Before La Fluffita there were Nefertiti and Ptolomy. Nefertiti was a huge and beautiful Doberman/German Shepherd cross, rescued from a house full of small children somewhere in South London, and Ptolomy was her son, the result of the union between her and an opportunistic, prize winning stud Golden Retriever called Olaf. Olaf's owner was totally horrified when her beloved cash dog leapt upon Nefertiti and ravished her as the late Chairman walked her back to the car. The Chairman then had to engage her in light conversation while her dog ravished ours. I gather it was an interesting walk.
Anyway, 9 weeks later, she produced 10 adorable black puppies. One by one they left home to live with new owners. 2 went to train as guard dogs, as we called one of them the Bitey Boy, as he mauled his gentle brothers and sisters, I think it was an appropriate career, but the other one, I am sure, only looked the part. Ptolomy however, never showed any desire to leave home. When people came to see the puppies, the others surged forward enthusiastically. Ptolomy didn't. Ptolomy didn't surge at all. He always hid next to me or the Chairman. We had decided to keep one of the puppies but couldn't choose one. It was fine. Ptolomy chose us.
Every morning the Chairman would take them out for an hour around the local reservoir. After he died, my neighbour took them out for a couple of weeks, then I went with them, then it was Katy and I, then Katy. We had avoided the reservoir as the Chairman had enjoyed taking them there so much, but after a couple of months it seemed wrong to deprive them of their favourite place, and Nefi loved to swim. So Katy took them there. They had a lovely time, it was often quiet, actually I suppose it isn't really the place for a girl to walk by herself, but they were big dogs. As she was walking back to the car she passed another dog walker. He stopped her and smiled. 'I know these dogs' he said, 'A tall, bald, guy usually walks them, I haven't seen him for some time.' 'That's my father' said Katy, 'He had a heart attack'. 'How is he?' said the d.w., 'He's dead' said Katy. There was a pause. 'Ah' said the d.w. 'Not too good then'.
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8 comments:
Madame Chairwoman
I enjoyed reading your blog immensely.
Thank You.
Ow. There's not a good way to break that news, even to a stranger.
We had puppies called Nefertiti, Cleopatra, Ptolomy and Tutenkhamen. We kept the girls, found home for the boys as seven dogs seemed enough at the time.
edrig - No, thank YOU
z - We were immensley tickled,it was just the sort of thing that would have appealed to the Chairman's sense of humour.
He always said he felt a prat standing by the reservoir shouting 'Ptolomy, Ptolomy, Ptolomy', but agreed that it was better than my first choice, which had been Horus (we'd also discussed Anubis, but couldn't agree on pronunciation). We only kept one puppy as three dogs , four cats, and a small pond full of small Koi seemed too.
Ptolemy is someone different, right?
Personally, I think Ammon-Ra is a nice name.
Excellent choice, Dandelion, but as you can see, I'm now following a Mexican theme.
Should I get another dog, and I am considering it, I would be open to suggestions.
Mystery Dog Walker sounds like a character in a Richard Curtis oeuvre. It replays in my head in a Hugh Grant intonation. Pretty cool response, hope Katy was then able to take it well.
Hi Dr. J - Yes Katy was more than equal to the situation, and we both enjoyed it considerably. Gallows humour has always been a major constituent of the Newton household, and nobody would have enjoyed the joke more than the Chairman.
I felt rather guilty for barking out a laugh at the end of your entry, but now that I've read your last comment, I feel better.
Love the dogs' names. Ours is called Falafel, and she was suppose to the first in a huge family of pets, all named after exotic middle eastern food. Sadly, Humous the cat was really ill-tempered and abandoned us soon after her adoption. So we suspended our experiment with multi-animal ownership.
Fortunately parenthood seems to be working out, though.
Thanks for sharing,
Alpha Dogma.
PS - I love your posts. Tight writing, well paced. And funny.
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