Some friends of ours had rung my wife to ask if we'd look after their dog Mecho while they were on a trip to Greece. She was still working, so she asked me, as a pensioner, whether I'd take this on. She knew perfectly well I'm not keen on pets, but I should think about it.
It was for the 17th to the 25th of the month, and right now it was the 10th. As a rule, if someone asks me whether I'm up for doing something today, I think my answer over far more soberly, but for some time or other, in the future, I'll happily take on any commitment. I told her straight away it was no problem.
The 17th started drawing nearer, and I remembered how, years ago, my wife had been offered a dog, a purebred pinscher, still a baby, for next to nothing.
That evening she'd told us, and our kids, about 10 years old at the time, were over the moon. I'd objected that if we lived in a house with a garden, I'd agree, but it wasn't fair for the poor animal to sit in our flat all day waiting to be taken out.
The three of them jumped in at once – they'd do all that. My wife made the kids promise to walk it morning and evening, and they, just like me, since it was about some time or other, agreed. I held out for a whole week, but in the end we took the puppy – a girl called Dara, of the “deer pinscher” breed. They're usually the colour of a deer, but ours was jet black, apart from her belly and her toes.
We'd been warned that our first job would be to train her. We got her a washing-up bowl lined with a little blanket and explained to her that she was to sleep in it.
Within two days the kids' enthusiasm had evaporated, and they stopped taking her out. They'd chase her out of their rooms too, so she wouldn't bark at them or jump all over them.
As the person she'd been foisted on despite his objections, I passed as well. The whole burden of walking the dog fell on my wife. She gave us a long lecture about how every living creature needs exercise in the fresh air. She'd prove to us that, as a result, it would start repaying us with suitable obedience.
But even she, by the third month, said Dara seemed to have bad karma. On their walks she'd bark at every dog, especially the bigger ones.
Even if they ignored her, she'd chase them until they growled at her. Then she'd leap with her muddy paws into my wife's arms. From there, safe at last, she'd triumphantly start giving them the middle finger with her front paws.
Dara didn't respond to any training whatsoever. Not once did she sleep in her bowl. She stayed true to the very end to her principle that it's stupid to poo on a walk instead of getting it done at home and just enjoying yourself outside.
Every day the kids discovered another of her “poos” in a new spot, and they started calling her breed the “deer-droppings pinscher”. I told my wife my own theory, which was more specific: “Dara is the product of inbreeding between Satan and the Devil, and if she stays here long, she'll saddle us with bad karma too.”
Her character matched her black colour and my theory. To back this up, I'll add how she managed as a guard dog. If one of us came home or we had guests, she'd bark her head off, but if there was a noise outside our door, she'd rush to squeeze under one of the beds and play dead.
According to her little black head, a respectable dog barks only at its owners, because it knows them, and hides from outsiders, who might be dangerous.
At first we worried a lot that she might be barking non-stop while we were out too. We asked the neighbours, and they always said that, on the contrary, that was exactly when it was unusually quiet at our place.
We soon found out why. Left alone, she took her revenge on us by tearing the wallpaper and eating bits of our rugs. In the end my wife gave up too and announced that Dara's previous owner was begging her to give her back, because Dara's sister had died suddenly and she couldn't live without a dog.
This time our family was united, and we ceremoniously drove Dara back to her home neighbourhood of Simeonovo. There she joyfully crossed the big yard, leapt into the house and didn't make a peep. God, how right I'd been that a dog in a flat is as much use as a pair of pistols on a bare belly!
These memories came at me as the 17th drew near. The first thing I started thinking about was that I'd be looking after a dog called Mecho, so it was bound to be big. We'd put a lead on that tiny little pinscher years ago, but with this “beastie”, if I put its muzzle on crooked, could I count on it not biting half the town, and above all me?
I got my wife to ask what breed this Mecho was. She phoned and told me it was a Yorkshire terrier. On the day before “the terrier era began” in my life, I checked on Google and was charmed. The Yorkshire terrier, it said, was a small dog with a very good temperament, reaching up to 20 cm in height and weighing up to 3.2 kg.
The next morning I took the dog in, and we liked each other straight away. And how could it have been otherwise, when I was approaching 70 and he was 12 in dog years?
Mecho saw off his owner without any scenes and lay down quietly on the little rug on the floor next to me. His whole manner said: “You go ahead and tap away on your laptop, you've got plenty of time.”
On the evening walk he did his business so delicately in a bush that even if agents from the health inspectorate had been tailing us, they couldn't have said a word to me. He was definitely an aesthete, too – he only peed on clean car tyres, preferably tall ones, like on a jeep.
Only once his duties were done did he start taking an interest in the dogs coming towards us. If he sensed they were males, he'd hurry past them, then do the same scraping movements with his back legs as he did after a poo.
If they were females, however, he'd pay them due attention and start dancing happily around them. Although Mecho was my “big brother” /7x12 =84/, he clearly hadn't lost interest in the ladies, and I decided he was setting me an example to loosen up a bit myself – so what if I'm married.
Until then I hadn't realised how many people walk dogs, or what a handy excuse it is for social contact. Once we got home, he ate his fill, drank his water and lay down in his little bed next to mine. When my wife came home, he didn't bark at her, but growled at her, just to establish his authority.
I thought about what an unexpected friend I'd found, and one with a similar character, too. As I was falling asleep, it occurred to me that if the “Wars of the Roses” between York/shire/ and Lancaster were being fought now, I'd sign up at once as a volunteer on York's side.
In the morning Mecho calmly waited for me to drink my coffee with a few cigarettes, and only then did he stand silently in front of the door. I can take a hint, and besides, I was in a hurry myself, because the night before I'd earmarked three ladies with female dogs /taking his taste into account too/ to focus on over the next few days.
With the first one we struck up a polite but rather limp conversation. Meanwhile her bitch, perhaps because she was bigger, was turning about clumsily in front of Mecho, who was dancing around her non-stop, and in the end she looked helplessly at her mistress, as if to say, let's go.
The lady considered this slightly rude and made excuses for her:
“My girl's very shy, and yours is so pushy!”
I thought, slightly annoyed:
“My Mecho hasn't so much as laid a paw on your old spinster! He may be getting on, but he's a man, and don't expect him to stand in front of yours like a statue!”
A little later I spotted the second one and tugged him over that way. This time the roles were reversed. The bitch was the more active one and, I'd say, made no secret of her lustful intentions. Mecho, like everyone of our generation, preferred to get to know his partner properly first, before rushing into rash actions he might regret later. She never showed him any understanding, and soon he was tugging me to go home.
Her owner said proudly: “Mine's very frisky and loves to play. And how old is yours?” I answered quite honestly and regretted it immediately: “Well, he's like me – about 70.”
“Ah, no wonder he doesn't feel like playing!” After which the two of them flounced off and shot away, just when I'd finally got in the mood for a bit of play.
The third lady turned out to be a real grouch, and although our dogs took to each other, and I tried to strike up a conversation with her on the subject of dogs, she stayed silent as a stone. This time it was me who tugged Mecho towards home. I felt guilty for breaking off his flirtation, but perhaps he'd decided we shouldn't fall out over women, and besides, there was no time left for him to be making scenes with me.
Over the following days there was always something about our partners that didn't suit us. I don't know about him, but I'd racked up enough social contact for a whole year.
On the fifth day “the sun finally rose on our street too”. We met a neighbour from our block whom I'd always found rather nice. This time we didn't just say hello, we got talking, and our dogs liked each other straight away. For a few days all four of us had a lovely time together.
Before our morning and evening walks we'd wait for each other outside the entrance to our block. When it was getting close to time, Mecho would nudge me, and I no longer said to him, like to a grandchild, “Hang on, little one!”, but “Hang on, mate! Let the two of them hang about down there a bit longer, and you and I keep our cool!”
Our walks got longer and longer, and the two of us came home with rosy cheeks. My wife was delighted at how fresh we looked – thanks to all that exercise in the fresh air, she said – while I thought to myself: “Blessed are the believers.”
But, like every miracle, this one lasted only three days.
When they took Mecho back, he wasn't the least bit upset about our parting. The next day I beamed at the neighbour, but she was reserved with me, and her dog barked at me.
Yesterday Mecho had offended me a bit, and today the two of them did too, because I was without him. Each of them was right in their own way. I gave up the walks as well, so as not to bump into any of my recent social contacts who might also cast me out for having no dog.
I got to thinking about who was really more loyal to whom – the dog to the human or the other way round. Perhaps I hadn't been entirely right before either – a person in a flat without a dog is also as much use as a pair of pistols on a bare belly.
In the end I made my peace with it when I thought about how little experience I had with dogs, and that I'm not the one who should be making generalisations on the subject.
