We always had a dog at our house. The first one I remember was a dark-coloured German Shepherd / Labrador mix. His name was Kim. Kim ran away and we (the kids) were heart-broken. I remember spending one whole summer wandering the area shouting for him, trying to find him. My parents weren't so bothered about finding him and I often wondered if they knew where he was but didn't actually want him back.
Back then, it was common for dogs to roam loose and I knew most of them and wasn't bothered by many.
Kim came back a couple of times, covered in the worst-smelling stuff you could imagine. It took a week of washing him to get the stink out of his fur.
Then he ran away again… (must have been all that bathing).
The second dog was also a GSD/Lab mix.
We’d not had a dog for a while and I remember my mother telling my father, “No. No more dogs. It’s me that has to look after them. No. More. Dogs!”
So one Saturday evening – we were watching Jason and the Argonauts on television, my father came in from wherever he’d been til then and he didn’t even look sheepishly at my mother.
He took this bundle of golden-coloured fur from his coat sleeve (I think the pup had wriggled down his sleeve, I don’t think he’d have put it there on purpose).
“Here kids, what shall we name him?” he said.
My mother stood up, glared at him and without a word, she went into the kitchen.
My father left the puppy with us (me and my brother and sister) and followed her into the kitchen.
We weren’t shocked that they started arguing, we were too busy making friends with the puppy and working out a good name for him.
“What’s his name then?” my father asked when he’d had enough of the argument.
“We’re calling him Jason because that’s what we’re watching on the telly,” I said.
He looked at the television, then at the dog and went and changed channel. One of the popular Saturday shows at that time was The Generation Game with the host, Bruce Forsyth.
The puppy was called ‘Bruce’.
Thinking back on these memories as I do since I started writing them down, I realise that if he’d been in the room and suggested ‘Jason’ as the dog’s name, that’s what he would have been called. It wasn’t the fact that ‘Jason’ wasn’t a good name, it was the fact that he hadn’t chosen it… or more to the point, I had.
Sometimes memory is more than an image played like a mini-film in my head. Sometimes it’s a smell or even a feeling.
At certain times of the year, I can just sense that Autumn is almost upon us, it’s the subtle tinge in the air, a slight yet sharp coldness to it, especially first thing in the morning. Then there’s the smell of wood smoke in the air, a sure sign that Autumn is approaching, but oddly enough, it’s only when combined with the cold, slightly damp feel.
Toward the end of the summer holidays we would start collecting firewood for the bonfire. ‘Guy Fawkes Night’ is our pyrotechnic display night here in England. We’d always have a bonfire on our back garden. I suppose the reason I was allowed it was that we were right on the end, no garden to the right of us as you looked from the house. Plus, I vaguely remember never asking if it was ok…
Bruce was my dog. He followed me everywhere and I trained him – not very well, I grant you, but he would fetch a ball or a stick every time, he’d sit and walk very nicely to heel when on a lead.
He also liked fighting other dogs.
One Guy Fawkes Night – probably the first one Bruce encountered – my father had lit the fire and was setting fireworks off. All the animals were inside – cats and Bruce the dog. The fireworks were kept just inside the back door because of safety. We were allowed to fetch one in turns. The back door couldn’t be locked because we were running in and out.
He’d just lit one firework and we all stood back and Bruce opened the back door. Just as my father left the lit firework, Bruce dashed out, picked up the lit firework and brought it to my father, sitting very nicely right in front of him to present it.
At the top of the street, there lived a huge GSD and he and Bruce disliked each other on sight – territorial I suppose.
I went up to the shop and left Bruce waiting outside. I was just about to pay for the things I’d fetched when there was an almighty ruckus outside. Bruce and his arch-enemy were going at it hammer and tongs, bits of fur and lumps of spit were flying, people were shouting and yelling and I, a scrawny 10 year old, pushed my way to the front, took hold of both dogs by the scruff of their necks and dragged them apart.
As you can see from the picture above, he wasn’t a small dog and I was considerably younger than the picture when the fight happened.
A few days later, Frank, the owner of the shop collared me and told me he thought I was either very brave or really stupid – he hadn’t decided which.
I didn’t always come off lightly in battles between the dogs.
Next door to us had a Jack Russel terrier called Sandy.
From Google Images
While Bruce was a pup, they got along famously. They played and went everywhere together.
Sandy used to keep Bruce in check by snapping at him if he got out of line. I suppose instinctively, Sandy was giving Bruce the idea that he was always going to be the Alpha.
That worked out ok until Bruce decided it was time for things to change.
They were fighting and people were shouting and yelling for them to stop fighting – has that strategy ever worked?
I ran in and took hold of Bruce’s collar to drag him off.
I’m not sure whether Sandy resented having to be rescued or just blindly went in for a throat-strike, but he bit my hand quite badly and I had to have a tetanus shot.
That was when I found out I really do not like needles.
(I was going to put up a generic picture of a couple of dogs scrapping and quickly decided that wasn’t a good idea).