Once, when I was smaller, there was a dog called Patch. He was our childhood friend, a Jack Russell with a personality and presence ten times his size. He taught me a lot.
Not Patch, but as close as I am going to get.
Lessons like:
- If you take the dog to the shops then you should expect to bring it home, not wonder where he is two hours later and run a mile to find him waiting patiently.
- Trust matters. I grew into doing big walks as he grew old and started to lose his sight. I know that now, about his sight I mean. I might have known it then, but I didn't understand. I thought, perhaps, he’d miraculously learned to walk to heel at 14 years old. That miniature powerhouse that had strained at the lead to front up the pack and finally, in old age, fell back. I see now see what I couldn’t then. He could still do 10 miles IF he stayed close. He couldn’t see, but he could still connect.
- Escorting us children to school was his favourite job. He’d sneak out the back so no one knew he was coming and show up at the classroom door with all the kids screaming “it’s your dog again”. I didn’t know I was supposed to be embarrassed. I was just proud that he came to collect us or that I was trusted to save the teacher's sanity and walk him home.
I loved that dog.
Then there was mum and dads dog Jess. Jess got sick. Stephen took her to the vet. Dad was sick too and the vet said “she’s not in pain and she has a job”. It was looking after dad. She did it brilliantly. Dad and Jess left the world on the same day, proof if nothing else, that that dog was that man's best friend.
I loved that dog.
Then there was Candy, mums King Charles Cavalier. She came. She held space left by dad that I wanted to hold that for mum, but couldn’t because you can’t make good a loss that big. She was good at it and she came closest to helping. Her gift was unconditional giving, but only constantly.
I loved that little fluff ball.
More recently I started filling my life with fur.
Patch’s legacy.
I bought Marley from a photo. He was broken and I knew so little about horses I loved him in spite. I was told he wasn’t good looking animal, his face looked beautifully sculpted to me. I was told his confirmation was atrocious, that he looked like two horses slung together in the middle. He looked perfect to me, so perfect that his brokenness, when it couldn’t be mended, still took me by surprise and broke my heart.
Mila came to repair it. Mila has a fierce and bright attitude to love and life. Her terms! “If you want to be around horses I am going to teach you to woman up”. I lived in awe of Mila’s energy and vivacity and spent a year running to catch her up until she decided her job with me was done and it was time to go home.
I love that Orange Warrior Queen.
Jessie the cat came to stay. Jessie is the archetypal scaredy cat. She left home for a month to go on an adventure diet. We thought she’d gone forever. Lisa and Ian gifted us Custard cat to fill the hole and, with a feline role model, Jessie returned. So now they both live with us. Jessie the scaredy cat and Custard the Welsh Valley Therapy Cat.
Custard watches everything. She thinks she’s a dog. She comes in the car and she sleeps on our bed when we are tired or sad. How does she know?
I love those cats.
And then there’s Reggie, the elephantine equine who ought to be called BIG for all the time I am advised “he’s BIG” when people meet him. So as I don’t come across as romanticising or anthropomorphising he knows his size and he will use it if he feels threatened or if he thinks the humans might eat his food. Not so chickens. He will share with chickens, just not people.
Reggie’s job so far has been to lead me to a new understanding of communication and to unveil my misperception that connection, communication and relationships start and end with homosapiens.
What a blind, arrogant and ignorant numpty I’ve been. One after another they’ve tried to teach me and one after the other I failed to learn. Maybe Reggie got through because he’s too big to ignore?
I should have seen it. Jess (Lauren's horse) and Roger (Lauren's horse) have carried Lauren unconditionally and in more than just a saddle through storms unnavigable for a mum and maybe even a human. They have my gratitude for that.
I have been reading a lot about cultures that don’t make the mistake of assuming separation or that consciousness is bound to homosapien. I see their wisdom. I wish I had it.
I wrote this today because a friend prompted me to write and then I read a story that my phone randomly slung me via Facebook about an elephant that spent 50 years in human servitude. he was shackled by the legs and made to perform for money. The shackles were barbed.
When the elephant was rescued he cried. Tears. I don’t know why it surprised me, but it did. The story has a happy ending. He’s been learning to trust people again after 27 abusive owners. More generosity that I could ever muster.
So, homosapiens are the ones who understand consciousness, relationships and connection?
Dear Dear Patch, I wish I could turn the clock back, walk home again from town with you just once, chugging away with your tongue lolling and your right ear and eye glued to my left ankle. I can be your friend so differently and so much better now I can see you, even if it is only in my minds eye.
You were so brave and so much fun. X
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