Tea and Dog Biscuits (21 page)

Our drive is on a slight incline. The people's car goes slowly up the drive, taking what has become our dog away from us. Always, he looks out of the window, staring back at us. What is happening? Who are these people? Where am I going? Why are you sending me away? You are the people who cared for me – why are you now sending me off?

The car turns out of the gate and travels along the village street, usually a hand or an arm projecting from the window, waving back at us.

We watch the car disappear out of sight in the distance. Then we stand for a few moments with our thoughts. Then some encouraging comment or other. ‘He was happy to jump in their car, wasn't he?' or ‘He was pleased to see them again, wasn't he?' or ‘They're lovely people – their vet spoke highly of them.'

But usually we've met them only two or three times before. Strangers who we had to judge. People we had to trust with one of our homeless dogs. People we had to believe when they said they would look after him.

‘You're the most difficult people in the world to get a dog from,' we were told by a vet – not our Melissa. He had sent some people to us he thought would provide a good enough home, but we didn't. He meant it as a criticism – we took it as a compliment. ‘We don't want to just find a home for the dog,' we would say to prospective owners at our first meeting. ‘We want to match the home to the dog and the dog to the home: a home that suits the dog and a dog that suits the home.'

Charlie had been there at one of our meetings. ‘You're like a dating agency,' he said.

That made me smile at the time, but afterwards, when I thought about it, I felt he was right, although Dorothy said that in the type of homes we place the dogs with, they became part of the family, so we were more like an adoption agency.

We wanted something for our dogs, a home, but we had to recognise that for the people coming to us we also had something that they wanted: a dog. Young Mr Frank and his live-in girlfriend felt they had room for a big dog as their house had a garden 300 yards long. I decided to drive round there to have a look. Mr Frank was prone to exaggeration in his eagerness to acquire a pedigree German Shepherd dog: his house was on the seventh floor of a block of flats. And Miss Turpin lived alone and wanted a dog as a companion. Her local dog warden said she had four kids under five and their last dog had a ballpoint pen pushed in his ear by one of them.

Today we were to roll the dice again for one of our dogs and hand him over to his new home. And this time it was to be after all the hours spent sitting with him, after all the bathing of his wounds, after all the visits to the vet, making sure he'd had all his tablets, the agonising slow progress, the gradual covering of the hips and the backbone and the ribs with a thin layer of flesh. This time, after all those months, it was to be Friend we sent away up the drive.

We hadn't seen Charlie for weeks and then he turned up two days running.

Although from time to time I would see on the roads other white vans bearing the words POLICE DOG UNIT, there was no mistaking Charlie's van. Winter in our locality saw tractors and huge trailers carting potatoes and sugar beet off the fields, the massive tractor wheels scattering mud on the rural roads for cars to spray on to one another. It wasn't somewhere to live if you liked your car to be always clean and shiny. Dorothy and I thought a muddy look suited our old Volvo estate, and Charlie obviously felt the same about his dog van. When he pulled up on the drive today, the lawyer in me noticed that his rear number plate was obscured with mud, contrary to the road traffic regulations. But then Charlie never struck me as the sort of policeman who was hot on motoring offences. In any case, when he got out of his van he didn't look to be in his bonniest mood, so I decided not to wind him up about the offence he was committing. His frowning face prompted me to ask immediately if I should put the kettle on.

‘They dragged me all the way over to some place I'd never heard of – 30 miles when it's chucking it down with rain – and it's a total waste of time.' He slammed the door of his van. ‘It's a break-in – the lad had run off and they want Ivor to follow his trail. How can he follow his trail when they've put their big boots all over it?' He coughed a couple of times then took out his packet of Golden Virginia.

‘Got Ivor with you?' I asked.

He ignored the question. ‘You was gonna tell me yesterday where Digby had gone.'

‘I forgot, didn't I, in the excitement of meeting Ivor.'

It had been remiss of me not to make the effort to keep him in the picture about Digby. Not only had Charlie willingly presided at our first naming ceremony but our ex-guard dog from a car breakers' yard had been named in memory of a particular police dog.

I made up for the omission with tea and chocolate digestives, seated round the fire.

‘He went to someone not too far removed from your line of work. In fact, he takes over where you and Ivor leave off.'

‘Works in hospital, does he?'

The joke made me smile. It also brought back to mind what Charlie had said yesterday about Ivor preferring to bite someone rather than not biting them.

‘Do you want that last biscuit?' Charlie asked.

I shook my head.

‘I was on tenterhooks yesterday about getting him out because the brass is afraid all the time of getting sued, you see,' said Charlie. ‘Although what's putting the wind up them most about my lad is when he runs after and catches a villain who's legged it. Once I set him on after some bloke, that's it.'

‘Brilliant.'

‘Yes, but once he's got hold of ‘em when I call him off he goes stone deaf. He will not let go. Don't worry me, but it worries my Inspector.'

I could see that would worry his Inspector.

‘And he likes to chew ‘em up a bit.'

I could see that that would worry his Inspector even more.

‘And today, of course, any excuse and they'll sue. Anyway…' Charlie paused to suck the end of a finger and use it to pick up biscuit crumbs which had dropped onto his tunic. ‘… Digby?'

‘Digby was adopted by a guy who works in a prison. He's rung me loads of times since. He idolises the dog, he absolutely idolises the dog.'

‘So he should,' said Charlie. ‘Terrific dog.'

‘He starts work at six o'clock in the morning and he gets up at half-four to give Digby a walk before he goes to work.'

‘Good man.'

‘Of course at weekends Digby still expects to go for a walk at half past four in the morning.' ‘Well he would.'

‘Yes, but he pulls the bedclothes off the bloke.'

‘I knew that was a bright dog,' said Charlie. He stood up.

‘You off?'

‘That was Dorothy's motor I just heard on the drive, wasn't it?'

‘Yes, but you don't have to run off because—'

‘No! I've got something to show you – I've been waiting for her to come home. Out in the van. That van's got two dog compartments, remember?'

And that was how Millie came to us.

I took a photo of Millie that day she came in, standing in the middle of the lawn. When I showed the photo to people what they saw was a classic German Shepherd female: black and tan, pointed ears, alert expression. And Millie liked to pose. For the photo she had adopted the ‘Shepherd stand'. Owners and breeders who compete with German Shepherds at shows hope their dog will impress the judge by standing with one back leg extended beyond the other. So any devotee of German Shepherds who viewed the photo was full of admiration for the beautiful female depicted.

But really the photo revealed what a failed photographer I was. It didn't show Millie's most striking – and astonishing – characteristic: her size. Nothing in the photo indicated that Millie was the tiniest German Shepherd I or anybody I knew had ever seen. The perfect German Shepherd in every way, with all the personality traits of the breed: intelligence, eagerness to learn, wanting to be with you, and a guard. But a very, very small guard.

‘Some people rang into the office and offered us a German Shepherd they didn't want any more. The sergeant sent me along to have a look and I nearly threw up. Barrie, the place – it stunk. It absolutely stunk.'

‘Do you think she's a runt of the litter?' I asked.

‘I don't like that word,' said Dorothy. ‘She's small but perfectly formed. And Millie's got an advantage over other German Shepherds.' She squatted down, wrapped her arms around Millie and scooped her up. She stood up smiling broadly. ‘You can pick her up and cuddle her!'

Charlie opened the door of his van. ‘Couldn't leave her there, could I? So I told ‘em we'd take her. They were as thick as I don't know what. Fed her on table scraps.' He pointed at her. ‘No wonder she's so thin. She was eating tomato skins when I got there.' He got into his van.

‘Charlie, do I take it that you're leaving her with us?'

‘Yeah, but of course they don't know that. They think she's gonna be a police dog. They want me to send a photo of her at the Passing Out Parade. If I took her back to the Unit and said I was gonna spend £10,000 training her as a police dog it would be my Inspector who passed out.'

I went into the utility room, closed the door behind me and sat down on the floor.

‘I've got something to tell you, Friend. That really nice young woman you met the other day… you're going to go with her today. And you're going to live with her for the rest of your life.

‘You and I have spent a lot of hours together in this utility room, haven't we? I've come to quite like sitting on the floor.

‘Because I love you so much I can't be here when you leave. I don't want to see you go up that drive, giving me that look that says, Why are you sending me away? Hannah will care for you and love you like I do. And she'll be able to give you the time I can't.

‘This is your big day. It's the start of your new life.

‘God bless you. I'm going to go now.'

‘Hello, I do hope you can help. My husband's a self-employed builder. He went into a house to do some repairs and there was a dog there.'

I already had enough experience of such phone calls to speculate on what this morning's caller had done next. The people said they didn't want it any more and gave it to him? Or the dog was neglected and her husband took it away from them?

‘I think it's an Alsatian – but you don't call them that now, do you? Neither of us know much about dogs – we haven't got one, but I think it's an old dog.'

I took a deep breath. I had learnt by now that the problem with taking a dog from people to whom it didn't belong was that they would know hardly anything about the dog or, more likely, nothing at all.

‘He seems ever so friendly but, bless him, he doesn't walk right. He doesn't go in a straight line, if you know what I mean. But of course we didn't know this until we'd untied him.'

‘You untied him?'

‘Yes, he was tied up. I don't recognise the code for your number and I think you must be a long way away but we're hoping you'll take him from us. We can't possibly keep him, although I've already started to get attached to him and we've only had him two days.'

‘Did the people you got him from tell you anything about him?'

There were several seconds of silence at the other end of the phone.

‘I've just realised I've explained this badly. There was nobody there. The people had moved out three days before.'

‘Is that the place that takes in dogs?' began my second caller of the day.

‘Er, yes.'

‘My boyfriend give me a dog and I don't want it – will you take it?'

Struggling to hear what the girl was saying, I pressed the phone hard against my ear. In the background I could make out the sound of young children shouting and screaming and adverts on the telly.

‘Er… can you tell me a bit about it, please?'

‘He's give it to me as a Christmas present – I don't want a dog. I've got enough to do with two kids.'

‘Do you know what breed it is? Do you know how old it is?'

‘There ain't any papers with it but it looks like an Alsatian. It's only little so it's not very old. He got it from his mate. I could bring it tonight if you can take it.'

I sighed. The old boy found tied up in the empty house was on his way to me right now and she wants me to take this one tonight… And it's Christmas next week – not a good time to be trying to find a home for a dog.

‘STOP IT! LEAVE IT ALONE!'

I nearly dropped the phone.

‘Sorry about that – the kids are driving me mad. The dog keeps taking their toys and playing with them! It's doing my head in!'

I sighed again. Christmas or no Christmas, perhaps we should take a second dog today.

The phone was ringing again, minutes later.

‘Hello!' I heard from a voice full of enthusiasm. ‘I hope I've got the right number. My friend says you're the people who rescue pooches.'