Dog’s life

The dog has suddenly worked out that if she barks her head off in the middle of the night somebody will drag themselves wearily out of bed and release her from the hall where she is imprisoned with the puppies, and allow her to go outside to gallop around the garden like an idiot for a few minutes.

By somebody, obviously I mean Mark, who took pity on her when he realised that my approach to her distress was to roll over in bed and shout at her to shut up.

By the third occasion of distressed barking, even Mark’s massive supply of kindness was getting down to the final dregs, and she was ushered back into her basket with some dreadful threats. This bought us some peace and quiet until about nine, when the puppies woke up and the children woke up, and so we had coffee and they all came to visit us in bed.

Nobody went over to the camper van today. We stayed at home and I made mayonnaise and Mark washed up, and we hoovered and tidied and Mark kindly cut the cushions down to fit inside the cushion covers. The girls went to the gym, and Harry came over to kill zombies with Oliver, and everybody played with the puppies.

The puppies spilled out of their box all over the living room carpet, which we had to spray with disinfectant afterwards. The thing is that they don’t want to wee in their bed any more, so when they want to wee they clamber over the edge on to the floor.

This is fine if we are supervising them, because we can just pick them up at the crucial moment and pop them outside the door, but if we are not they can’t hold on for any longer than about three seconds, and a mishap happens. Mark said that we will have to put some newspaper down, but of course we don’t buy newspapers and so we will have to ask around the neighbours.

Despite the occasional little accident they are very entertaining company. They have acquired a vocabulary of electric-toothbrush growls and tiny barks, which make us all laugh whenever they try them out. They can get out of their box to explore the world now: and have just about mastered a heavy-pawed clumsy scamper. This requires so much concentration that they can’t look where they are going at the same time, and their mobility is punctuated with uncomfortable sounding thunks as they accidentally dash into chair legs.

The most solid of them all is a black one, which you would not wish to drop on your toe, and which bulldozes its way through the others with a determination which throws new light on the word ‘dogged’. Mark has called it Tonka, which suits it very well.

It is possible to spend a great deal of day playing with puppies, I popped in at home this evening to find Lucy arrived home from work, sprawled out on the living room floor with tiny enthusiasts tugging at her hair and woofing excitedly. We took the little black and white one round to visit Rose in the dress shop in the village today, because her dog has just died, and she has a fondness for puppies. Of course she made all the right cooing noises, and we left the puppy with her whilst we went to the ironmonger, and when we came back it was surrounded by a little knot of admiring customers who had forgotten all about buying dresses. It smelled of perfume for quite a while after that.

We fed them on the end of the chicken today. They don’t have any teeth so they can’t chew it: but they can suck it, and they did with enthusiasm, eight tiny tails waving ecstatically as they all stuck their noses in and made slurpy noises.

It is lovely to have a nest full of puppies. They have the enormous curiosity and joy in life that comes with baby things. Already I am worried about their leaving, that gorgeous puddle of life and warmth will be scooped apart and those tumbling, affectionate brothers and sisters lost to one another for ever.

I can’t bear to think about it yet, maybe we will be able to find homes for some of them in pairs, the two ginger ones are already inseparable.

We shall light some candles to whichever kindly God looks after new puppies on their first steps into the world, and hope for loving homes that wouldn’t ever leave a tiny puppy all alone at night.

Also the sort of homes that are easy-going about carpets.