Mr Spring and the Jelly debate.

Mr Spring was a gamekeeper that I lived next to when I was growing up and I have written a few times about him in my blog (My Humble tribute and Twenty Men). He was tall, muscular and intimidating; as his blue eyes challenged you with a tinge of mockery.  When I grew to an age where the intimidation stopped being so threatening and became part of the fun of talking to him, we started debating issues that we both thought were fun.

Mr Spring’s wife had always kept a dog in the house but they always went to his shoots. Mr Spring thought that living in the house ruined the dog, made them soft and harder to work with. Amber was a boarder terrier of renown and as we sat there I felt rather indignant at this widely held belief throughout the shooting fraternity and thought he and they were wrong. We both agreed to blame it on the difference of the sexes.

Mr Springs very male approach to the matter was that if you gave too much of anything the clear rules and lines of acceptance are blurred any blurring makes the dog unable to focus on the job in the field. He said this as he was feeding Amber a jelly!

It now makes me smile at my arrogance, after all, I was living in London and had never fully trained a dog or wholly been responsible for one but I didn’t let this deter me. I gently reminded him that Amber had always been in the house and followed Mrs Spring everywhere and a better foxing dog could not be found. I could see in his eyes the dawning of this revelation. My thoughts were, that this was because a woman can give boundaries while in a home environment, men find this hard and I also thought that women can manage their feelings better. Its not the dogs fault the male handler finds it hard to love and discipline at the same time and I bet that the reason; on the whole, why after their dogs death a family find it hard to have another take its place, is because the men of the family can’t cope with the loss. Women are more able to grieve than men and so we are perceived weaker, when in reality we can grieve and move on better than our male counterparts. Anyhow I finished off, it may because you feed Amber too much jelly and she can’t move so well. He winked at me, as he fed her his biscuit of his plate.

In counter argument he announced with an even bigger twinkle in his crystal blue eyes (I brace myself for the battle of the sexes). When coming across a woman protester against blood sports shouting at him, he quietly and respectfully asked her whether she thought she was any better, stopping her in her tracks.

Not privy to the scene I quickly made a mental picture of it in my minds eye. Wooded area of idyllic tranquillity, beaters getting ready with their dogs Mr. Spring cap adorned and camouflage jacket and kaki waffle scarf protecting him from the bitter chill. Middle aged woman, towards retiring age stops car gets out ‘Skirt a swinging’ leaving five dogs in the back of the car barking excitedly while she was telling him how wrong he was.

When she asked him ‘what on earth do you mean by that? How could she in any way be likened to him and his antics’ (And at this point his broad smile could not get any bigger) He recounted to me what he had said. Five dogs in any car were too many but in a small car such as hers was fool hard for their safety and that of any other road user. ‘My dear lady’ I can hear his clear no nonsense voice still. Your dogs have been bread to chase pray. He had explained. The whippet for rabbits, your two Jack Russell’s for rats and such like, your lovely retriever, you are denying its right to retrieve and your two fox terriers for foxing. Apparently she was under the elution that because the terriers were small dogs that they didn’t need as much exercise as big dogs, so only took the small ones out occasionally. She was soon put straight by Mr Spring who went into great detail of why terriers are so revered by the shooting community. Their stamina and tenacity coupled with their daredevil approach to life, they most certainly needed a good five mile walk a day as they were kept at the heel of the farmer or ran and kept up with the horse and hounds. I asked him what she had said in reply, he laughed aloud and said they had spent a happy lunchtime talking about dogs and she viewed them a little differently, the dogs he hastened to add ‘not me you understand’ he winked at me ‘I’m still a barbarian’. We both laughed at that.

As we sat by the side of his fire, warm and cosy with Amber now on my lap I had enjoyed immensely the telling of the story and I asked him if he also told her that they can make good fireside companions. On cue Amber went back to her master and liked his face.

This poem is to all of us who have loved our pets.

The day I Lost my Shadow

I lost my shadow to-day

I noticed when I hung out the washing

A void that will not be filled

A presence so soft

A nudge so gentle

I noticed again when I walked

As I have walked

A million or more times before

A flicker of my shadow

I thought I saw

But my shadow

Bless her, is no more

My constant companion

Our linked and entwined soles

Shared space

Moments of peace

Solace in madness

She calmed my day

A wet cold nose

Meant time to sit and cose

At night when our home is quiet

Meant my shadow was waiting

A coffee for me

A bone for her

She would watch the kettle with interest

And concern if I walked away

A whimper ment she had waited too long

My shadow would pace me

To the sofa

Our rightful place

Though the void seems endless

The day my shadow

Laid down and to me was lost

I knew

I had truly been

Blessed

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