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i.m. Boaz
1 July, 2002 - 30 July, 2012
Some ten years ago, baffled and irritated by the acquisition
of a dog for my son Caleb’s sixth birthday, I wrote a piece entitled ‘What’s
the Point of a Dog?’, sent it around, and found that commissioning editors to a
man and woman were obviously dog owners.
No-one wanted my wise words.
I was non-plussed. The article seemed to me eminently sensible.
Dogs were a hassle weren’t they?
They had to be
walked, groomed, fed, cleared up after, prevented from frightening small
children, trained, and found a home for when one went away. But then one could
say exactly the same for one’s children (and at least dogs don’t answer back or
say “No!” and stamp their feet). I cannot now for the life of me remember what
was specifically troublesome about
having a dog.
This morning our
dog was put down. Riddled with lumps of
cancer in his abdomen, anaemic, and lethargic almost to the point of unconsciousness,
with no appetite and a “seriously disfigured liver”, Boaz had come to the end
of his days, threescore and ten dog years after his birth, and the point of a
dog becomes clear. A dog is a vessel for
the unspent affection, the love, that is so often hard to bestow on one another. (It strikes me that maybe this is an affliction particularly affecting the shy British, which might explain our reputation as dog lovers). Our grief at the death of our dog made us dumb, but also breathless with sobs, and was real.
I daresay this
will be considered by all the non-commissioning editors out there as rank
sentimentality. Ten years ago I would
probably have agreed with them. However,
it was ever the case
that it is more blessed to give than to receive, and this is especially so of
love. Dog lovers tend to warble on about the faithfulness of dogs, but
frankly dogs would be damned foolish not to be faithful to their principal food
source. I have never doubted that Boaz attached
himself closer to my wife than any other member of the family because he knew
damn well he was more likely to get a tidbit from her than from the rest of
us. Then again, my wife is chief of the
Wheldon pack, and a good dog always follows its leader.
So, yes,
whenever other members of the family either are not present or do not deserve
affection, for one of any number of reasons, there is the dog to receive
it. Boaz, a larger-than-usual Tibetan
terrier, was particularly suited to the receipt of love, for he was shaggy and
handsome, with a thick black coat marked by streaks of brilliant white on his
chest (his ‘bib’), head, and the tips of his tail and one paw. He was good-natured except when he had fearlessly
hunted down his own food, such as half-finished yogurt pots or misplaced
packets of digestives. This once meant
our cleaning lady Elena’s sandwiches.
She received a nasty nip attempting to retrieve them, and had to phone
for help because Boaz took up guard of said sandwiches by the front door and would
not let her pass.
It is thought
that dogs are ‘clever’ but I never saw that particular quality shining in
Boaz. He seemed to me to be a bit
dim. This was often in truth because he
could not see very well, his shagginess often obscuring sight. He was occasionally stubborn, refusing to
move unless bribed. When walking he
would invariably be behind, sniffing, examining, scenting, and if you called
him to catch up, he’d trot towards you, but only so far. He was very much himself. (On those rare occasions when he walked in
front he would sometimes affect a mincing gait that was frankly excruciating).
He occasionally
went missing, although he probably would not have called it that. He had simply wandered off, following one
bouquet after another, with no sense or indeed need for destination. The
frightful hollowing out of one’s body that comes with a child gone astray, and
the rising sense of panic, made itself felt on these occasions in only slightly
diminished a form. One’s negligence in
allowing such a thing to happen was awful.
Such
self-recrimination was a symptom of our need for an object to love that would
happily accept that love, requiring nothing in return other than food and
shelter and the occasional throwing of a ball. In a
family a dog acts as a bonding agent. He can be the subject of talk (including
argument, fantasy, drama, and so forth), and the cause of laughter (frequently so
with Boaz) which is the most powerful of all adhesives, but chiefly he can be
the resource for otherwise unspent affection.
And as the scientists now attest, being affectionate is good for
you. One way or another, dogs make life
better.
Boaz was
company for all of us, in both different and similar ways, and we are lonelier
without him, closer to each other in our grief, and further away without his
adhesive presence. He was a real, physical being, a tame animal, a peata, to use the Scottish Gaelic word,
which feels more appropriate than the mere ‘pet’.
For of course
as well as all the mollycoddling and stroking and laughing a dog provokes and
inspires, he will also take you out walking into the world. This is the single
thing I am personally most grateful to Boaz for. He showed me Hampstead Heath, and, mawkish as
it may seem, we shall spread his ashes there, in that benign, tame, handsome and gently mysterious
place which suited him so well.