Something horrid happened today.
I did not go with Mark when he took the dogs out for their morning walk.
After a little while he came back, and Roger Poopy’s father came back, but Roger Poopy did not, and Mark was very cross indeed.
He told me that they had had a happy enough walk. The dogs had charged about and played with some others, and they had come to heel when he had called them, and everything had been well.
Then just before they set off to come back, a man came along with his black spaniel.
Roger Poopy loathes black spaniels. He had a serious fight with one a couple of years ago, after which he has decided that they are all the embodiment of risen-from-the-underworld wickedness, and should be exterminated from the planet.
This poor harmless black spaniel was ambling along contentedly, sniffing at things and enjoying the morning, when Roger Poopy hurled himself on it, teeth and claws flying, and tried to tear out its throat.
Fortunately he did not manage this.
Mark, in his turn, hurled himself on Roger Poopy, and dragged him away. He got hold of him by the scruff of the neck and walloped him.
Roger Poopy fought hard, bit Mark and pegged it.
The other dog was not hurt but its owner, quite reasonably, was very cross indeed.
He was not as cross as Mark.
We could not find Roger Poopy.
We hunted everywhere. We went to the park and to the Library Gardens. We went to the camper van and to the vet, but he was nowhere to be found.
In the end we gave up and went home.
Mark’s temper was not improved by having wasted half of his day. He said grimly that he hoped somebody had stolen him, although of course they hadn’t.
A couple of hours later Roger Poopy came slinking guiltily home, probably when he thought Mark might have forgotten.
Mark had not forgotten.
He wanted to take him down to the black spaniel’s house and beat him up as thoroughly as he could next to the black spaniel, in order that Roger Poopy would know for ever that black spaniels were to be so feared that you must not go anywhere near them. You do something like this with sheep chasers, and on the whole it works fairly well.
I said that I thought the man whose black spaniel it was might not like this very much.
Mark knew that this was true, and so he did not do it after all.
He said that we cannot put up with this any more, and that next time he attacks somebody else’s dog we will have to shoot him.
I do not want to shoot Roger Poopy, but I know that Mark is right.
This was what happened to his mother, who was an incurable sheep-killer. There must, we thought, be a genetic trait there which makes them delight in chasing and killing. When Roger Poopy goes to the park he is not interested in chasing balls. He likes to chase other dogs that are running after balls, but he does not want the ball. What he wants is to run the other dog down and knock them over. Mostly he is not trying to hurt them, but it is not nice. It is easy to look at it and say that he is playing, but he is not. He is rehearsing a chase to a kill.
He would make a very good gypsy dog.
The thing is, Mark said tonight, we could not even give him to somebody. He is an aggressive little dog. He behaves nicely because he is frightened of Mark, and of me, but if somebody gentle takes him out, he will not do what he is told at all as soon as he realises that they are not going to growl at him if he misbehaves.
You cannot have a dog that must be kept for ever tied up. That is unspeakably unkind. Equally you cannot allow your dog to be horrible. The poor black spaniel today was dreadfully upset.
Mark beat Roger Poopy up today. I hope it has frightened him enough that he remembers it for a very long time.
It was a terrible thing to happen.
