One Dog and His Boy

2 Easy Pets

The Easy Pets Dog Agency was owned by a couple called Myron and Mavis Carker. The Carkers were greedy and selfish and they liked making money more than anything in the world.

But they were clever. They had realized that nowadays most people didn’t want anything to last for a long time. People changed their houses and their cars again and again; they changed their children’s schools and the places where they went for holidays – they even changed their wives or their husbands when they looked like they were becoming a bit ordinary and dull.

So why would they want to hang on to their dogs? The slogan “A Dog is for Life and Not Just for Christmas” simply wasn’t true for a great many people. Dogs, like children, were a tie; you couldn’t do exactly what you wanted with a dog in the household.

On the other hand, dogs were nice. They were fun, and some were very beautiful. To be seen with a graceful, freshly groomed borzoi in the park, or a frolicsome fox terrier, was very agreeable. So what could be more sensible than just to rent a dog – for an hour, or an afternoon, or even a weekend? All the dogs would be pure-bred animals with long pedigrees, and they could even be colour matched with the clothes of the person that was hiring them: a red setter to go with an autumn outfit of russet and crimson, or a snowy Pyrenean mountain dog for a man or woman who liked to wear white.

Of course renting such a dog would be very expensive; the dogs wouldn’t just have to be groomed and dewormed and examined regularly by a vet; they would have to have their hair done, tied up in a tuft like a shih-tzu, or shaved in parts like a poodle – and that meant regular visits from hairdressers and beauticians. But people would pay, the Carkers had been sure of that, and they were right. A year after Easy Pets opened, the Carkers were on the way to becoming really rich. And because they had to pay out to so many specialists to help them, they made sure that the kennel maid who did the ordinary work of cleaning out the dogs and feeding them did not have to be paid much. She was a young girl called Kayley, who came in each morning on the tube from Tottenham, and worked all hours of the day because she loved dogs – and as you would expect, the dogs loved her.

The Easy Pets building was in a fashionable street in the middle of London next to a row of expensive shops, but at the back there was a big compound where the dogs slept and a yard where they took their exercise. Kayley woke them early and reassured the dogs who had had bad dreams, like the huge English mastiff who, quite by mistake, had bitten off her mistress’s little finger when she was being fed a sausage, and never been punished. Not being punished when you feel you ought to have been is very upsetting for dogs, and the mastiff still suffered in the night. Then Kayley took the dogs out for a short run in the yard and gave them their breakfast.

After that they went to be washed and groomed and have their hair done and their nails polished and their teeth cleaned – and those of the dogs who wore their hair tied up away from their faces were given fresh ribbons, and those like the Afghan who needed extra brushing were taken away to a special dressing room. Then the dogs were sprayed, each with a special scent mixed by a lady who kept a perfume shop, because the smell of dog wasn’t thought to be right for the rich people who took the animals out. The St Bernards’ scent was called “Mountain Glory”, the poodles were sprayed with something called “Dark Dancer” and the collies were covered in “Heather Mist”. The dogs disliked these scents more than anything – a dog’s smell is as much a part of him as his bark or the way he holds his tail – and they did their best to lick themselves and each other and roll on the ground, but it was almost impossible to get the beastly stuff off.

Then when they were ready for the day’s work they were taken to the front of the building, where there were a number of rooms with elegant cages and soft lighting and fitted carpets. Over each cage was the dog’s name and above that the name of the breeder he came from. The dogs were not allowed toys – rubber balls or squeaky animals or plastic bones – to chew on because their cages had to be kept tidy to impress the people who came to pick out the dog they wanted. They just had to sit still and look desirable.

When they had first come to Easy Pets the dogs were full of hope. They had thought every time someone came for them it was someone who wanted a companion for life. Someone who was going to give them a home and to whom they would belong. They had gone off with their heads held high and their tails signalling their happiness – but always and always they were brought back, whether it was after an hour or a day … back to their cages and to the waiting.

They had each other, and they had Kayley, and they made the best of it, but it was hard.

In Room A there were five dogs. It was the smallest of the rooms and it was rather special because it was next to the little cubbyhole of an office where Kayley worked when she was not out in the yard, and the dogs who spent the day there had become firm friends.

The largest was Otto, a St Bernard with a tan and white face, and deep-set mournful eyes. Otto was wise and strong but gentle. He had had a tragedy in his life: his mother, who was an exceptionally large and heavy dog even for a St Bernard, had rolled over on to her puppies by mistake and squashed them, and only Otto had survived. This was in the mountains of Switzerland in a famous monastery where St Bernards had been bred for centuries to find people trapped in the snow and bring them to safety.

When something like that has happened to you, you don’t waste time fussing about small things. Otto had grown into a brave and useful rescue dog, but when a rich young man had insisted on buying him and taking him to England, Otto had made the best of it, though he had been so happy with the monks. Even when the silly young man found that he could not keep a St Bernard in a London flat and sold him on to Mr Carker, Otto somehow managed to stay dignified and calm, and to soothe the other dogs when they complained about the food or the disgusting perfume or the boredom.

Next to Otto was a dog as small as Otto was big – a tiny Pekinese called Li-Chee with golden hair down to the ground and a black scrunched-up face. Li-Chee adored Otto; when they were loose in the compound at night he curled up as close to Otto as he could, and when the St Bernard woke he sometimes felt that he had five legs – four of his own and one that was really a Pekinese. Pekes are lion dogs bred to be the companions of Chinese emperors, and the guardians of palaces and temples – and Li-Chee was as fierce and cross as Otto was silent and calm.

The cage beside the Peke was occupied by a black standard poodle. Francine’s coat was clipped and trimmed in the fussy way that people expect of poodles, with fluffy pompoms on her legs and tail and a close-shaven backside, and she was usually rented out by actresses and show people who wanted something glamorous. But inside, Francine was a practical hard-working dog and exceedingly clever. Her family had been circus performers for generations, doing incredibly difficult acts: running up ladders, jumping through rings of fire, balancing balls on their noses… Francine had loved the life of the circus – the companionship, the travelling in a caravan between one site and the next. But then someone had said training animals to perform was cruel and the circus had been shut down and now she had to sit still all day in a cage waiting to be chosen.

Across from Otto, Li-Chee and Francine was a rough-haired collie called Honey. Honey was very beautiful, with her long coat of black and white and sable and her soft and trusting eyes. But she was not easy to rent out because she couldn’t stop herding things, and because there were no sheep in London she herded anything she could find. She had herded a whole nursery school of little children on to the bandstand in the park, and kept a dozen squawking ducks penned up in a bus shelter.

Honey had been a highly trained sheep dog before she came, but the farmer who owned her had gone bankrupt and had to sell her. All the dogs missed being useful, but for a collie not being able to work is agony. The others worried about her. Mr Carker always sounded angry when she was returned early – and they knew what happened to dogs who had displeased Mr Carker – they simply disappeared and were not seen again.

The last inmate of Room A was an unpleasant bitch who lay on a special satin cushion with a hot water bottle under her stomach. Queen Tilly was a Mexican hairless, a small twitchy dog with a naked spotted skin and legs like sticks. They are a rare breed and most of them are nice, though delicate and shivery, but Tilly had belonged to a wealthy heiress before she came to Easy Pets, and had eaten off silver plates and slept on her owner’s silken pillows, and she behaved as though nothing was good enough for her. The other dogs had tried to be friendly when she first came but she just tossed her head and yawned. The only time she spoke was when her hot water bottle cooled down and then she yapped and squealed till Kayley came and heated it up for her. She was the most expensive of all the dogs for hire and actually she wasn’t worth the money.

There was one extra cage in Room A which at present was empty.

It had stopped raining and Otto, whose cage faced the window, saw people shutting up their umbrellas, which meant that a borrower would come soon. He sat up very straight in his cage and the other dogs followed his example.

At ten o’clock Kayley brought in a lady dressed in a very elegant black skirt with a purple blouse, and heels so high that she could only totter.

“I think Francine will suit you,” Kayley said, going over to the poodle’s cage. “She’s an extremely intelligent dog and used to restaurants.”

“She’ll certainly go with my outfit,” said the lady. “You see, it’s a bit tricky – I met this man at a party last night and he said he adored dogs so I said I adored dogs too and he asked me out to lunch. So I thought I would take a dog along and pretend it was mine – don’t you think it’s a good idea?”

Kayley didn’t. She thought it was a perfectly ridiculous idea, but she was used to the batty ideas of the hirers, so she just smiled and went on stroking Francine’s head through the bars of the cage.

“I suppose I could have something smaller, but then it would have to sit on my lap and it might leave hairs on my skirt. Or it would get stepped on by the waiters.”

“I think you will find Francine just right,” said Kayley again. “She’s used to lying under tables. The only thing is, she’s very musical – if it’s the kind of place with an orchestra playing, she might start to join in. Especially if they were to play a waltz.”

But the lady said no, it wasn’t that kind of place, it was a very expensive, quiet restaurant, the kind where people talked in low voices, usually about the food.

So Francine was taken away to be fitted with a rhinestone collar and have her ribbon changed for one that would match the blouse of the lady who was going to pretend that Francine was her own dog, and they went away.

When the poodle had been gone for an hour, a thin, worried-looking woman came and said she wanted a very large dog to protect her for the afternoon, because she was going to visit her son, who lived in a district where there were a lot of foreigners and people who were very poor and she was afraid of being attacked.

Kayley wanted to say that people who were poor and foreign did not attack old ladies any more than anybody else – she knew this because the people she lived among were poor, and many of them came from other countries – but she wanted Otto to have an outing so she said nothing and went to fetch Otto’s collar and lead.

Some dogs from the other rooms were borrowed, but not Honey or Li-Chee, who spent a boring afternoon dozing in their cages, while Queen Tilly went off to have her body massaged with olive oil because her skin was flaking.

On the following day an elderly woman came for the Pekinese because she had to go and see a friend who was even older, but the visit was not a success.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with old ladies but when your ancestors have been bred to ride on the saddle of the emperor when he gallops off to war, you do not feel like being told that you are an itsy-bitsy little doggie aren’t you – and though no dog from Easy Pets ever bit people, Li-Chee growled and showed his teeth and was brought back early.

Honey was hired by a man who had seen all the Lassie films when he was a boy and wanted to be photographed with her on the towpath near his house, and Francine was borrowed again by the woman who had told the man she had met at a party that the poodle was hers.

But on the day after that something unexpected happened.

Kayley arrived early, and came to the compound with her buckets of food and said good morning to the dogs as she always did. But this morning she was not alone. Trotting beside her, a piece of string round its makeshift collar, was a dog.

It was not a make of dog that any of the others recognized. It was white with a brown splodge over one ear and another brown splodge above its tail, and smallish like a fox terrier, and it had bat ears like a corgi whereas its violently wagging tail was a bit like the flagpole tail of a beagle. But it was not any of those things. It was something that had never before been seen in Easy Pets – a mongrel.

Kayley let the mongrel off the lead and he hurled himself joyfully at the nearest dog, which fortunately was Otto. As far as he could see he had been given a present of thirty or so new friends and he didn’t know whether to bark ecstatically, roll over, or lie on his back and wave his legs in the air, so he tried to do all these things at the same time.

Kayley took Otto and Francine aside.

“I want you to be very nice to him,” she said. Kayley always spoke to the dogs as though they were people and of course they understood her perfectly. “He’s a stray. I found him last night outside my house and no one seems to want him.”

Kayley lived in a small house in Tottenham with her family. They were very poor and their landlord was a horrible man who wouldn’t allow them to keep pets and didn’t do their repairs either. The night before she had gone out to the takeaway for the family’s supper and found this small white creature, wet through and shivering on her doorstep.

The dogs clustered round, sniffing the newcomer. He smelled of dog and not the nasty scents they had sprayed on them, and though he was a bit enthusiastic and puppyish they were happy to welcome him. Only Li-Chee growled a little because Otto was being very nice to the new arrival and he was jealous.

“I’ve got a plan,” Kayley told the dogs. “I don’t know if it’ll work, but in the meantime if you could just play with him and make it seem as though he belongs.”

She let them out into the yard and ran round with them while they had their exercise, and with such a crowd of dogs the little stray did not stand out.

When it was time for the dogs to go to their cages, Kayley slipped the mongrel into the empty cage in Room A. There was nothing to do now except wait for Mr Carker to come on his daily inspection, and hope for the best.

He came as soon as the dogs were settled, wearing the white overall he wore to impress the clients, and carrying a clipboard, on which were his notes. For Mr Carker kept notes on everything: how often a particular dog had been borrowed, whether the client had been pleased with him, and the exact profit the firm had made. Dogs to Mr Carker were just machines for making money and any animal that did not look like it was earning its keep was sent away at once.

“Well, how are we doing this morning?” asked Mr Carker, and Kayley said that everything was fine, and that the headmistress of a primary school had rung up and wanted to rent Otto for a whole day as an end-of-term treat for the children.

Then he stopped at the cage with the little white stray which Kayley had brought in.

His face darkened. “What on earth is going on here? Are you mad, girl? This is a mongrel. Who brought him in and what is he doing here?”

“Please, sir, I brought him in but he’s not a mongrel.” Kayley was a truthful girl but if a life could be saved by telling lies, then one just had to go ahead. “He’s a new breed. They’re just going to register him at the Kennel Club. I got him for my birthday but our landlord won’t let us keep dogs.”

Mr Carker scowled at the newcomer who was wagging his tail and giving little barks of greeting.

“It’s true,” said Kayley. “Honestly. He’s a … Tottenham terrier. They’re becoming quite fashionable. I saw one at a dog show in Brighton.”

Mr Carker hesitated. Kayley was very knowledgeable about dogs, and it wouldn’t do to be ignorant of a new breed, but he was suspicious.

“I’ve got his pedigree at home,” said Kayley. “Couldn’t we try him? Maybe we could charge a bit less as he’s new.”

“Well, perhaps.” A Tottenham terrier. It had a good ring to it. “But mind you, if he hasn’t been hired by the end of the week, then he goes. If you can’t take him there’s always the cat and dog shelter. I won’t have an animal here that doesn’t earn its keep.” And as Kayley bent down and stroked the dog through the bars: “Did you hear me?”

“Yes, sir.”

At the door Mr Carker turned. “You’d better find a name for him and get it put on his cage.”

“Yes, sir,” said Kayley again.

But she already had a name. She had found it when she looked into the mongrel’s eyes. They were dark and trusting and full of intelligence – but they were not completely equal. On one eye was a splodge, a single fleck of gold.

“He’s called Fleck,” she said.

But Mr Carker had already gone.