wag bark love

Woman who walks with the dogs

We moved from Bath to the surrounding countryside when I was four. It wasn't exactly a culture shock being only a mile from where we'd been. Bath isn't much of an urban sprawl.

Still, it formed my environmental character. I am and will always be A Country Girl.

Even before our move I'd spent summers striding out across Cheshire fields - in a three year old way - behind my grandfather and his red gold Labrador (whose name was my first word).

Now, decades and many dogs later, a walk feels incomplete without at least one four-legged companion. The best I've had were across the Wiltshire Downs with four at my feet. Walking those ancient paths with my little pack brought to the surface something equally ancient in my psyche.

These days, treading the land with a slightly podgy Jack Russell and an ageing Corgi cross whose sight is on the wane...well the romance may not be there but the love overflows. Memories of the places we've been travel with us. We are where we have been.

Because of the company of dogs I experience things more fully while we're out. They are my bridge to a richer version of nature. I'm in tune to our whole, not just my self. I'm aware of wind direction for example, the slightest sound (often vicariously), the lifting of a head, the twitch of an excited tail, trails and tracks, hidden pathways through hedges and yes, the joy of the breeze in my face filling my head and heart with the world around us. I get down at ground level to see what they see (and often to photograph it, I confess). I don't yet hang my tongue out. As tongues go, mine's a bit pathetic.

At five, I moved to the village that lies a mile from my current home. The fields between here and there were my playground, my companion then our black Labrador - the best childminder ever. My very favourite thing, still vivid in my memories, was to stand in the stream with her, watching shallow water run over our feet, paws and the gravel beneath. Just yards from this desk is a higher point of that same stream and yes, I often find myself in there. Sharing the space with eight small paws. Feeling life wash around us and on and on.

Soul Dog

So I have two dogs. Jackson is an eleven year old Jack Russell. He is my heart dog. But Jackson's story is for another day.

Nellie Bean? Well Nellie Bean was born the same week as my birthday (I'm not sure which day so she shares my birthdate) in 1996 to a mother who was half Border Collie and half Whippet. Her father was a local dog who’d had his wicked way with her mother and he was, I figure, a Corgi. Nell has the physique of a Corgi x Whippet and the mind of a Corgi x Border Collie. You spell that c.r.a.z.y.

Spring '97 and I'm moving house to live with my brother.The night before I move I realise with great joy,"I can have a dog!" and the next morning I buy the local free ads paper. (I know, bad me. Should've gone to a rescue centre. Now I know better but I'll never, ever regret finding my Bean.) I find a little ad for a 'Collie cross, female, good with kids.' She's 10 months old.

I ring and speak to an old guy  who says I can come and see her that morning and he'll, "try to catch her".

Interesting.

Enlisting my mother, who will drop anything in order to go and find a new dog I set out for a place called Hornblotton, some 50 minutes from where I live. In the back of my car are a new dog bed and a red rope lead. Just in case… y'know … this is the dog I'm looking for. Just in case.

In my mind she's quite small, with a longish, feathered coat. Maybe tricolour. Pretty.

Well now. I found their home in a field. Not a big field. There were two very old, small caravans in the middle. One had some plastic kids’ toys outside in the mud - a slide, a sand pit – and some washing on a line. On the other side of the car track (literally, car tracks in the mud) were heaps of rotting vegetables. A small enclosure made of old gates tied together in a square, contained an old hut on one side and as many young cattle as they could squeeze in at the other.

An old single horse box, open and tipped up, was home to a sheep and her lamb. Another old hut had a tiny fenced-in enclosure at the front, which housed about half a dozen Lurchers, all of whom came out to stare at us. That's sighthounds for ya. Finally there was a stable, just a large shed really, with a pile of manure that reached almost to the roof against one side of it. There were, we were assured, a mare and her foal inside.

As we'd pulled into this field, goggle-eyed, standing in the middle of the car track was the strangest creature I had ever seen. I remember exactly what I said: "What. The hell. Is that?" In that moment we both realised that it was the 'Collie cross'. Only she looked more like an emaciated cousin of Bambi. Huge ears, no tail, tan and white, big eyes, sticky out ribs, about knee high at the head. We got out of the car and she ran at an amazing speed to a far corner.

Out of the caravan came a big, elderly chap with a flat cap, glasses and a walking stick. He told us that he'd been trying to catch her for over an hour. He was clearly not happy, ever, and the dog was terrified of him (she still flinches at old men with walking sticks). While mum started talking to him about the, er, rural setting, I walked over to see the little dog. She ran behind a pile of old cabbages and flattened herself to the ground. Crouching down, I reached out a hand and whispered to her to come closer. She started to crawl on her belly towards me and looked me straight in the eyes. That's when I saw the wonder of who she really was. That's when I knew she was coming home with me.

A car pulled in and a young woman got out - the daughter. She called the dog, who ran up and leapt into her arms. That made me feel better. She told me that they'd sold this puppy to someone who’d left her alone at home all day, never taken her out and then complained about her behaviour.

Because that's not how dogs are supposed to live, they'd bought her back from the erstwhile owner, maybe, and now she was looking for a proper home. She'd had shots - a vaccination record was handed over (with a description of a dog that sounded nothing like this one) – and they wanted £40 to cover her vaccinations and other costs.

"What does she eat?" I asked. The woman just pulled a face and waved an arm across the field. "She likes to go into the lamb's bowl and eat its food," she said, as if that was hilarious. No wonder this baby was so skinny; she was just fur over bones. While we talked, her mother - who looked like a starving little Border Collie - continually threw an old cabbage at our feet and waited for it to be thrown back, a behaviour I was to see every day from then until now. Only not with a cabbage. My girl prefers a Kong.

I asked what the pup was called. She had been Tina, now she was Lucy. Neither of which I liked for her. I paid them their £40, slipped the red rope lead around the dog's neck and we drove out of there with a wheel spin; pup sitting on my mum's lap all the way home.

Mum's husband was waiting for us in the village pub with a couple of friends. When we walked in, jaws hit the floor. "What? Is that?" they all asked. Sweet dog took turns sitting on people's laps. She sniffed around and panted and danced on the spot and generally looked as if she'd landed on Mars. Clearly nothing she could see was familiar to her and she was very anxious.

"What's her name?"

"I, er, I don't...um...she's Nellie. Nellie Bean. She's my Nellie Bean."

And she is. Jackson is my heart dog but Nell is my soul dog. This was just the beginning of the story.