Someone to Look Up To by Jean Gill

Author:Jean Gill
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: dog, Great Pyrenees, Pyrenean Mountain Dog, adoption, rescue, France, dog training, dog behaviour, dog psychology, love story, memoir, non-fiction
Publisher: Jean Gill
Published: 2016-02-15T05:00:00+00:00

*****

‘That looks bad.’ Jack flicked Éclair’s ear back into place and the whippet instinctively raised a back leg to scratch the offending part, already crusted with dried blood from previous scratching.

‘It’s driving me crazy. I can feel these... things... crawling round down inside my ear. If I could bite it off, I would – I’d have a matching pair then.’ No-one laughed. ‘At least the other ear’s safe!’

‘Ear-mites,’ Jack confirmed. ‘Thought as much. I can lick the surface clean but I can’t do anything about what’s going on deeper down...’ He turned to me. ‘Lots of the dogs with floppy ears have black mud in their ears... itchy and irritating but you can live with it. Not with mites though.’

Éclair bashed her head against the chain-link fencing and whimpered, ‘What am I going to do?’

‘When the Human comes, make it obvious to her. Put your head on one side, whine, scratch behind your ear, show you’re in pain. You’ve got to see a vet.’

It was Sourface who came with the food-bucket and we made sure she had a clear view of Éclair. I’d been keeping my distance anyway, my own lop ears itching with imaginary ants at the very idea of catching mites. Éclair followed Jack’s advice to the letter, pawing at Sourface to get her attention, then whining, scratching, shaking her head – the whole works.

Sourface put the bucket down again wearily. ‘There’s always something wrong with you lot, isn’t there. I swear you do it on purpose. I suppose I’d better get Madame Clunier.’ She picked up her bucket and carried on with feeding the dogs in the next pen, and the one after that. We listened to the routine noises of hungry dogs anticipating food, then quietening, in the usual wave of sound that indicated the feeding route round the centre and we waited. Finally we heard the voices of Bigwoman and Sourface coming our way.

‘... too many dogs. Not surprising they’re spreading disease and there’s just nothing I can do to prevent it. New one coming in, that has to be kept on its own, and we’re just running out of space. We’ve left it long enough, Lea, sentimental fools that we are. We’ll just have to make a selection...’ I never would understand people. I would never have believed that Bigwoman and Sourface would Choose some of us to go their homes and be their pets. I wasn’t sure that was necessarily better than being in the pen with the others, however cramped things were, but at least it showed that they cared.

‘I agree completely. And the other thing we’ve left too long is this question of volunteers.’

‘Yes, I’ve been thinking about that, too. I’m not sure it’s worth all the paperwork we have to do. When we have an Inspection, that’s all they go on about, ‘insurance for volunteers, suitable training for volunteers, what tasks do they carry out, information about the dogs... on and on.’

‘They take up my time with all their questions and for every job they do, I have to check up on them and put things right.

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