The first dog

This is a picture of Moss. He was given to my dad when he was a few months old. He'd been taken from a litter on a farm and given to one of dad's workmates, who was nearing retirement. That was a doomed relationship from the start, given that Moss had a propensity for nipping heels, chewing soft furnishings and scratching deep claw marks in every door he came across. The old guy and his wife figured that Moss needed a livelier pack and that 3 boys under 10 would be the best companions for him. He became our brother and, I now see, our pack leader. Dad was the alpha, and Moss would never mess with him, but with us he was always jostling for position and putting us in our place. And we loved him, played with him, fought with him, and protected him, as brothers. 

In the late 60s and early 70s dog owning was, in many ways, a more casual pursuit than it is now. Although we would take him out for walks, we would also, like all of the other dog-owners on our estate, open the front door in the morning and let him go off on his own. It seems bizarre now to think of that. We'd quite often have packs of dogs, Hairy Maclary style, roaming up and down the street because there was a bitch in heat. Moss would regularly get into fights, especially with a large Alsatian 7or 8 doors down. In those days people didn't seem to have Pitbulls, Rottweilers, or any of the macho status dogs that are around now. However, it wasn't unusual for them to have German Shepherds, or Alsatians, as a guard dog, sending a message out that these were people not to be messed with. Moss's nemesis was a big, mean bugger and he would attack him at any opportunity. We'd usually hear the snarling and barking, and possibly screams and shouts from bystanders and we'd have to charge up the street and try to stop it or, more likely, wait for it to end. The denouement was predictable, and painful. Moss would be left, shivering and bloodied, his back legs unable to move because the big fella would bite his back in a way that caused temporary paralysis, and I'd have to carry him home. He'd recover pretty quickly, and would often be game to go back for more.

When dad died, he grieved, in his own way, with us and maybe for us. He became meaner, his bites more likely to draw blood. We would still occasionally tumble around together, but we'd all been exposed to a horrible truth that meant that we couldn't be pups any more, and maybe the grip of his teeth gave us a way to feel the pain, anger, and resentment of our loss. While we were all adapting to the instructions of well-meaning adults and trying to be good boys for our mam, Moss was taking the occasional lumps out of us, giving substance to something we were all feeling, the shittiness, the unfairness, the hatred. 

I'm reading The Philosopher and The Wolf, By Mark Rowlands at the moment and it's helping me to understand and appreciate what I learned from my brother the dog. I resisted getting another dog for a long time and, although I love Benji, I've not let myself get as close to him and in many ways I'm glad of that.