New tricks…

“You cannot share your life with a dog… and not know perfectly well that animals have personalities, minds and feelings.”

– Jane Goodall

Every evening in life, Waffle is laid up in front of the fire as I bookend the day with half an hour’s telly.

Each evening he will begin this half hour at my feet, whomping his tail my legs as he deliberates over which patch of the carpet to collapse on next to my feet. Then he’ll remember that the rug in front of the fire is warmer and he’ll slope off with a languid swish of his tail, before circling another rug a few times like Jack Nicholson opening the door to his apartment in ‘As Good As It Gets.’

Every evening in life, as I switch off the TV Waffle will disappear from the room. He knows by the time I’ve eaten a bowl of cornflakes, his imprisonment will be nigh.

Each evening, as I place the empty cornflake bowl in the sink and turn, Waffle is curled up on the sofa in the sunroom, hoping – I imagine – that I will at last take pity on his lugubrious hairy form and at last permit a night on the sofa, instead of the cool of his bed in the back hall.

Every evening in life I am caught in two minds. Should I relent, switch the light off and leave him to his comfort on the sofa? Or should I do as I normally do and click my tongue and beckon the hairy fool from his faux-slumber so that he’ll slouch his way across the kitchen floor as slow as caninely possible and out into the back hall before curling up on his bed with a face like a thousand hurts.

Each evening I am caught betwixt and between these choices and as I hunker down to give him one last rub before lights out, I see as clear as day what Waffle would rather be doing.

It is not as though he huffs over his relegation to the backhall but rather, I know he retains a solid bolus of disappointment over my decision. The tail stops. He neither nuzzles nor paws at my hand. He is the picture of quiet, solemn regret.

The span of time from the switching off of the TV to the eating of the cornflakes might take a scant ten minutes, if even that. But Waffle always makes the short pilgrimage to the sofa for one last blast of comfort before the inevitable arrives. This makes me think – or wonder, at least – if he’s trying to make a persuasive point.

I have therefore also wondered with some regularity if he should be permitted to remain on the sofa for the duration of the night. Although, with just as much regularity I have concluded that with Waffle’s penchant for jumping at shadows, he might be more inclined to raise the alarm in the wee hours over something as trivial as a wayward spider or a leaf blowing onto a window, or the light of the moon bathing shiny frost on the grass – his triggers are many and subtle.

Should I take a chance on him? Experience has taught me such a tack would result in broken sleep. The problem is: The longer this nightly ritual continues the more and more I’m thinking he should be afforded another chance to prove me wrong. The big brown eyes are the killer.

THE FOLLOWING DAY

In hindsight, I should have known – I did know.

In hindsight, with the long nights, I should have attempted the experiment on a weeknight. The fact that I left Waffle to his own devices on the sofa on a Friday night, probably wasn’t the best plan.

The big, brown eyes being the killer, after the Hound had been installed in his cool bed in the cool of the back hall, I beckoned him return to the sunroom sofa. He swept through the kitchen as though someone might take his place and leapt onto the cushion.

“Not a word out of you,” I warned him with a wag of my finger. But I might as well have been wagging the tail I don’t have.

At precisely 7.01am on Saturday morning (I checked my watch), the barking began. At first I had actually been dreaming that a different dog had been barking at me in the street, before my bleary brained cottoned onto reality.

I sprang out of bed and tiptoed down the hall – though, why I bothered tiptoeing, I don’t know.

By the time I entered the kitchen, Waffe was on his hind legs scraping at the back door, growling and yelping.

It could have been a wayward spider or a leaf blowing onto a window, or the light of the moon bathing shiny frost on the grass – his triggers are many and subtle.

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

But I learned my lesson that day.