The new dog and I are not speaking. This situation arose after a difficult morning when my wife was not at home, and the new dog chose to spend its time harassing the old dog, chewing up a pair of unmatched shoes, a phone charger and, while my back was turned, a £20 note. Then while I was telling it off the dog leapt up playfully to bite my admonishing finger, and I said some things I shouldn’t have.
This dog, which will happily use up a spare 15 minutes barking at its own reflection in the glass of the back door, has apparently developed a nascent ability to hold a grudge: it’s lying on a jute rug staring at the wall, resentful of having to share the room with me while I work at the kitchen table. I am also resentful, but I don’t dare leave the new dog in a room by itself, or with the old dog, for any length of time.
The front door opens and closes. The dog’s ears lift. The kitchen door opens and my wife walks in.
“That was a nightmare,” she says, meaning the traffic, or shopping, or something. The dog runs toward her, nearly turning a back flip along the way.
“Hello!” my wife says, reaching down to scoop the puppy up.
“We’re not speaking,” I say.
“Who isn’t?” my wife says.
“We’re not speaking because some of us think it’s OK to chew, and even partially consume, the personal property of others,” I say.
“Have you been very bad?” says my wife as the dog licks her face.
“And some of us don’t,” I say.
“Did you chew his shoes?” my wife says. “Did you chew his shoes again?”
“They were your shoes,” I say.
“Oh,” my wife says.
“Also, you’re 20 quid down,” I say. This isn’t true – plastic banknotes are pretty indestructible – but if I hadn’t intervened it would be in the dog, and therefore unspendable.
Afterwards I take my laptop across the garden to my office shed to get some work done. Instead I fall asleep in my wheeled desk chair, waking only when I find myself being pulled across the room by one of my shoelaces. All is forgiven, apparently.
In addition to the long walk the new dog gets every morning, my wife also insists on an afternoon street walk – around the pavements of the neighbourhood – to aid acclimatisation to strange sights and sounds, random social situations and all manner of unscripted encounters. I have to go on these walks, because the acclimatising is primarily for me. The new dog also has to come, to give the old dog a break.
The old dog and I had a similar approach to the street walk: let’s keep our heads down and get this over with. We were both ready to cross the road if an undesirable social situation could possibly be avoided.
The new dog, on the other hand, is excited to meet anyone who happens to be heading in our direction. A surprising number of people are equally thrilled to meet a crazed puppy coming the other way. A less surprising number are, shall we say, not that psyched. I can tell one type from the other from 50 metres away. The dog cannot.
“What’s your puppy’s name?” asks a smiling woman who is crouched at my feet as the dog dives into her handbag.
“Um, it’s Jean,” I say, gathering up the slack in the lead.
“Jean!” says the woman. “Lovely Jean!”
“Sorry about that,” I say.
“That’s all right!” says the woman as she stands up. “Nice to meet you, Jean!”
I think: I also have a name.
My plan is for these daily street walks to get a little longer every day, but such is the stress involved I invariably cut them short, so they all end up the same length.
“How was that?” my wife says when we reach home a mere half hour after setting off.
“We saw a baby, and a plastic bag,” I say. “Also an Asda delivery, eight dogs, two cats and about half of year three coming home from school.”
“Did she like the baby?” my wife says.
“She tried to get in the pram with the baby,” I say. “But the plastic bag was the highlight.”
“See?” my wife says. “It’s good for you both to get out.”
“I really don’t think it’s good for me,” I say. “But it tires us both out, so that’s something.”
Behind my wife I can see the dog sitting in the middle of the lawn, lead still attached, eviscerating a chair cushion, pausing occasionally to watch the tufts of white stuffing float off on the breeze.
