Four Legs Good
Just as the pilot was called out to rescue a stranded plane of passengers yesterday, the two year old decided to hide his keys. Times like this, it would be useful to have a proper dog - obedient, well trained, useful. The kind of dog where you could say 'Seek!' and they would help find missing keys or rescue small children from crevasses (or was that Lassie?) The decidedly unamused pilot left (minus house keys, security tag etc) and while we tore the house apart looking for the keys the hound slept peacefully on the sofa. (Finally found the keys, hidden in my box of paints in the basement. When I asked the two year old why he had hidden them he hugged me and whispered 'Dada no go 'way'. Can't really be cross with that can you?) This is why I'm up so early - let the pilot in a couple of hours ago and now can't sleep, although the dog is still snoring in her basket.
Colette said 'Our perfect companions never have fewer than four feet.' The hound is the latest in a long line of furry friends - I wondered are there any writers who don't adore pets? What is it we love about our animals so much - that we can just be, work, not talk? That they force us to lighten up? Like Johnson we have had several 'very fine' cats, the last of which (Jasper, renamed Jazz in his retirement on the east coast with the pilot's parents) is the feline embodiment of 'Six Dinner Sid' - a brilliant kids picture book about a cat who has several owners, all of which give him dinner. When we pulled out of our street in London for the last time, a couple we had never seen before ran after us yelling 'Where are you going with Albert?!' I knew he had several lives (no wonder he had always refused a collar) - catnip toys with the lesbian couple upstairs, a warm bed with the sarong wearing Ducatti riding coke dealer next door - but we had no idea someone else on the street actually thought they owned him. I once read that all animals have several names - official, pet and secret known only to the owner. Jasper has had more aliases than Jennifer Garner.
As a young teen I learnt pretty much everything about how to be a writer from films like 'Betty Blue'. Zorg spends hours sitting around staring thoughtfully into space (check), cooks lots of chilli (check), has his heart broken by a beautiful insane person (check), adopts cat (check). At the end of the movie he finally gets pen to paper and the cat asks him 'Are you writing?' Zorg smiles in an enigmatic Gallic way 'No, just thinking'. I even spent a summer whitewashing houses to earn the money to adopt the cat (this wasn't some tightfisted landlord paying me peanuts, it was my Dad - working on his construction sites each holiday gave me my protestant work ethic, thanks Dad).
In Spain we were adopted by a family of feral cats, and rescued a gorgeous Husky/Malamute from the local refuge. Faber (as in Max Frisch's 'Homo Faber' - the wandering man), was a perfect writer's dog. He used to keep my feet warm in the winter, and would drag me away from the book for walks in the orange groves. The hound may not be useful but she is beautiful - it is more like living with a mythological creature - all the grace and agility of a big cat in the body of a dog x griffon. She is big, but gentle and the children adore her. Like most families, we have loved and lost more small furry creatures and fish than I care to remember, but it is the dogs, cats (and planned horses and alpacas) that really touch your heart. My sister-in-law and I half joke about becoming Bardot like mad animal women. Then again as Edgar Allen Poe said: 'there is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere man.'
TODAY'S PROMPT: Who are your favourite animals in fiction? Cat in the Hat? Slinky Malinki? Milo and Otis? If you have a beloved family pet how about immortalising them in a short story or picture book for your children? Or perhaps there is a much missed four legged friend from your past you'd like to remember - animals key into our lives and emotions in a direct and uncomplicated way, and remembering them can help unlock the past.
Colette said 'Our perfect companions never have fewer than four feet.' The hound is the latest in a long line of furry friends - I wondered are there any writers who don't adore pets? What is it we love about our animals so much - that we can just be, work, not talk? That they force us to lighten up? Like Johnson we have had several 'very fine' cats, the last of which (Jasper, renamed Jazz in his retirement on the east coast with the pilot's parents) is the feline embodiment of 'Six Dinner Sid' - a brilliant kids picture book about a cat who has several owners, all of which give him dinner. When we pulled out of our street in London for the last time, a couple we had never seen before ran after us yelling 'Where are you going with Albert?!' I knew he had several lives (no wonder he had always refused a collar) - catnip toys with the lesbian couple upstairs, a warm bed with the sarong wearing Ducatti riding coke dealer next door - but we had no idea someone else on the street actually thought they owned him. I once read that all animals have several names - official, pet and secret known only to the owner. Jasper has had more aliases than Jennifer Garner.
As a young teen I learnt pretty much everything about how to be a writer from films like 'Betty Blue'. Zorg spends hours sitting around staring thoughtfully into space (check), cooks lots of chilli (check), has his heart broken by a beautiful insane person (check), adopts cat (check). At the end of the movie he finally gets pen to paper and the cat asks him 'Are you writing?' Zorg smiles in an enigmatic Gallic way 'No, just thinking'. I even spent a summer whitewashing houses to earn the money to adopt the cat (this wasn't some tightfisted landlord paying me peanuts, it was my Dad - working on his construction sites each holiday gave me my protestant work ethic, thanks Dad).
In Spain we were adopted by a family of feral cats, and rescued a gorgeous Husky/Malamute from the local refuge. Faber (as in Max Frisch's 'Homo Faber' - the wandering man), was a perfect writer's dog. He used to keep my feet warm in the winter, and would drag me away from the book for walks in the orange groves. The hound may not be useful but she is beautiful - it is more like living with a mythological creature - all the grace and agility of a big cat in the body of a dog x griffon. She is big, but gentle and the children adore her. Like most families, we have loved and lost more small furry creatures and fish than I care to remember, but it is the dogs, cats (and planned horses and alpacas) that really touch your heart. My sister-in-law and I half joke about becoming Bardot like mad animal women. Then again as Edgar Allen Poe said: 'there is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere man.'
TODAY'S PROMPT: Who are your favourite animals in fiction? Cat in the Hat? Slinky Malinki? Milo and Otis? If you have a beloved family pet how about immortalising them in a short story or picture book for your children? Or perhaps there is a much missed four legged friend from your past you'd like to remember - animals key into our lives and emotions in a direct and uncomplicated way, and remembering them can help unlock the past.
