In the bitter gloom of the new year, my semi-hibernating brain produced this feeble logic: I like looking at dogs in the local park, therefore I might like walking dogs around parks. As I say, it was cold. The sofa and I had become one. Signing up to a dog-borrowing website, one of several in the UK, I posted a quick profile and soon enough met a local co-owner of a small dog, Barney. This crossbreed of many types of terrier was mostly uninterested in the encounter. Still, the following week, I took Barney out for our first solo walk. And this short outing transformed me, instantly, into a dog lover.
Barney was immediately captivating up close: the way he launched into the world, twitchy snout first; the way he suddenly stopped still to track a scent in the wind; his loud snuffling as he sniffed the ground, one paw raised in the air. I liked how he bounced through grass and trotted along paths, how he flipped from clownishly comedic one moment to sleek and graceful the next. I was, in short, smitten by the sheer doggyness of this dog.
