Hector Greyhound with his lovely blue eyes!
(Photo: M. Walsh)
When my very kind and loyal friend Martina agreed to write a guest post for this blog I was thrilled. She is a great story teller and has always managed to make me laugh with her wonderful stories over the years. I think she will agree with me when I say what a good companion a dog is. If you are lucky enough to have a dog as a pet you can no doubt appreciate some of the funny moments Martina has captured in her tail, sorry I of course mean tale 🙂
When you are finished reading about Hector why not check out 12 Ways Your Pet Can Improve Your Mental Health!
Also while I have a captive audience, congratulations to those who took part in the Maynooth 10K on Sunday 18th May, well done in particular to Sara and Marie from our walking group.
***Posted on behalf of Martina Walsh, James Joyce Library, University College Dublin***
Recently I saw a poster that said “whoever said Diamonds are a girl’s best friend never owned a dog” well, I must say I concur. Don’t get me wrong, if someone wants to give me some I would be quite happy to take them, to me they just always seem so bland as precious stones go. I much prefer the Sapphires and Rubies of the gems world. Dogs on the other hand are never bland, at least none of the ones I have been lucky to have in my life over the years.
In recent years one of my closest doggy pals came to stay, Hector to the uninitiated is a Greyhound but to the trained eye he is a Lurcher meaning that only one of his parents was a sight hound and in his case it was his Mother who was a Greyhound. His Mother was picked up off the side of the road in a bad state as so many of these poor breeds are by an animal rescue in Clane, and heavily pregnant and in pretty poor shape gave birth to twelve puppies the very next night, 14th May, 2007. Meanwhile back in Dublin oblivious to the plight of this little family, there I was contemplating adding another furry friend to our already large hoard of pets, four Siamese cats, a big Ginger Cat and Pippa the aging Norwich terrier. Really we were not sure how poor Pippa would feel having a newbie in on her patch, the cats were a snooty lot and stuck together so we knew they would not be objecting as they were pretty much not interested.
A few phone calls later and we were excitedly on our way to Clane to see the litter of puppies, of course they were all adorable and I wanted them all. I couldn’t decide which one to put my name on and then I noticed a little one cowering under the table away from us, after coaxing him out and discovering that he had the most beautiful blue eyes I instantly fell in love and a match made in heaven was born. We had to take him at six weeks old which is pretty much a no no in terms of development and socialization but with the Mothers health deteriorating there was not much choice really so we agreed. Heavens above what a bomb was thrown into our household, for starters the cute little puppy with the stunning blue eyes was now so big when we returned to collect him that at only six weeks old he sat upright on my lap on the long journey home with his head towering over mine so that I could not see out the road ahead, of course I might add that I was not driving. He was HUGE!
At first he tried to make friends with Pippa but she was having none of it and after several ensuing attacks on him, all minor as she had only four teeth left due to advancing age, they agreed on a truce, you stick to your bed and I’ll stick to mine and so it has remained for seven years as they live separate lives alongside each other and each pretend the other does not exist. We decided to name him Hector after the Trojan Prince seeing as he was so big and strong, of course some wisecrack pointed out that he was now “Hector Greyhound” which made him sound a bit like a 70’s cut price store but too late he seemed to respond so Hector he remained. Weeks of endless house accidents and destruction followed, Hector knew no boundaries, what was ours was his and what was his was his own unless of course he wanted you to have his smelly hairy penguin that he had become very attached too and would chase us around with it as we ran in horror at the idea of the slimy article being pushed into our noses for a game of throw. Hector then discovered that skirting board was pretty tasty so he made short work of several rooms, a well-meaning Veterinary student told us to smear Tabasco sauce on them and that once he got the odour or a sneaky lick of it he would be deterred, so feeling desperate that soon we would be living in a house that would rival piggy number two’s stick house from the Three Little Pigs story we decided to give it a go. Dear Mr. Vet, you were SO WRONG, Hector loved the taste and in fact the skirting boards became such a culinary delight that he spent hours munching on them.
Where are we off to next?
(Photo: M. Walsh)
As he grew bigger and bigger and even bigger, counter surfing became his favourite pastime, he was big enough to put his paws on the kitchen worktop and stretch his long neck and grab whatever goodies may be lurking. He was a Billy goat, he would eat anything, everything was fair game including the wrappers they came in. I began putting things higher and higher out of his reach but he always found a way and leaving him alone was a nightmare, you never knew what mischief he would get up to, he ate the corner off the kitchen table and the leg off a chair, he practically demolished the kitchen door and this I may add would all happen in the space of two hours which was as long as he was ever left alone. When Hector discovered the fruit bowl he tested every fruit and left a fruity carnage trail of apples, oranges, pears, bananas, kiwis all along the kitchen floor each with one single bite as he tried each one and decided it was not that tasty so moved on to the next fruit in the bowl, eventually the wooden bowl got eaten so that was the end of his fruit tasting days.
There were dramas along the way of course like the day it was uncannily quiet as both dogs were outside in the summer sun at their opposite ends of the garden, there was a single yelp followed by a screech followed by more yelping and crying as if someone was beating him to a pulp. We all ran from various corners of the house to rescue him only to discover that as he had been tearing up some begonias he had slipped between two flower pots and couldn’t get out from between them, he was lifted to safety and floundered off to finish demolishing the garden fence that he had started three days earlier. A drama queen had been born.
There were attempts to take him to doggy borstal as we affectionately use to call it, there was a nice man that ran classes up in Tymon Park on a Sunday morning, he had agreed to let Hector join the class and instructed that a bag of cheesy tit bits were brought along to keep him focused on his lessons. He was an exemplary student once the cheesy bag was in sight, he sat, he stayed, he even walked to heel but of course being Hector this was short lived and as soon as he realized all the tit bits were gone that was it, he was having none of this malarkey, he would run off in the middle of a sit/stay command of well-behaved dogs much to the amusement of the other doggy owners. He could run like a Kentucky show horse and would be a dot on the horizon before you had a chance to say camembert. He had no recall whatsoever and the fear of losing him in Tymon park became too much of a worry so after several weeks of failed doggy borstal he was doing the walk of shame back to the car without his graduation certificate, head held high and tail wagging and proud of his non achievement…
Then there was the hair loss, oh my goodness, having read many many books over the years about Lurchers and Greyhounds I was happy to believe that they did not shed, however someone forgot to tell Hector this, the house became like something from the wild west with all the tumble weed-like balls of hair rolling past the doorways, a fancy pet hair vacuum was purchased and was in use every day and still the tumble weed rolled through each room by sunset, we brushed him, we combed him, we gave him Omega 3, I began thinking that maybe we were doing something wrong so on the next visit to the Vet we asked him about hair gate, the Vet, a lovely man we have known for over 25 years smiled and said ” really he is blooming, he is in such good shape his coat is just healthy and replenishing itself” and so it continues, I could weave several fine hair carpets at this stage should the demand ever arise.
Walking with Hector is never dull either, he gets great attention and everybody thinks they are the first to yell “is he running in the seven o clock in Shelbourne Park?”, “if I put a tenner on him will he win?”, “what trap are we in tonight”. It is amusing until you have heard it four hundred times.
The best was a little boy who shouted across the road to us “what make is that dog” I was tempted to shout back “Zanussi” I think.
Hector’s Meadow
(Photo: M. Walsh)
And then there were the scary moments, we took to letting Hector off his lead for a quick sprint in a little secluded meadow at the back of our estate, we christened it Hectors meadow as he loved it so much, he would bound off chasing his ball or his Frisbee he could crank up 45mph speeds with little effort, his ears would be flaying in the breeze and his big goofy mouth wide with a doggy smile, I just loved watching him being happy. One day after we had all been cooped up during some heavy rainstorms we took him in between showers to the meadow, he was doing his usual chariots of fire up and down the field when disaster struck, he took his eye off where he was running and on the slippery grass from the earlier rain he slammed at full speed into a tree, I saw it happen in slow motion, I saw myself run to him in slow motion, I saw him collapse to the ground yelping in pain and I thought that was the end for him, my husband carried him home and we rushed him to the emergency Vet. We kept him in our bedroom that night and prayed that he would be ok by the morning, his bruising was pretty bad and we really feared for him. The Vet in his usual calmness warned us that although he had not appeared to do any internal damage, his bruising was quite severe and if he had been a racing dog his career would have well and truly ended right there. We nursed him back to health and it was not long before he was back to his old self, bounding around the place knocking everything over with his big tail that could whip the legs off you if you happened to be in his path. Needless to say his trips to Hector’s meadow had to be taken now on a leash as slamming into one of those trees once more may not have such a favourable outcome.
Hector
Loyal friend & champion walking companion!
(Photo: M. Walsh)
I think if I was to ascribe human characteristics to Hector he would be a pretty nerdy dude, neurotic, obsessive compulsive, greedy, lazy, in fact all the qualities one would not want in a man but somehow as a dog he wears them well and the love and affection he showers on all of his family make up for any of his shortcomings. He is there with a sympathetic head butt when times are hard and a silent confidant when problems weigh heavy. I am lucky to have a wonderful family and great friends but I will admit to preferring Hectors company to some humans I have met through the years, he never judges, he doesn’t discriminate, he doesn’t hate, he has no agendas, he cares not about skin colour. We could learn so much from a dog. Dogs however have one huge failing though and it really is a big one, they live such short lives compared to the average human, a small dog can last anywhere from 15-20 years but a big dog like Hector has a life span of 9-12 years although some lucky owners do get longer with their pet. I dread that day for Hector but I hope that I will have the strength and courage to be with him to the last and repay him for all the love and companionship that he has lavished unconditionally upon his family. I will end with another quote, one that I noticed the other day on a t-shirt worn by a teenager walking a very old golden retriever; it said “Money can buy you lots of things but it does not wiggle its bum in delight every time you walk through the door.”
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