08-05-2013, 03:32 PM
Hell on 4 Paws - A Story of love ,life and chesil the Delinquent Dogs
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1
Trouble on a
frosty night
I KNEW I loved the man, but could I ever learn to
love his dog? This was just one of the negative
thoughts running through my head at 3 am as I stood
naked in his garden, acutely aware of the deep,
rumbling growl of a dog somewhere very close by. I
couldn’t see her in the gloom, but I knew she was
near enough to do some serious damage if I
continued to advance.
I hadn’t expected to be outside when I had come
downstairs or I would have put on some clothes. My
dog Spider, a large and lovely Beauceron, needed
to go out to the toilet and had woken me by resting
his head gently beside me on the bed. So I had left
Grant sleeping and had come downstairs, half
asleep myself, and opened the back door. Spider
trotted out and Chesil, the newly arrived
Chesapeake Bay Retriever, seizing her opportunity,
had bulldozed her way past me and disappeared
into the garden with him. Spider quickly returned and
I waited patiently for Chesil to come back in. I called,
and I waited, then I called again … and waited.
Eventually, already a little chilled, I ventured out into
the pitch black, freezing cold night air to see where
she had got to.
Although Chesil was new to us, Grant and I had
been together for nine months and I knew he was the
person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I
have always had better relationships with dogs than
humans, understanding them in a way that seemed
second nature. Humans, on the other hand, with their
power to deceive and be intentionally cruel, I was
less comfortable with and I struggled with issues of
trust and commitment. Grant had been different from
the rest, soothing my worries and creating a place of
safety where I wanted to stay. When we met, I knew
that he had been what I was looking for. He was kind
and communicative, with a strength of character that
had matched mine, allowing us to form an equal
partnership. He had a deep laugh that I could locate
him by if I lost him in a building, and an easy smile
that had me hooked from the first moment. We had
been inseparable since that first meeting and there
had been a nine-month window where everything
had been tinged with the all-encompassing
happiness that comes with new love.
There were issues, of course, as there always
had been for me. One was his house, which he had
bought soon after I met him. He had moved out of a
delightful, old-stone rented cottage, which I loved and
felt at home in, into what I labelled the ‘retirement
home’. It was a large house, built for a retired couple,
in its own plot of land in a lovely village, but the style
was one I associated with old age and
grandparents. Technically, there was nothing wrong
with the house, but it didn’t seem to fit Grant or our
future life together, and I felt uncomfortable and out of
place there. Even a good makeover couldn’t save it
and I resisted settling down there, despite Grant’s
frequent invitations to move in. So I commuted every
day, from my house where I worked, to his house
where I lived and slept. I kept few possessions there
and so every weekend packed up vast amounts of
belongings that I might need, like a homeless
person, together with Spider who always went
everywhere with me.
Another issue, of a more recent nature, was
Chesil. Stinky, aggressive, bad-mannered, annoying
Chesil, an unwelcome relic and reminder of Grant’s
previous life, who had arrived into our relationship
like a tornado. She was now somewhere out there in
the darkness. I couldn’t just leave her as she couldn’t
be trusted not to escape from the garden – I knew I
had to brave the cold and dark to go and get her
back in so we could all go back to bed.
Outside the back door, the garden is lit by a
warmth-activated light. When it sprang into life as my
warm, unclothed body, now rapidly losing heat, went
past, I could see that Chesil was not in the main part
of the garden, which meant that she had gone round
the corner of the house where it is darker. Thinking
that it would be a quick job to get her back in, I
padded along the back of the house, my bare feet on
freezing cold paving, hoping that the high fences
would protect my modesty from any neighbours who
happened to be awake and looking out of their
windows at that time of the night.