up and built over during the 1960’s. Not usually a fan of pubs with Saint George flags hanging in them, but this one also had a fair amount of St. Patrick’s Day memorabilia plastered on top of warped Victorian glass, which off-set the decor nicely.

They served good Thai food. The bar staff were calm and friendly, fondly cooing over our dogs. I left the pub with a slightly sad funny feeling, like that scene at the end of Mary Poppins (OG) where you see the pigeon lady feeding the birds, something akin to that. Thanks Windmill Taverns, will return with ROLO again!

*

Addendum: During my pub search I came across this gem of an article published in the Architectural Review on the Typology of pubs. Definitely worth a read.

The Sail Loft

For my new year’s resolution, I have decided to go to pubs in London that are dog-friendly. It’s not really a resolution and more of a fun task I’m going to tick off whenever I feel like it. However, to make it a bit more like a game with rules, I’ve made a Google map with lots of dog-friendly pubs pinpointed. When I visit a pub I like I turn the pin into a heart. If I don’t like it then the pin gets deleted. Also, I’ll try and do a little review of the pubs that I heart.

Starting with this one that I visited today in Greenwich called The Sail Loft

Rating: 4 Paws out of 4*

Definitely dog-friendly! The sweet staff asked me whether I’d like a water bowl upon entrance. I said, yes please and they whipped one out and placed it under my table for ROLO in a shot. Great dog-service.

You get a splendid view of the River Thames. There are enormous windows with lots of natural light filtering in, you can even see the spikes of the Millennium Dome (do people still call it that? The O2 sounds so boring) across the river.

The décor is very appealing. Wicker baskets hanging for the ceiling reminiscent of lobster pots. The pub is spacious with a mezzanine. Importantly – it’s not echoey, so the sound of screaming kids don’t bounce back at you harshly. They’re child-friendly as well as dog-friendly. I watched well-dressed families with prams swan through the downstairs pub with ease.

Top marks for cleanliness – I smiled at a lad spraying and wiping down tables as punters left. The bathrooms are big and have cool faucets, they’re made of re-furbished pipes and have a pressure valve handle instead of taps. 

I ordered a shandy lager and automatically it came with Peroni. Fancy. I could read a book quite comfortably in the ambience of this light and modern pub. It’s also five minutes from the Thames Clipper boat service, which takes me home. Perfect.

*because dogs have four paws. Four is the highest rating.

Travelling to Orkney

 

The Caledonian Sleeper was cancelled. We had slogged ourselves to Euston with a full rucksack, folded up pink dog crate, and a dog. Once we arrived the big black departure boards looming over the station hall were blank, so I thought, ‘typical everything’s broken’. Then I learnt there had been flash floods and a small fire had broken out on a track and that all trains were cancelled. Dejected we trailed back home on the Northern Line and the DLR and I booked the earliest train to Aberdeen the next morning. (The ferry to Orkney leaves once every two days so, if I didn’t make this connection then my holiday would be cut short and Granny would be sad.) 

 

I took at taxi at 5:30am the following day with a sleepy puppy. I was worrying about travel, timings and toilet breaks. The first leg of the journey was King’s Cross to Edinburgh. Outside King’s Cross station I walked around the severe green squares hemmed in by tall business blocks and austere coffee shops, waiting for ROLO to relieve herself. It’s mainly construction workers in orange glow and hard hats at this time of day. The humidity of London had brought out many snails, leaving irksome trails of slime along the immaculate buffed concrete. 

 

I managed to stop off for two hours in one my favourite cities in the world: Edinburgh. It was a hot day with clear skies and bright sunshine. Even with a bag strapped to my back and both hands full, I enjoyed walking along Princes Street gardens and gazing up at the hill with a giant castle on top. Edinburgh Fringe memories came flooding back; the excitement of live shows, the familiarity of long walks flyering poor passers-by, being fun drunk, feeling insatiable, stupid youth. 

 

Hopped back on the train at Edinburgh Waverley to Aberdeen, which is a two and a half hour ride. On board, a Dundee granny surrounded by her six or seven granddaughters fed ROLO some boiled sweets. ‘Nan! You can’t do that! Ask first.’ She looked over at me with wide eyes and a gummy grin and I couldn’t tell her off – I’m not that brave. She said, ‘These lot are all my grandchildren.’ I said, ‘wow’. ‘We bin t’Edinburgh to do sm’shoppin.’ With that the rest of the ride was filled with squabbles, shouting, mock tears, laughter, the nan trying to find her mask while being berated by a gaggle of girls who were sweet and screechy and all too much.

 

I made it to the ferry in Aberdeen one hour before departure time! I met a Shetlander along the way who was going home for one day to ‘sort out some business’, very vague and I couldn’t understand every third word he said to me. On board – this was the stage I was most worried about – ROLO had to be put in kennels. I didn’t want to part with her immediately, but dogs aren’t allowed in the interior parts of the ferry, so I sat outside with her on deck. 

 

The sun was out and the crossing was smooth. I found a sheltered spot where it wasn’t too windy and made friends with a man who was born in Stromness and left the islands when he was seventeen. He was returning for a holiday after having sailed the Atlantic in his catamaran with his partner. He had deep characteristic wrinkles and bright eyes, reminding me of a Richard Branson type. Sometimes, I wished I could be an old man with tall tales, rather than drifting into middle-aged womanhood worrying about her wrinkles. 

 

An hour into the journey I had to put ROLO into kennels. I was guided below deck by a uniformed crew member. He unlocked many doors and finally swung open a heavy door into a room of metal cages. One husky was sat upright looking harrowed. The sound of the ship’s engines whirred aggressively in the background. ‘Christ, I didn’t want to leave her in here.’ I put a water bowl in the cage for her, but she scrabbled to get out. I bolted the door and then I was led out. The crew switched off the lights, so it was pitch black in there and the heavy door was locked shut. I wasn’t allowed to see her again until 9pm.

 

Upstairs in the dining room I felt awful while I ate a good macaroni and cheese. Usually, the ferry is bustling with big oil tanker lads drinking beers, parents with prams and kids running around reckless. This time everything was sombre, the bar was only going to be open between the hours of 7-9pm. You could only sit on every other table because of social distancing. No wandering about the boat with drinks. Announcements being made about having to wear masks at all times because we are in Scotland – alluding to Sturgeon’s independent and safer concerns on how to curb Covid-19.

 

We arrived at Kirkwall at 11pm. Dad picked me up wearing yellow trousers, looking happy. ROLO had made it! She was scruffy and wet from her spilled water bowl, but still with a wagging tail and bright eyes. I collected my bag off the trolley and Dad drove us home. ROLO passed out on my trouser leg. I looked through the windows at the islands swathed in mist, or low clouds, parting for us like ghosts.  

Dog walkers

When you leave through the front door with an eager dog at the end of your leash, the whole world opens up like a fair ground. There are things to smell at every street curb, scraps to grab and be yanked away from, chicken bones collected in corners that need to be pulled out from between gnashers. All hell breaks loose out there on the street. 

My dog ROLO is extremely friendly and naïve. She’ll see a dog about a mile away and sit down patiently wagging her tail waiting to be greeted, while the dog and walker go out of view without noticing us. She bounds towards cats thinking they are funny dogs, and even though one time she was scratched by an arching hissing cat, she still excitedly yelps and runs towards them.

She’ll want to play with barking unfriendly dogs who want to eat her face, but she’ll fall back and go in for more expecting a different welcome each time. Even the owners of scary dogs are bemused at her trusting nature. 

That’s something I hadn’t expected from dog ownership – the amount of small talk you exchange with other dog walkers.

Frazzled Bishon Frise

‘Watch out for ‘at small ginger one up’der. Bit my dog and he’s never been the same again.’

‘Oh really? Where do they live?’

‘Two ‘ouses up that way.’

Stalwart salivating Rottweiler

‘My dog’s blind… You’ll have to get closer if you want her to know you’re there.’

‘She’s got such a good nature.’

‘That’s right she’s always wanted puppies of her own. The light-touch maternal type.’ 

Nonchalant German Shepherd

‘Yeah she’s good with puppies – not small yappy dogs. She’ll take it in her stride and let them jump all over her.’

‘Sorry my dog is so in her face.’

‘Nah it’s fine that’s the way little puppies say hello. I heard it’s because of somethink like regurgitation of mother dogs. Like they’re used to licking their mum’s mouth for getting’ food, or somethink.’

We moved house during lockdown and by the time we come out of lockdown (again), ROLO has made more friends in the neighbourhood than us. And I know the names of all these dogs but not their owners, that would go against all dog-walker etiquette. You ask the breed and name of the dog, then perhaps its age and comment about the dog’s appearance or positive behaviour. Then you try and remember that dog’s name for next time when you meet them in the street and you can say very friendly and confidently, ‘Hello ROLO!’ so their tail starts wagging and they jump up to say hello. 

You steer clear of dogs with muzzles and owners who pass you by giving you a wide berth. Usually, the people keeping their dogs under control are standing still on a bank or side of the road, because they know that mid-movement it’s harder to hold a big dog back. They don’t make eye contact but look admonishingly at your dog, waiting for you to pass without any altercations. 

Highly strung English Terrier

‘Dogs are expensive these days they’re going for silly money!’

‘Yeah.’

‘How much did yours cost? Mine was £1,500 and I had to drive 200 miles to go get him. My sat-nav thought I’d gone wrong. When I got there – you couldn’t believe the conditions he was being bred in. My missus wanted to use the toilet and she came back looking upset. She said the floor was completely sticky with mess. The breeder right? had about twenty – thirty dogs in there, and to feed them right? he just placed this big bowl of food in the middle of the floor and they all went for it. Now can you believe that? He’s making good money from each of those dogs and keeping them living in filth. When I first got him home, he wouldn’t eat! He shit blood. I had to pay for medicines and everything. Glad he’s alright now, he’s a good dog. Good breed.’

Dopey loping Labrador

‘You’re training her off-leash are you?’

‘Sort of, we haven’t got re-call working fully yet.’

‘Mine’s a rescue you see, so she’s a little bit jittery. There was a time she was being walked by our old dog walker, Lucie, lovely girl very good, but you see she was walking a few dogs off-leash and there was a loud BANG and that set her off and she went off like a shot. No catching her or calling her back. She ran, do you know the church at Millfield? No? Well she ran up there and did a right at the sports field, carried on northwards to the army base that’s got property guardians in it now, do you know it? Turned left along one of the A-roads and went through a hole in a fence of a school yard and I tell you, if there hadn’t been a barrier up, she would have reached the M1! That poor girl Lucie crying down the phone to me and I said to her that there was nothing that she could have done to call the old girl back. It was good luck that people had seen her running across roads and reported it, otherwise we might never have found her at the rate she was going.’

And I don’t mind standing and chatting with them, hearing their ten-minute routine about their pet because we all have something in common, which is we dearly love our dogs. 

ROLO's secret

ROLO yet again met another one of my gorgeous girlfriends in a park. If any creature has lucked out from these lockdowns then they are pets, up and down the country, who get to spend more time with their human counterparts. ROLO also thinks the only social activity we humans get up to is strolling in parks, whatever the weather. From her point of view humans are overly cautious, staying away from each other, unless their dogs get tangled up in one another’s leashes; animals are allowed to socialise, touch and climb on top of one another, licking noses and paws. Humans are wary and suspicious of their kind. 

I am proud to say that ROLO is now 80% house-trained. The remaining 15% is when she pees herself out of sheer excitement, like during a very involved game of chasing the flat-mouse toy; and 5% when the temperature outside is below freezing and she refuses to leave the warmth of our house. So now when she wants to “go” she sits straight-backed at the door and barks. I hurry over and let her out and she scurries out. If it’s night-time she trots back and forth over the length of the patio, waiting for one of her protectors to come outside to keep guard as she poops. I guess it is a time when you feel most vulnerable.

‘I think I’ve found ROLO’s hobby.’ A tells me as I’m drinking my morning coffee.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Come with me,’ I follow A into our garden, and he directs me to a blueish tinged bush in the flower beds. ‘She’s been digging.’

I don’t see anything out of the ordinary. So, I climb into the flower bed and pull the bushy blue leaves aside to discover a deep hole. A pit. Dark porous earth is piled up on all sides and I think I can see next door’s concrete patio. I’m quite astonished that ROLO’s been hiding this from us.

‘She is a terrier, it’s in their nature.’ I say sounding calm. ROLO is with us the whole time pretending to be interested in blades of grass, playing it cool, but she senses she’s been sussed out.

Later, while scooping up little ROLO’s turds I come back to the bush and look at the hole again. Something has to be done. I use the poop scoop as a shovel and push the built-up mounds of earth into the hole, filling it in. ROLO is beside me and she begins to rage. I shovel more dirt into the hole and pack it down with my foot. ROLO runs about the flower bed ripping up innocent stems and scrabbling at roots. I pick up a disused brick and place it on top of the earth, sealing up the hole. ROLO is incandescent and attacks the pink poop-scoop and bites it and chucks it off the ledge where it hangs. I go back inside and wash my hands. 

After finding out ROLO’s secret, a lot makes sense. Like why she would try to run into the garden with scraps of food she’d grabbed, probably wanting to bury it for later. Some nights I’d be stroking her head and find flecks of dirt all over her snout and ears. I know terriers like to dig, I also read in a dog manual that owners should make digging pits for them, where they can dig to their heart’s content. You should hide things in there too apparently for the dog to find, like treats and toys. 

I know that when you uncover a secret hiding place, another one will pop up because you can’t get rid of the need. I’m wondering where ROLO will next decide to dig. And I’m wondering where my secret hiding place is, and whether I’ve covered my tracks well enough for it to not be discovered.  

Keropee

I went up to the attic and brought down a stuffed toy from when I was a baby. It is Kero-Kero-Keropee, a lime green frog with bulging white eyes and a red thread mouth. I thought it would be appropriate for my puppy to play with because I remembered Keropee’s material being plush and silky, like the outer lining of my sleeping bag, which ROLO loves. 

Kero-Kero-Keropee was an instant hit. ROLO ran off with him clenched firmly in her jaws. Even though the toy is about the same size as her, her strong neck muscles and little legs can carry it over stacked up cushions and small mountains. 

A said, ‘Are you prepared for it to be destroyed?’

‘Yeah.’ She had already ripped apart the fabric of the eye.

‘Soon that fluff’s going to be everywhere and you’re going to have to pick it all up.’ The stuffing from the toy had been pulled out in cloudbursts, and I was trailing behind ROLO picking them up quickly before she swallowed any of it. It was a fun game.

When ROLO had calmed down and was licking herself on her (cardboard) dais, I got my sewing kit out and stitched back together Keropee’s erupted eyeball. So now the frog only has one eye and looks like a monster, but a happy one as the asymmetry really brings out his smile.

Some friends told me I was lucky to have a partner who’d allow me to keep hold of my soft toys from childhood. I agree. My mum carried these soft toys all the way from Japan when we emigrated to England, probably hundreds of them were boxed up and sent via shipping freight. By the time they reached the UK, I am not even sure I played with them anymore. But still she kept hold of them, through house moves and divorce, through my university days and as I started work. Now I have a house to call my own and what’s rightfully mine is bestowed upon me. My bagfuls of soft toys.

I gave away two full bin liners to local families on the app OLIO. I crammed a dozen of my favourites into an oversized blue leather bag, which looks like a magician’s prop. I still couldn’t part with another dozen more, so I wrapped them in plastic and put them all up in the loft. In the hidden area of the house, where I wouldn’t be able to see them or play with them, acting as a safety net in case I ever regress and need them again. 

Thank god for this puppy. I can breathe life back into these old toys and see them out there – being torn up and loved anew. Finally, being played with after decades of being forgotten. 

ROLO

Lying next to me is a very small dog. Her hind legs remind me of chicken wings, her paws are like those of teddy bears; made up of three lines of brown thread. Her ears are folded over her furry face like Toblerone triangles and when she sleeps her face looks like a seal pup. 

‘She looks just like a seal with her whiskers and wet nose.’ I say as I hold the tiny sleeping thing on my knees.

‘Are whale babies called pups as well?’

‘No. Whale calves. I guess they do look more like baby cows.’ I watch over her as she twitches and fidgets through her very active REM cycle. Suddenly she’s scrabbling like she’s chasing a scent over faraway fields. She was bred for hunting vermin and came from working dog stock from the Lake District. Her breed temperament is fearless, tenacious and stubborn; unlike normal dogs she was bred to work alone, so is quite happy left to her own devices. But as a puppy she clings to warmth and comfort, and cries if you go out of her line of sight for too long. Just like a baby.

In one week she has gained a third of her body weight. This is good news because she is filling out to be more like a terrier and less like a teddy bear. For the first week when there were rainstorms and sleet, she shivered at my feet in the garden as I forced her to go for a whizz. Now she associates the outdoors with something cold and terrible, when really it is her natural habitat. At first, she was too small to climb the wooden step up to the lawn, so A helpfully placed a brick for her to use as a step. The next day I found a cat had shat directly on top of the brick, so I had to hose it down and move it back to where it was less conspicuous. Today ROLO can bounce and clear the jump up to the lawn without the help of us or anything. To witness such an increase in ability is incredible.

I also think her eyesight, or could it be her spatial awareness – was pretty poor when she arrived at our house. She was likely afraid and felt less confident to roam (not like now one week on when she’s sniffing out every corner and boldly marching up to the front door) and so, her world was much smaller then, comprised of a crate, food bowl, and the treacherous outdoor toilet. 

As her world has expanded there is a door at the end of the kitchen leading into the utility room which has remained shut. Primarily because it contained mops and buckets and bleach and washing up liquids. But from behind that door comes the growls and gurgling of washers and toilet flushes, and the strange smell of paints and solvents, a bag of fresh compost and her all-time favourite toy: dustpan and brush. The tiny dog waits at the end of the kitchen, with her head cocked to one side contemplating the secret room. Wondering what mysteries are in there and what the monster is that spins and shudders all night long.