Trip Underfoot – The Wuff With The Smooth

If we had known then what we know now, instead of ‘Waffle’, the dog would have been called, ‘Trip.’ There isn’t a day that goes by that some member of the family isn’t tripping over the wandering canine calamity, as he roves around the house at your heels, unerring in his innate ability to get in the road.

He also has an uncanny habit of remaining in a doorway you’ve just passed through, with the result that, when you require returning through the same doorway, there’s a hairy fool in the way who cannot conceive of backing up out of the road.

Alternatively, I suppose, if ‘Trip’ hadn’t had much of a ring to it, he could have been called, ‘Get-outta-the-road-would-ye-dawg’, because that’s what I say to him most
often. Much of the week, with working from home being the norm during these tempestuous times, it’s just me and the hound in the house and as a precursor to this wiring, I ran an experiment to gauge how dedicated he is to clinging to my leg like a hairy leech.

I rise from my seat at the kitchen table and shuffle across to the sink. He follows. I return to the kitchen table. He follows. I move to the window to gaze out upon the world and thus lament this hound’s peculiarity to be always at my heels. The pan-faced idiot follows. I walk to the fridge to enquire of its innards if there might be a cold beverage for consumption. I look down and there he is, returning my gaze with one of his own, as if to say, “Please, may I have an ice-cube?”

To conclude the experiment, I walked around and around and around the island in the middle of the kitchen and sure enough, Waffle followed me as if we were embarking on the most absorbing stroll through the most picturesque countryside imaginable.

Thus the experiment concluded that yes, he’s like one of those daemons from Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy – only instead of being able to talk and offer sage advice, he provides an ever-present, hairy banana skin.

Even charging at Waffle, waving my hands and roaring when he follows me to the toilet, only discourages him in the short
term and the result is always the same. After exiting said water closet, there he is, with his big brown-eyed stare, as if to say, “Did you enjoy that?”

Nor can I even consider leaving the house to complete a small task outside, like retrieving the wheely-bin or visiting the coal bunker without him yowling and whining and barking at the window. “Don’t leave me!” he calls, in Canine.

“I don’t like being alone! I’m lonely!” And so I am forced by sheer softness of heart to bring him along even for the briefest open-air job.

Sometimes, I must admit, I find his blind devotion just a little bit… unnerving. I could be sitting anywhere in the house and when I turn around, there he is, watching, always watching. I feel like an exhibit in a museum, such is the scrutiny.

“What, dog?” I ask. Or, “Take a picture – it’ll last longer.” Or (this is the most common), “Jesus, Waffle, give me five fuppen minutes.”

And it’s never-ending. Even writing this, I can turn to my left and there he is, head up and alert as if he can sense me looking. Sometimes I turn around and though he is sleeping, he’ll look up as if he can sense my gaze.

Personally, I find this abject devotion quite strange, especially as I’m the one person in the house who deals out the fewest pets and scratches. I’m not a monster! It’s just that, well, all the following and the tripping and the whining tends to make me somewhat averse to his own slobbering affections.

However, if the occasion arises when I should leave he house without him and if there are other family members remaining, he goes from Obsession Mode to full blown Defender Mode. It’s as if, with me gone, he takes up the mantel of Home Protector (although in reality he’s more likely to lick someone to death, than anything else). And yet…

There was one occasion recently when all his shadowing came to good use. Living where I do (in a rural idyll where, when neighbours say, “Aye” they do so with an inhalation), there’s always the possibility of livestock finding their way into my garden. A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting at my computer writing some other form of utter nonsense when, gazing out the window looking for inspiration, I noticed a herd of cows on my lawn.

Leaping to my feet, I dashed to the door, swung it open and darted outside. There was murder on my mind as I imagined the cows hoofing up the lawn and crapping all over the grass – like they owned the place. Casting around for a stick to use as form of bovine discouragement, I was surprised to see the clingy hound spring into action. Before I could find a stick let alone use one, Whingy Waffle had morphed into Property Defender and made a speedy bee-line for the intruding Friesians, barking as if he held the patent to making noise. Like a hairy bullet he went straight for the nearest cow and for a moment I held my breath thinking that, like the lawn, Waffle might get a bit hoofed up himself.

But not a bit of it. Via a combination of raucous barking and wolfish snarling, Super Waffle managed to corral the cattle out of the garden and away out onto the road, from whence they came.

With a final, “WAF-WAFF-WAF-WAFF-WAFF!” to hammer the lesson home, the hound turned and trotted back towards me, tongue lolling and tail wagging.

To say I was stunned would be an understatement. All I could manage was a, “Good boy wee Waffle,” which only resulted in an enhanced lolling and wagging.

“Good boy wee Waffle,” I repeated and stooped to scratch his head. This, it seemed, was his signal to let loose and he jumped up excitedly, so excitedly in fact, that he pee-ed on my shoes.

“G’wan ya f…” I trailed off, backing away.

Waffle recoiled as if struck and my heart lurched.

“Ack, for God sakes. Come on then.” This time I hunkered down to avoid the jumping and associated peeing and I vigorously rubbed his ears. “Good boy, Waffle. Are you a good dog? Yes you are. Hairy, but good.”

After a moment I stood again, to survey the road to see if the cows might return but I could see two men capping them into a field in the distance.

“Happy days,” I said aloud and turned to go back indoors. But who had positioned himself behind me, right under my feet? That’s right, Trip, the Underfoot Hound.

Between him squeaking in pain like a car alarm and me dancing and swearing to try and avoid him, it was back to form for the two of us.