Wuff with the Smooth: Where the wild things are

Those hot days in May already seem like such a distant memory.

It’s strange how we can become so quickly accustomed to something which, when it’s gone, makes a body feel so bereft.

As luck would have it, I was actually on annual leave for the best two weeks in May and so I had swiftly adapted to the joys of being outside around the clock. The cool, dewy mornings listening to the cuckoo always gave way to an intense midday heat within which it was almost too hot to work. Then in turn, the sizzle softened and the door opened for balmy evenings around the barbecue.

We, which is to say, me and the clan, had happily become acclimatised to sitting in the back yard each evening sipping on cool beverages whilst drinking in the birds’ gloaming chorus. Waffle too, had been in his element.

The sunshine routine went thusly: After the others returned from school and work, I’d light the barbecue and as that was happening, I’d prep the dinner. After burgers or chops or sausages or whatever, we’d all clear up and then sit outside again for a while, savouring the birdsong in a digestive hiatus from the working world. After that, it was usually the littlest of the little humans who’d suggest, “When are we going on our adventure?”

The ‘adventure’ had become one of the highlights of the day, despite ‘adventure’ being a bit of a misnomer. All the ‘adventure’ entailed was a hike into the nearest field or a scramble through nearby woods or even following a stream until it joined the river. Whatever form the trek took, it was invigorating because it meant being be outdoors and un-plugged from the cyber-hive for a while, seeing what we would see and hoping to find some ferocious wild animals in the process.

This was Waffle’s favourite time of the day.

As Dog in Lazy Mode who is perfectly happy lounging on the sofa from one end of the day to the next, Waffle in Adventure Mode is like a completely different animal.

Each evening when Anna enquired, “When are we going on our adventure?” Waffle’s ears would prick up as if he had come to recognise the word and what it meant. More than any of us, he cherish tramping through the wilds surrounding our home.

After the yipping excitement of the beginning, Waffle in Adventure Mode would routinely run ahead, silent then, as if on the hunt. And he wouldn’t just run; he’d be bouncing through the field or among the trees, like a little hairy kangaroo, hopping for the joy of hopping. Gone were the vestiges of Dog in Lazy Mode; this new incarnation had rediscovered some vital element from puppyhood or was reborn thanks to some recently activated gene from his wolven forbears.

Waffle in Adventure Mode never slacked either. For the half hour or hour – or longer – that the adventure lasted, Waffle in Adventure Mode never stopped hopping or skipping or sniffing or rushing through the heather. If we walked a mile or two miles (I sometimes tracked our distance via the GPS on my watch), Waffle hopped, skipped and jumped his way to five or six miles (though I stopped short of strapping the watch to his hairy haunch). In short, he never stopped. And sometimes, just sometimes, he even looked as though he had a big, stupid smile spread across his face as he dashed hither and thither – although that might have been a trick of the receding light.

The downside of having such an outrider was that if he happened across a hare or a duck or some deer, we’d only catch a fleeting glance of the quarry before they disappeared among the undergrowth. The upside was that Waffle was such a joy to watch.

And then, all too soon, the sun would touch the horizon and it was sadly time to call time on our adventure; we habitually returned to the back yard whereupon we took up our seats again and listened to the world winding down, the burr of faraway traffic and maybe an unseen digger clunking on itself. Waffle would have a long lap of water of course and then he’d have to be nursed by one of the little humans. Perhaps we’d be peckish again and if we were, we’d eat.

And then the midges would arrive and that was the night over – until the next night.

Those hot days in May already seem like such a distant memory.