The Puppy That Came for Christmas (14 page)

I e-mailed the column to the newspaper along with a photo of her wearing her Helper-Dog-in-training coat, staring into the camera with trusting brown eyes.

I sniffed back my tears. Before the new puppy arrived I had yet another hospital appointment.

 

At the hospital I sat for ages in the Obstetrics waiting room, where every second woman seemed to be very heavily pregnant. When I was finally seen, my doctor announced that she wouldn't be around for my next appointment as she was going on maternity leave. I looked down at her belly area. I didn't know why I'd never noticed before, but she had a distinct bump.

“This is the best I've seen so far,” she said, as she scanned me to see if the follicle was growing inside me. “Make the most of it.”

She gave me a meaningful look. She didn't know my heart was breaking from losing one puppy and worried about gaining another. Sex was the last thing on my mind.

“You'll be seen once every three months from now on,” she said. Despite the good things going on inside me, I didn't think this sounded too promising—maybe they were cutting down on my appointments because there was no point in me coming more often. Time had been against me from the start, and now it seemed as if they were letting it pass without effort.

“But I could . . . I could still get pregnant, couldn't I?” I said.

“Oh, yes,” she replied. “All you need is that extra bit of luck.”

I sighed. Luck was in such short supply.

As I left the hospital I wondered how Emma was getting on. I hoped she wasn't confused and sad. I hoped the dog trainers at advanced training would be kind to her. Then I started to feel sorry for the new puppy, guilty that I wasn't almost bursting with excitement as I had been at the thought of Emma's arrival. Poor little thing: he was going to be leaving his mum and his brothers and sisters for the first time today. He'd be feeling frightened and confused too. I decided to go to the pet superstore and buy him something nice to play with. We'd almost completely exhausted their selection of toys with Emma—she'd had the ones she liked and spurned the remainder—and the prospect of buying more new treats to make a new puppy happy almost gladdened my heart.

There, in the giant pet store, I found Liz wandering the aisles, eyes red-rimmed from crying. She'd had to give up Eddie today too, and as soon as she saw me, she started to cry again.

We gave each other a big hug and then consoled ourselves over a coffee at the next-door café.

“He was such a good little boy,” she said. “It's so hard to let him go.”

“How have your children been taking it?” I asked. Liz had three boys aged seven, ten and eleven.

“Not as badly as me,” Liz said. “I did lots of explaining when he first came to us about how although he was staying with us for a while he wasn't really ours and would have to go away after a few months. I think it helped that I used to work for a dog-sitting service, so they've seen dogs come and go in the past—although none like Eddie, of course. This morning there were a few tears, but mainly hugs, and then my youngest, Tony, asked me when the next puppy would be arriving even before Eddie was out of the door. Kids!”

She sniffled and smiled at the same time.

“I haven't stopped crying since he left, but I've managed to be ‘sensible' Mum in front of the kids. I've got to get myself together for when they get home from school.”

I left the pet store with Liz, having bought my new puppy a soft furry blanket to sit on, a snake toy (because it had been one of Emma's favorites) and a very soft blue-and-white stuffed dog.

When I got home, Jamie's van was outside our house. Either he'd brought Emma back, which was highly unlikely, or the new puppy was already here.

“Meet Mr. Pup-Pup,” said Ian as he opened the front door, plonking something completely unrecognizable into my outstretched arms. A bright almost-white wriggling little furry fluffball, more like a miniature polar bear than a puppy, as different from Emma as could be.

“Hello,” I said. “Hello, little puppy.”

At eight weeks old he was a lot more boisterous than Emma had been when she first arrived. He twisted and turned from back to front, nibbled at my long hair and then licked my face.

“His Helper Dogs name is Freddy,” said Jamie, giving Ian a look.

“Mr. Pup-Pup,” Ian mouthed at me and I tried hard not to grin.

Jamie and Ian had been entertaining Mr. Pup-Pup for the past hour.

“Why didn't you call me and let me know he was here?” I asked.

“Because we thought you'd be back at any minute.”

“I went to buy him some toys from the pet shop and I met Liz there.”

“How was she?” Jamie asked.

“Tearful.”

I might have been tearful too, but it was hard to laugh and cry at the same time, and Freddy, wriggling in my arms and yapping his tiny puppy-dog yap, was winning the battle.

I put him on the floor and he scampered around and then ran back to me.

“Has he come far?” He didn't seem at all tired from his journey.

“No, Summer Road,” Jamie said. That explained his energy. Summer Road was only just over a mile away. “It's the breeder's first litter, and she got in touch to ask if we might be interested in taking one or two of them. There were two boys we thought looked promising for us, but this one was better at retrieving—although neither of them were all that enthusiastic. Little terrors, weren't you?”

Jamie's attention had been drawn back to the furball; it was difficult to keep your eyes off him—he was just too bouncy and cute. Jamie wriggled the toy rattler in front of Freddy, and Freddy pounced on it as if he was a kitten and shook it with delight.

“No good at doing what you were supposed to when I wanted you to,” he said to the dog, who was now growling and playing tug-of-war with the subdued snake. “But then that's puppies for you. Anyway, he's yours,” said Jamie, standing up decisively, dusting himself down and taking his leave.

I shut the front door as he retreated, while restraining the pup and making a mental note to ask Ian to get the stair guard out of the loft. Then I gave Freddy (or Mr. Pup-Pup, as Ian insisted on calling him) some of the food the breeder had been giving him along with a small amount of Helper Dogs' puppy food. He scoffed it all up, and I took him outside to use the toilet area, but it was all too far and too much for him, and he'd weed on the lawn before he'd reached it.

After that, we went back inside, and fed, watered and tired out, he fell fast asleep on the rug.

“He looks so sweet,” I said. “And he seems so confident for such a young puppy.”

Half an hour later Freddy was awake, recharged and ready for more fun and games, with the boundless energy that puppies have. Then a quick sleep, then more games, but when it came to bedtime he didn't want to go into his crate, which we'd placed on the floor of our bedroom. He barked, whined and bit at the bars with his tiny teeth and scratched at the floor in distress, and I simply couldn't stand it. With so much heartbreak already in the day, I didn't want to see him sad on his first night with us. He was such a little boy and he'd only just left his family; it was his first night away from home and all he'd previously known.

“He'll calm down,” Ian said. “He'll tire himself out and fall asleep.”

But ten minutes later Freddy still hadn't calmed down—if anything, he'd got worse.

“I can't bear it,” I said. “Let him out of the crate. He can sleep on the floor for tonight.”

It was totally against what Helper Dogs advised, but I opened the wire door anyway. Freddy was delighted, his tiny tail wagging wildly.

Ian made him a little bed on the floor.

“That's it, night night, Mr. Pup-Pup. You sleep there.”

But Freddy didn't want to sleep on the floor. He started yapping and crying and trying to scramble on the bed. It was almost midnight and Ian rolled over grumpily. He had to be up at five for the long journey to London and work.

I climbed out of bed and carried Freddy downstairs to the garden. Once there he raced around and did a wee, ran back inside and nosed around, then had a long drink of water.

Above us I could hear the sound of Ian sleeping, fortifying himself for another commute and a long day at work. He worked so hard to support us and he really needed his rest. I pulled out an old blanket from the cupboard.

“We'll sleep down here tonight,” I told Freddy, who seemed to think this was an excellent plan. I lay down on the sofa and Freddy curled up on the floor with his blue-and-white soft dog toy and fell fast asleep. Staring at the unfamiliar ceiling, with a sofa cushion behind my head and the light angling strangely through the room, I listened to Freddy's little snuffles and snores and hoped Emma was sleeping well wherever she was.

 

Jamie wasn't pleased when I told him Freddy hadn't slept in the right place.

“You must start as you mean to go on,” he said. “Freddy has to get used to sleeping in his crate at night. First of all in the bedroom and then downstairs.”

The next day I tried to encourage Freddy to go into his crate by putting tasty treats inside, but he was having none of it. He was small enough for us to easily put him into his crate, whether he wanted to go or not, but it seemed very cruel, and we then had to listen to him whining and crying and barking to be set free.

“You have to do it,” Jamie said. “It's part of a Helper Dog's training and the sooner he gets used to it the better it will be all around.” He couldn't understand why Freddy should hate his crate so much. For most dogs the crate is a hidey-hole, a private space and a sanctuary—and it has the bonus for the puppy parents that it protects the furniture from gnawing teeth when they were busy or out of the house.

 

Reluctantly, we put Freddy into his crate that night, and I forced myself, despite the anguish it caused, not to listen to his yelps and whines telling us he didn't want to be there. Over the next few nights, Freddy responded by weeing or pooing, and often both, in his crate, and then lying in it so that in the morning his white fur was a completely different color. Ian became expert at showering the dog, and I at disinfecting the crate, as each morning I came down to find a bedraggled, penitent-looking puppy in desperate need of a clean peeking out from between the bars.

“He'll soon get used to the crate,” Ian said, but I wasn't so sure.

Jamie phoned shortly after 7 a.m. on Freddy's second Saturday with us.

“Jo has had a family emergency and needs someone to look after Elvis for the day. I can't do it. I've phoned everyone I can think of, but nobody's around. I wouldn't normally ask, not when you have such a young puppy there, but . . .” He tailed off.

“Of course we can,” I said.

He dropped Elvis off twenty minutes later. It wasn't usual practice to put older and younger puppies together because of the physical mismatch, which could tire the younger one out, but as soon as Elvis came bounding through the door Freddy let him know who was in charge. Elvis tried to help himself to one of Freddy's toys, and Freddy yapped at him and chased him into the garden, where Elvis promptly gobbled up a puppy chew Freddy had left. Freddy chased him back into the house yapping all the time. This was his house and he was boss—albeit a quarter-sized version.

After a while I became concerned that Freddy might get exhausted, so I asked Ian to keep an eye on him while the older dog dragged me down to the river for a walk. Freddy wanted to come, but he hadn't had his injections and had to stay home. It was a relief to let Elvis, bigger and stronger than any dog I'd ever walked, off the leash. He gamboled ahead, but never too far, and then came gamboling back to see if I had a treat for him. He'd bounce forward and back, tail wagging for a treat, but then he disappeared: one second he was running ahead, the next he'd tripped over his own paws, performed a sort of somersault and landed in the river.