Strictly Bruce: Stories of My Life by Bruce Forsyth

Author:Bruce Forsyth
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473526617
Publisher: Bantam Press

I enjoy training dogs – I’d even say I was good at it – and felt I was coming along just fine with Lulu. Until Winnie and I were due to spend three months in Puerto Rico, where Winnie grew up.

‘Bring Lulu with us,’ she suggested. ‘We can organize it, and you can finish your training there.’

Foolishly, I didn’t think this was a good idea. ‘I’m not taking her all the way over there. I’ll be constantly worried about her. She’s just a puppy and might run off, or bark the place down and upset the neighbours.’

We leave Lulu with Cora. Three months later we return, and Lulu is no longer my dog. Lulu is now besotted with Cora. Lulu does absolutely nothing I tell her. Nothing. The only concession Lulu has made since then is to play one particular game with me. She loves to come up to our bedroom in search of my old slipper.

‘Where’s the slipper, Lulu? Who’s got the slipper?’ She’ll sit there, stock still, watching my every move. She knows I’m going to find that slipper, and when I do …

‘Ah, there’s the slipper,’ I’ll grandly announce, producing it with a flourish from its hiding place. ‘I found it and it belongs to me!’ This drives Lulu crazy. She’ll go for the slipper and when she gets her teeth into it there’s no way she’ll let go. She pulls and pulls until it’s hers, at which point she darts out of the room, slipper in mouth, while I scream after her, ‘Bring back my slipper! Bring back my slipper, you naughty dog!’ She loves that game. And so do I.

And then there’s my Mace, a lovely, lovely boy who was once trained by the police but was just too good-natured for that line of work. How Mace joined our family is rather shocking. Being a big golf fan, in July 2002 I was staying with Ronnie Corbett and his wife Annie at Muirfield for the Open Golf Championship and while I was absent our house was burgled, with Winnie, my son JJ and Cora inside. Cora was badly injured during the incident. I cannot tell you how traumatic this was to us as a family. I was determined to take action and decided we needed a big dog to help protect our property. We were so lucky when we found Mace. He was perfect. In every way.

Through his partial police training, Mace had become the most impeccably behaved and obedient dog I have ever owned. He was remarkable. All I had to say was ‘Talk to me,’ and he would reply, ‘Hello, Bruce!’ Something like that, anyway. Mace even gave Rusty a run for his money when it came to the biscuit trick. I used to tease him a little when I took his treat out of the tin, pretending it was for me. He used to whimper and give me a look as if to say, ‘Isn’t that biscuit mine?’ And of course it always was.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.