The Puppy That Came for Christmas (24 page)

“If you want to have a Helper Dog, you have to have a garden and I so wanted to have a Helper Dog. I kept on and on at the council and finally I got moved to a different flat, off that awful estate. Now I enjoy being at home, as there's always company, and I also enjoy going out. If I see a group of teenagers coming towards me, I don't think they're up to no good—I expect them to ask me questions about Ollie. Everyone wants to know about him and he loves all the attention. Don't you?”

Ollie put his head on Sally's lap so she could stroke him more easily.

 

On our second day back, we tried to phone Rachel to see how Freddy was getting on, but there wasn't any reply. I left a message and then drifted back to sleep in a haze of jetlag. The next thing I remembered was being jolted out of a deep sleep by the phone ringing again.

“Meg, it's Jamie. How was the trip?”

I removed the hair from my mouth and told him all about it.

“You'll never guess what's happened and who I've got here with me.”

Instantly I thought something was wrong.

“Freddy . . .” I said, panic rising.

“Yes, but don't worry!” said Jamie. “He's living with me now.”

Gandalf and Freddy had been unable to stop playing, even at night, and were too much of a handful for Rachel. She'd had to walk them separately, which meant that she was walking for four hours a day, and, on top of that, they were so overtired that they were getting bad tempered—although not with each other. Reluctantly, she'd asked Jamie to re-home Freddy, but he hadn't settled there either, so eventually Jamie had taken him in.

“Shall we take him?” My spirits leapt. “Do you want us to have him back? Ian would be over the moon.”

“No, no, no,” Jamie said, “Helper Dogs would kill me if I did that. It definitely seems to me he's going to make the grade. Freddy is fine with me and Frank. And you won't believe this, but he and Queenie get on like a house on fire.”

It was hard to believe, but if any dog could get on with Queenie then it would be Freddy. Time and again he had proved he could play with any dog; really, he could play for England. With his charm and bounciness he'd converted even the most awkward dogs into playmates—the two St. Bernards aside. There'd been a Dobermann called Elsa at his obedience classes, whose owner had held on to her protectively throughout the class. Elsa had seemed very nervous of the other dogs, but after the class, in the play area, where they'd gone to do their business, Freddy looked at Elsa, gave a puppy play bow and danced around her. At first Elsa just watched, then she suddenly gave a little bark to show that she wanted to play too. Elsa's owner was amazed.

“Elsa never plays with other dogs,” she said. “She's been frightened of them ever since she was attacked when she was a puppy, but she likes your Freddy.”

Jamie had spotted this good trait in Freddy. Now that Freddy was boarding with him, Jamie took him to all the training center classes and put his talent to good use.

“He's helping me to teach problem dogs how to interact properly with other dogs if they don't know how to do so,” Jamie said. He sighed. “I wish I could keep him—he'd be a real help at my classes—but Head Office is going to take him shortly.”

I think everyone who met and got to know Freddy fell in love with him. Freddy was really no trouble to anyone, but Jamie was being given the runaround by a new batch of puppies, which I met on my first visit back to the center.

“I'm not sure about these four,” Jamie said, shaking his head at the impish, totally cute Labradors that had been donated to Helper Dogs. “They're the most stubborn, in-your-face puppies I've ever met.” The puppies were stopping overnight with him and Frank on their way up to the new Scottish satellite center.

Sometimes dogs are too timid and nervous to make successful Helper Dogs, but these new puppies didn't have that problem. If anything, they were too hyperactive, willful and easily distracted—not good qualities for Helper Dogs, but, at least, traits they might grow out of as they matured.

I looked at the wriggling, seething balls of fur in the crate in the office.

“Oh, Jamie, they're just puppies!” I said as I picked up and cuddled the nearest one.

“I can't convince you to take one, can I? I'm sure the Scottish center wouldn't mind.” Jamie smiled, in the vain hope that we'd acquiesce. “They're little scamps, the lot of them, and I'm worried that if we don't get the best puppy parents involved, they won't pass their tests.” He sighed.

Flattery was a good tactic, but it wasn't going to work on me today. I was getting ready to pick up Traffy in the morning.

The next day, in the dark, chill December morning, Ian drove us over to Marion's, the convertible looking forlorn in the cold, its heater struggling to cope. I had the softest of soft small blankets to hold our puppy in on the way back.

Marion's three adult Golden Retrievers came to greet us at the door. The fourth generation, all eleven puppies, were beautiful, lively, funny and just adorable. Marion pointed to one of the boys.

“The people who were going to take him let me down at the last minute,” she said. “So if you'd rather have a boy you'd be welcome to have him instead. He's got a fine head and could make a great show dog.”

We didn't want a show dog or any other puppy. We wanted Traffy, who felt like she'd been ours since she was a week old. Of the two other girls, one was going to Marion's friend and the other she was keeping to show, and one day hoped to breed from—meaning that four generations would live under one roof.

I lifted Traffy into my arms and gave her a cuddle until she started to wriggle, and then I put her back into the square play area with her brothers and sisters.

Marion gave us a printed sheet about the feeds that Traffy needed. She'd already been microchipped, had her first course of injections and had been given a fancy pedigree name in case we changed our mind and decided to show her.

“You can't have the name Rosie because that's what I'm going to call my girl,” Marion said. She had forgotten that Traffy had been named almost from birth.

Finally everything was done and it was time to take her home. I carried her out to the car and Ian held her while I sat down, then put her on my lap on the baby blanket. She looked very comfortable and didn't wriggle or cry at all on the way home.

“She's the best puppy for going in the car so far,” Ian said as she closed her eyes for a doze.

Back at our house I carried Traffy past the Christmas tree and lights out to her toilet area, which we'd moved from down the end of the garden to under the tree closer to the house. Our experience with Emma and Freddy had taught us that, like it or not, many of the early deposits wouldn't make it that far, so it seemed foolish to fight nature.

 

The first day disappeared in a daze of love, playing and new discoveries for Traffy. Computer wires, steps, the TV remote, sofas, teddies and more—a whole world of new sights and scents to make up for the canine family she'd lost. We had a crate for her, but as Traffy was our puppy, and with memories of the trials and traumas of Freddy's first few nights, we weren't going to use it. Instead, I let Ian have the bed and I slept with her on the sofa. With very few whimpers and whines on her first night alone, she slept. I didn't. I was alert for any disturbance or movement or sound she made and every time I thought she might need to go to the toilet I carried her outside. She looked so lovely and so confident that night, only seven-and-a-half weeks old, walking up and down our extra-long corner sofa to find a more comfy spot to rest on, showing the new house who was boss, then coming back and crawling onto me for a cuddle.

The next day, I was dizzy with lack of sleep, but ecstatic. For the first time we had a puppy with whom I could fall totally and utterly in love without the fear that one day she would be taken away, so I let myself love her with all my heart and she loved me right back. Wherever I went she wanted to come, and I let her. While I was working on the computer she'd fall asleep on my lap, and when I was in the kitchen cooking, she'd be watching me from just a couple of feet away. Ian bought her a little stool so she could climb on and off the sofa by herself, and we quickly resigned ourselves to the fact that she'd be spoiled, but hoped that her good nature would mean that she didn't take advantage of us too much. We watched her as she avidly ate her food mixed with special milk for puppies, resurfacing with her tiny muzzle and whiskers covered in whiteness.

“She's so adorable,” our friends said when they came to meet her. We were totally besotted.

With only a few days left before Christmas, I made lots of biscuits in the shapes of dogs, stars, Christmas trees and stockings to sell at the Helper Dogs annual Christmas fête. Homemade treats, and anything dog-related, always sold well. Traffy's nose twitched at the smell of them baking, but I couldn't let her have any yet—they'd make her little stomach sick.

“When you're a bit older, then you can have some,” I said. I drove over that afternoon with the biscuits still warm and Traffy safe in a small car harness on the passenger seat. I was only intending to drop the biscuits off, introduce Traffy to everyone and go home, but when I got to the fête there was a local TV news crew. Jamie surreptitiously passed me a tiny Helper Dogs coat. He'd sent the troublesome litter on to Scotland, and that left Traffy with a glorious photo opportunity.

“Put that on Traffy,” he hissed. “We don't have any tiny puppies, and we need more puppy parents. Tell her to put on her best performance and make the TV viewers fall in love with her.”

I slipped the tiny “Helper Dog in Training” coat on her and the reporter lifted her into her arms. Traffy gave the reporter one of what I already thought of as her trademark stares, a really good, intelligent look. The reporter was too busy doing a piece to camera to notice.

“I'm here at the Helper Dogs Christmas Fête surrounded by lots of adorable puppies like this one . . .”

Traffy was still staring at the lady, but her look seemed to have homed in on one particular facial area.

“. . . details at the end of the program, as they're looking for more volunteer puppy parents . . .”

Traffy's little tongue came out, and she licked the reporter's nose as the reporter squealed and laughed.

“That's the take,” said the cameraman, pleased that the puppy had played cute on cue and brought some Christmas cheer to the report.

 

The reporter spoke to Jamie and Frank, and then a few of us were interviewed about our experiences of being puppy parents. I spoke about how much we'd loved Emma and Freddy, and how hard it was to give them up.

“I'd never want to take Emma or Freddy away from their new lives and the very important work they're doing, but I'll welcome them back home when they retire, for walks by the river, cuddles on the sofa and an endless supply of homemade treats,” I said.

We got back from the center thrilled at the coverage for Helper Dogs and excited to be on TV. I also thought how grateful I was that Traffy wasn't going anywhere. We could give her all our love knowing that she was staying with us.

 

Also just before Christmas was Freddy's last day with Jamie. He was being shuttled down to the Head Office with the other new recruits and initiated into advanced training. Jamie was incredulous at the sheer amount of stuff that Freddy owned.

“He can't take all those toys you gave him,” he said. “They'll never believe it when they see how many he has.”

“But he loves his toys, especially his pink unicorn.”

“Well, maybe he can take that with him—but no more.”

Poor Freddy. I'd brought him some of his favorite milky bone biscuits with me and as soon as he saw me he was standing up ready for a cuddle and nuzzled himself into me. I was pleased to see that Traffy could tell he was special to me. Of all the dogs at the center, he was the only one she paid any attention to, and she wanted to be with him all the time, and he in turn was very patient with her as she climbed all over him. Whenever he moved she trotted after him like a little shadow puppy. It was really cute to see.

I tried not to cry again as I said goodbye to Freddy, though this moment seemed less cruel, as he'd been taken from us once already. The time we'd had with him again was a luxury, an unasked-for bonus. I felt almost ready to send him off for his new life.

Nevertheless, I must still have been a bit of a quiver as I almost forgot to mention to Jamie an important issue that I'd been meaning to raise for weeks.

“Oh, one more thing . . . Ian wanted me to talk to you. His work in the city, they have a big corporate social responsibility department and at the end of each year they allocate money to some of its employees' chosen charities,” I explained. “Ian wanted to nominate you, but we have to know what you could do with the money. How much should we ask for?”