The Visitor
We have a house guest. A dog. Which is staying with us for ten days. As I write, we have her for another three days, seven hours and 34 minutes. We like dogs, we had a dog, we loved that dog, on the whole, but she left us after 14 years and now resides on Rainbow Bridge. Ever since, we have been thinking about getting another, but the commitment; being dragged down the road for the early morning walk in the lashing rain, scrubbing fox poo off her neck having rolled in a pile, picking up her turds in a plastic bag, coaxing her out of the under-stair cupboard after bonfire night. But we loved that dog and when we took her, for the final time, to the vets in Airvault we wept like school girls. It's been four years since she went...we found her passport in a drawer the other day and remembered the happy times. She was a Labrador and would hurl herself into any puddle of stagnant water she could find; she even dragged my dad into the canal one time...happy memories. But I think with dog...