Small Dog

 

I admit I have plotted against the dog next door. It is a small, wiry, yapping thing.

I hate it.

The nextdoor’s back door opens at about seven-thirty every morning and this grubby white beast bounds down a narrow well worn path it has etched into the lawn and then jumps the low wall into my garden. It lands in my vegetable patch. It then poos where I had hopes of growing peas and carrots, and then it wees against my leeks.

Later, flies rise from these heaps and buzz. Even worse are awful moments when I’m gardening and I have failed to notice a recent deposit.

The people next door must realise exactly what their dog is doing when they open the door at seven-thirty in the morning. They haven’t opened the door for their dog simply to take the air, they have opened the door for a purpose. They can see exactly what direction their dog takes every day. Indeed they must have taken some pride in the fact that their dog never left any mess in their own garden.

What a thoughtful dog!

And they must have caught the occasional glimpse of me scooping up its droppings and then throwing them onto the ashy fire heap with less than delight. So I guess they must have realised that I’m not exactly Pudsey’s number one fan.

My neighbour looked into my pond a few days ago. She was with a friend. They looked into the clear waters for some time and I realise now what they were really looking for.

The pond is doing really well. The tadpoles are voracious eaters. They have gobbled up all the blanket weed, and now go frantic if any fish food floats over their heads. I seem to have got the piranhas of the tadpole world  in my pond. They are fat beasts with long sinewy tails that they wave in the water like small pendants. They are 90% gummy gums that occasionally bask upon their backs opening and closing their mouths as if hoping for a heaven sent feast.

The other day, I had been absentmindedly watching them when my neighbour said,

“You’ve got a lot of tadpoles.”

She startled me, I hadn’t heard her approach.

“Yes,” I said, as I scrambled from a kneeling position to my feet.

“Have you seen, Pudsey?”

I look at her blankly.

“My white dog. My little dog,” she raises her voice like you do whenever speaking with the enfeebled. “My little white dog.”

“No,” I answer, “Is he missing?”

I am innocent of any crime, but instantly I realise that I’m already their prime suspect, and suddenly I feel very guilty indeed.

“I let him out, at seven-thirty this morning, like I always do, and he never came back.”

“I haven’t seen him,” I answer, hoping that she can’t see how much I’m inwardly cheering.

The woman looks beyond me to the other gardens she has allowed her dog to freely trespass.

“He can’t have gone far,” she says. “He can’t have gone further than that fence over there.”

She has obviously decided long ago that particular fence would form the boundary of little smelly Pudsey’s domain; and I feel annoyed that she has not been the slightest bit concerned about the feelings of those affected by  such  little Smelly incursions.

I have never once complained about her dog and what he does in my vegetable patch, but perhaps she can read my thoughts because she suddenly says, “He’s such a little rascal.”

I glance back at my house, the back door is wide open, he have could easily have run inside. He has been inside before. I half expect him to bound out as I look. I must confess that I had earlier thought that the next time he trespassed inside  I would open the front door and let him out that way, to take his chances in the wilder world, in the hope that he would disappear for good, but I had dismissed it as a fanciful idea, and knew that I would never have gone so far no matter how much I disliked their yapping dog. A dog that barked at me whenever I stepped outside to hang up the washing, and which ruined my peace if ever I sat outside to read a book.

“He’s been missing before,” she tells me. “But he’s micro-chipped, so we got him back.”

My heart sinks.

“I’ll keep a look out,” I offer dejectedly.

“Thanks she says.”

And then I’m left alone in the tranquil peace of the garden, guiltily hoping that Pudsey has found a happier home somewhere else, somewhere far away, and that he will never ever return.

It is then I look again at my piranha tadpoles and their opening and closing mouths, and see how their bellies are fat and bloated, as if a small dog has recently chanced to fall amongst their midst.