Lassie, come home
(Buddy and Lassie the greyhound: Glasgow, Scotland)
For the first time, I took care of a dog overnight. That doesn’t mean I killed her, I mean I actually looked after her, in a way. There were a few unexpected occurrences that transpired in the eventful twenty-four hour period of my watchfulness. These probably resulted from lack of knowledge, but let’s call it inexperience. I made Liz, the owner, draw up a humiliating list of Lassie’s daily routine, including walkies, feeding and ablutions. From the schedule, it appeared that Lassie would emit solid matter once in any twenty-four hour period. She managed to defecate three times, none at the designated time. I realise that dogs are not clockwork, but I expected some sort of routine. I must hasten to add that though you may read on and find her behaviour at points deplorable (or simply canine) that she was immaculately behaved when all of this was not going on. She is a sweet creature, just inclined to be rather greedy and needy.
A rather embarrassing incident occurred here, in the home of my friends, Ian and Suzy. One of the dogs weed on a rug in the spare room. One would suppose the blame rests with myself and Lassie as the unknown quantity, but the plot thickened since their dog had had an impromptu accident a few days before. There was no way of telling at the time, though we were led to believe it was Buddy since his sheepish expression and quiet retirement into a corner belied guilt. Later we realised it was more likely Lassie. We left in a state of shame and confusion – I took the time on the way home to tell her how naughty it was to wee in someone else’s home. I added that I had also seen her eat some of Buddy’s food and I was not impressed by that performance either. When I got back to my own flat, I scoured the entire place for any gifts she might have deposited without my realising. When I discovered none, I was both relieved and even more ashamed of my (albeit temporary) ward’s conduct indoors.
Things reached fever pitch at 4:15am. To illustrate, I had spent an exhausted evening in my bedroom on the telephone to family with Lassie underfoot. She had curled up in the middle of my floor and fallen into a deep sleep. I woke her at around 11pm when I left the room to brush my teeth and she padded along after me and nearer to the dog bed in the hall. I should make it clear at this point that Lassie barely left my side for a second, except presumably to urinate in the centre of someone elses rug in someone elses home. She followed me around and that’s when I caught her out. She wandered back into my room and seemed to be eyeing up the bed as a possible sleeping area for herself. I called her out, slid past her horse-like stature to close my bedroom door, denying her access. I do not let just anyone sleep in my room – or bed – even if they are canine. Especially if they are canine. What if she had a nightmare about vets or demon hares and woke me with her wet nose prodding my face in the night? What if she barked in her sleep and gave me heart failure? What if she ate all my drawings? These thoughts weighed heavy on my weary mind, so it was easy to shut the door on her, reassuring her with words and a patting hand to her head. All was well. There were sounds of her trotting about the hallway and the splooshing of lapping water, but that was all. I heard nothing else and I fell deeply asleep.
Then 4:15am came and I woke to the shock of whining coming from the hallway. “Dear God!” I thought to myself, “There’s a dog in my house!” As the fog of sleep cleared, I remembered that tonight she was my dog and it was I that had let her in. I glanced at the time, panicking then that I had slept in, and I opened the door a little. Lassie positively bounded in, licking my hands, knees, pyjamas, everywhere and leaping up to reach her tongue to my nose and face. I tried to soothe her by resting my hands on her back and by speaking to her, but I was only trying to calm myself. She stopped and stood to look at me, stock still. I began to pull jeans over my pyjamas, imagining her to need to go outside, but she peered on, inquisitively and then wandered to the other end of the room, lay down and made a show of going to sleep. Half into my denims and shocked into being completely awake, I began to remove the jeans again. I pulled the dog bed into my room, but far from the bed as possible and convinced her to lie on it. As an afterthought, I also pulled in the filing system with the water bowl perched on top*. There. She has everything – including being exactly where she wants to be. I can only assume the entire fiasco was either loneliness or the worry of being left in this strange place. Either way, I lay there in the dark, wide awake and feeling brittle, listening to Lassie’s lip smacking and water drinking, then her sighs. Eventually, to top it all off, she began to snore. I was not truly aware that dogs had an ability to snore, but Lassie commanded her lungs very well. Fearful of wakening her lest she urinate, bark, whine, etc. I simply lay there. I finally nodded off after dawn sometime and clawed back some of the night I had lost.
*I learned that greyhounds are built in such a way that they cannot drink at ground level; their food and water have to sit a foot or more off the ground.
– Today Rosie is drawing and sorting out lots of things in Glasgow, Scotland –
