What I have: a golden cocker spaniel. His name is Oscar. Some of you have met him, either here or at some of the festivals around Ireland and the UK to which he’s been dragged. He’s a willing drag-ee, mind you; he loves people and flirting with them and getting tons of attention – I’ve never understood the idea that dogs grow like their owners.

What I don’t have: a garden. That means numerous trips to the patch of waste ground at the end of the lane we live on for “busy” (the trainer said to pick a word, and “busy” is less embarrassing a thing to shout at dawn than “c’mon, crap” or “makey wakey poopy doopy”. This last is said by the kind of people who buy their dogs t-shirts. You will never see my dog in a t-shirt. Unless there’s money in it for me). He sits in the doorway of whatever room I’m in and lowers his head below his shoulders, so he looks like a dog-vulture hybrid. A dulture. This dulture stares up at me – loudly, if you can imagine that – until I hear his staring and say the magic word. Once I’ve said “busy?” he leaps up and runs to the door, panting and circling on the spot as if he hasn’t been taken out, ever. He’s great, but he’s an ungrateful wretch with a short memory.

A dog without a garden needs a lot of structured exercise. Duh. The guys building next door’s extension used to call them our “marathon walks”. An hour is hardly a marathon. But he gets a full hour a day of hot, off-lead action and stick throwing and socialising, and more later if I have time. An hour’s the least a non-garden-dwelling spaniel should get, so he gets at least that. In the summer, or on crisp, snowy days like we’ve had recently, it’s a joy – but right now, it’s a mud-bath out there. This is where the definition of true, unconditional love comes in.

Non-dog owners think that picking up dog poo is the biggest sign of love a dog owner can express. You wouldn’t pick up any other kind of poo; it must be love. But you’d never pick up that poo without a bit of plastic between you and it (and if you would, they have sites for that kind of thing – you might make some friends) and it has to be done quickly. If you stop to think about it, you’re a goner. You just flip it into the bag, tie a knot in it and try to forget what you have in your hand while you anxiously scan for a dog poo bin. Once, a man passed, saw my bulging bag (matron) and said “Blackberry picking?…Oh, God!” He’s not saluted me since and it’s usually very friendly round here.

No, the poo thing is all over in a flash – even if you’ve run out of bags and have had to roll it into a nearby hedgerow using sticks and the biggest leaves available. It’s done. You can get on with your walk. But mud is the real test of your relationship with your dog. Mud will push you to the limits. It has pushed me to mine.

Somehow, even in the height of droughty summer, Oscar will find the only muddy pool for 100 miles and wallow in it like a hippo. It sticks very efficiently to his long, curly fur. Every passer-by helpfully cries “Muddy!” when they see him. Yes. Yes, he is. Thanks, Captain Eyeballs. Right now, when the whole of the British Isles seem composed entirely of sludge, he just has to set paw outside the door and he comes back gloopy from head to tail.

This means that he has to be rinsed as soon as I get him home, so the kitchen (his point of entry)  is foot-deep in paw-prints. There are three – three - dog towels on the go, all draped and drying from the day before. It looks like a stable. No point washing the floor every single time: he will have to go out again in a few hours. The shower drain is clogged and I have to pour that stuff down it occasionally. You know, that unblocky stuff that can’t be trusted although it always has trustworthy names like Mr This or Handy That. All I know is, it works. I shall question it no further or I’ll have to consider what’s in it.

And so, as I ready myself to sweep the kitchen for the umpteenth time today (you have to let the paw marks dry, then you sweep up the all-pervading dust lest it pervade all), I calm my frazzled nerves thus: this, my friends, is love. Love is a spaniel under the radiator and a brush in your hand.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 5th, 2010 at 8:47 am and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.