When a dog - not a diamond - is a girl's best friend

Meet my new VBF, Saoirse.

Perhaps that’s too clinical a term, as it was a case of mutual adoration when we met. From the moment I lifted her into my arms and gazed into those solemn brown eyes, I was lost in a pool of “puppy love”. The pools that were to dampen my kitchen floor for weeks afterwards were but a distant nightmare. I had been asked by pupils in school what I would like as a retirement present. Some jewellery perhaps, or a greenhouse for my garden?

“All I want is my own dog,” I blurted out like a petulant child.

This was a quite surprising statement considering my uneasy relationship with canines in the past. At the age of 11, I had been viciously attacked by a guard dog when walking to the village shop. The terror is still clearly etched in my mind as the Alsatian chased me around cars until I lunged at a hotel door to escape. It didn’t budge but as I turned to find another route, I tripped and fell. Feeling the towering dog’s breath on my cheek, I scrambled up and this time a hotel employee wrenched the door open and hauled me in. For years afterwards I would break out in a cold sweat when a large dog crossed my path.

A companion

It wasn’t until I left for college that my mother tentatively suggested she would like a dog for company. So Ben, a Welsh corgi, arrived and was utterly spoiled by Mam. He was choosy about male guests, however, as my now-husband found out when he came a courtin’. I can recall a cacophony of sounds: Ben’s throaty snarl, my fiancé’s attempts to impress the in-laws with a roll call of his cattle and dad’s snores from the armchair.

It was inevitable that on moving to a farm, I would encounter sheepdogs. They tolerate me, is as much as I can say. The border collies circle around me in delight when I let them out of the dog run, but then freeze when the jeep starts down the avenue. Their ears twitch like rabbits as they monitor which way the driver is going. If their master turns left for the town, they will allow me to pat them gently. If he turns right for the farmyard, then they abandon me, squeezing under the fence and sprinting across the paddock to get to the sheep pen first.

One collie stole our hearts though. He strayed in one summer’s day and rolled around under the chestnut tree with my small children. We whooshed him off but he returned time and time again, his lolling head pleading for acceptance. Several years on, my daughter used her Confirmation money to commission a painting of him alongside her Jack russell, Lucky. The artist immortalised him to perfection, complete with a cataract on his right eye. I thought her attention to detail was amazing, but my husband insisted she take the portrait back and correct it.

“No one is going to laugh at our Jack,” was his testy reply, displaying the depth of his affection for him. With the stroke of a brush, the optical repair was done before the HSE could murmur “waiting list”.

Poor Jack strayed a few weeks later and despite frantic searches, he never came home. A few months on, a neighbour called me to take away one of the pups her springer spaniel had produced. Jack was fond of straying alright. There was no doubting Susie’s lineage when we collected her, and so she happily joined our clan.

I was a little wary of my family’s reaction when I declared I was going to acquire a golden cocker spaniel. My argument was therefore well-prepared.

“I’ve spent a lifetime in the classroom saying: ‘Sit down’; ‘No!’; ‘Come over here’…! I won’t be able to cope with the silence, I need … a DOG!”

After some giggles and raised eyebrows, they conceded.

“What are you going to call her, Mam? Madra? Ciúnas?” a smart son sniggered. That was the cue for me to organise a “name the dog” competition in my class. Only one word on the list popped out at me: “Saoirse” (Freedom). Perfect!

On the day of the presentation, there was a great air of excitement in the school hall. One of the pupils, Aimée, walked to the stage with my precious bundle wrapped in a blanket, emblazoned with her name, Saoirse. My heart melted as the puppy nuzzled her warm, damp nose into my neck.

From a domestic point of view, the honeymoon was soon over. She whimpered at night, scratched the doors and glass and left her “calling card” everywhere. All my firm discipline was dismissed by a lick. My commands were disposed of with a wave of a tail. The cyclamen I planted in tubs were duly uprooted the next day. Worse was to come. My husband kindly offered to clear the peat moss up, slipped and broke his ankle. The next six weeks were spent ferrying him to and from work and walking a very energetic puppy in between. A neighbour met me on one such excursion as I struggled to untangle an ever-tightening lead from around my legs.

“How’s the new addition to the family?”

“Grand, house trained now and on three meals of nuts a day.”

She looked at me quizzically.

“I was talking about your baby grandchild…”

I had intended to write about Saoirse earlier, but the delay occurred because she chewed through not one, but two laptop cables. The first time, the cable was left carelessly on the floor. We learned from that occasion, hence our Christmas tree this year was only decorated from the midline upwards. The second time was entirely due to my own stupidity. I was sitting on the couch typing away as my pet lay beside me, bathed in the shafts of morning light that touched her golden coat. My poetic nonsense was pierced by the ring of the phone. I jumped up and carefully put the laptop on a shelf, tucking the flex behind a chair. It was the vet’s office confirming a herd test. As I returned to my work and lowered the laptop, it seemed unusually light. You’ve guessed it, one neat, canine snip had severed the cable. “Princess Innocent” had returned to her throne, knowing that after a brief confrontation, she would be forgiven.

She’s not a sedentary dog though, as she loves to race along the beach, her nose trawling the tangy seaweed smells in tandem with the boats fishing on the horizon. I’m lucky to have so much in my life, at least one of everything I could wish for…and more, in fact. One wellie, one glove, one dislocated elbow… and one – Saoirse.