Django is lying at my feet. Outside, for the first time in weeks, it has begun to rain. Softly this time. Four years ago today, as I dug a grave for Flash and set her, wrapped in her blanket, in the ground, the weather changed. As the midday Angelus Bells rang out in the heavy…
Author: harrykerr
Gone Girl
I realised I had forgotten her face. At sixteen and a half years of age, her face had been transformed by time and her growing frailties. Spots faded, eyes clouded, her infirmity had become our preoccupation. A picture of her sleeping in my chair tears at me. Her fading greyed spots where once had been…
Imprimatur
It’s been almost a week since she died and the sound of her claws clicking across the floor still hasn’t left us. I still half imagine she is dozing in another room, expecting her to reappear at my heel, catch a glimpse of her through a crack in the door or find her watching from…
A River Runs Through It
A river runs through it all. For more than sixteen years we walked with Leica by the river more often than not. Days at the beach, camping trips and other adventures too, ferry trips to England or home to Scotland, but always home, here, down by the river. She learned, tentatively at first, to swim…
Testament
Amidst the seemingly endless reports of puppy farms, cruelty and neglect I sometimes try to remember that there are still countless dog owners who do care deeply for their pets. In a Facebook post recently where a member of a Dalmatian Owners group noted the death of their 15 year old Dalmatian, the expressions of sympathy…
Fahrenheit 451
Yesterday’s news. I came across the 2015 Dog Control Statistics for Ireland. Superficially at least, the headline figure in the Euthanasia section seemed like good news, half what it was when we first adopted KiKi, standing at 1,824 rather than in excess of three thousand dead dogs. Move over a couple of columns though and…
The Last of The Name
There’s no doubt that, through centuries of domestication, we have developed a very particular connection with dogs. We have bred and refined their characteristics to suit our own, human ends. Whether to hunt, to guard, to herd or retrieve, we have bent their development to our needs.The degree to which their evolution has been manipulated by…
The Twilight Saga
It has taken three weeks to sit down and write this post. Django bolted. Gone into the darkening evening and out of sight. Where I stand, the road forks in three directions and I have long since lost sight of him. Leica is stumbling as we go, our attempts to follow this far have been…
5420
Five thousand four hundred and twenty days give or take since we first saw her. Ninety miles or so from here, with her sister Flash and her mother Cindy, now both gone. Leica turns fifteen today in the company of our two ‘rescue’ dogs, KiKi age four and six months and Django age two and seven…
Forty Days and Forty Nights
Forty Days and Forty Nights with the boy we know as Django. It’s been epic. Charlton Heston Biblical Epic. He has his own food bowl, bed, blanket,rope toys, collar, a new harness, and still has all the common sense and manners of a four month old pup. Trouble is, as I’ve said before, he stands almost 24…
The Dimming of The Day
It seems like forever ago that she came to live with us, eight weeks old, with her sister Flash. Inquisitive, gentle, intelligent, affectionate and full of mischief. Leica’s world is dimming now as her eyesight and her hearing slowly desert her and she becomes ever more frail. Bonded to her sister since birth, separated from her…
Other Lives, Loved
In the two year life of this blog, I’ve talked mainly about our personal, direct, real life experiences with our dogs. At the heart of it though, the issue that prompted its inception, is the needless euthanasia of so many dogs around the country, and our apparent willingness as a society to allow it to…
Counter Terrorism
Well, no-one said it would be dull, that’s for sure. Or easy. Or quick. The ongoing fight against the terror that is Django’s food lust goes on. He’s been with us now a little over three weeks and his relentless and dare I say dogged pursuit of foodstuffs continues. He has gained a little weight…
Solitary Man
Between May and September of this year the dog we now call ‘Django’ was cared for by ASH Animal Rescue. He’s been with us for two weeks as of today and we are all still getting to know each other. His recent past would have involved a very different life experience, and sadly a great…
The Department of Corrections
This boy needs one of those orange jumpsuits you see in American prison TV shows. Django is an ideal candidate for a ‘Reality TV’ show all on his own. We knew we would have some issues with rehoming him after more than 4 months in ASH Animal Rescue, but he is still full of surprises….
The Third Man
Almost 15 years ago, when we first thought we might get a dog we tried to decide what it’s name might be. In a glass jar, like some Xmas party game, we put slips of paper with our ideas written on them. Frida (Kahlo), Georgia (O’Keeffe), Ansel (Adams), Cole (Weston), Minor (White), all names of artists…
The Adjustment Bureau
As we expected, the introduction of a third dog was going to bring up some issues. Once more we have a dog whose first two years we know only a little of. Like KiKi too, this dog has spent the last several months in a pen and is going to need time to readjust to domestic…
Kindred
One more week will see the second anniversary of KiKi’s arrival here with us. Two years ago she was still in the care of ASH Animal Rescue in County Wicklow, two days ago, we went back with her. In her life with us KiKi has been an unexpected mixture of delight and at times, distress….
Indivisible
It’s hard to imagine the it’s now a little more than two years now since Flash left us. The strangest, sweetest little dog that she was. Her sister Leica carries on, older and increasingly frail now she shares her days with KiKi and at night they too huddle as foxes for warmth.
E Pluribus Unum : Out of many, One
Since this blog first began it has dealt in the main with our experiences with KiKi and our mutual adaptations and re-learning. Now, almost two years have passed since Flash died and the journey we found ourselves on started, finding KiKi and learning something of the reality of dog euthanasia here in Ireland. Yet however special we…
Total Recall
OK, I admit the title may be a little misleading. Perhaps “50% Recall” would be more accurate, just not as catchy. KiKi turned four last week and the past 18 months or so of living with her have been a bit of a rollercoaster ride. Her recall behaviour remains selective, but it’s perfectly clear that…
Catch 22
Since she first arrived to live with us, it has been clear that KiKi found the world outside utterly absorbing. Her enthusiasm to scent and track, her eagerness to explore new places and her seemingly unbounded enjoyment in being loose to run have been evident from the outset, leading us to imagine that perhaps her previous…
Nearly Normal
It might not seem like a big deal to most dog owners, but after 18 months of life with KiKi, seeing her remain entirely calm in the sudden presence of a strange dog is a significant milestone. We’ve seen this crusty old boy regularly taking himself for a walk for years now. Leica seems to…
Half-Life
KiKi was 2 years and 4 months old when she came to live with us, a little younger obviously when she was take in by ASH Animal Rescue. In a little more than a month, on May 27th we will celebrate her fourth birthday. I’ve mentioned before that the early experiences in a dog’s life…
Tall tales
In fourteen plus years with our dogs, trips to the vet haven’t been too common and for the most part only a few of them have been real emergencies. The usual stuff you might expect, cuts and scrapes mostly. This week however, was a little different. Coming home we were greeted as usual by an excited KiKi…
The Gift
Leica and Flash were intended as a gift to mark Martha’s birthday a little over 14 years ago. When we lived and worked in Scotland it had been impractical for us to have a dog, so when we moved to Ireland and the circumstances allowed, that all changed. It seems difficult to separate the two…
Invisible Thread
When we first decided to bring KiKi to live with us we knew that our relationship with her was likely to be very different at first than had been the case with our previous dogs. The first two and a half years of her life were spent elsewhere, with a different family, and we knew…
Canis Lupus Familiaris
The scientific name for ‘dog’ generally, specifically and more usually applied to domesticated dogs, is Canis Lupus Familiaris. I studied Latin at school, a long time ago. It’s usefulness has has been questionable, pub quizzes aside. The ability to understand the root of words in more modern languages hasn’t really done a great deal for me as…
Crazy Heart
This past year with KiKi has been more fraught than I could ever have imagined. At times her behaviour has strained relationships with friends and family members. She is not Flash, she is not Leica. She is, however, ours. Entirely. We adopted her, in some peoples opinions, hastily. Time though, was not on our side….
Talking Dog
So every Spring, the pounds and rescues fill up with more abandoned dogs. Anyone who has owned a dog for long is going to know that housetraining a dog isn’t usually a long term process yet still people will dump their dogs if they are not clean about the house, as if expecting this part…
A Medicine For Melancholy
Through all the difficult times since we brought KiKi home, it’s easy perhaps to overlook just how much she has brought to us. The loss of Flash was incredibly hard for us to deal with, so much a part of our life as she had been. KiKi is a very different character, although her mischievousness and…
Early Learning Centre
Anyone who has owned a dog for any length of time understands well enough that ‘training’ them is an ongoing process. New situations and experiences will usually require some adjustment time, but a well trained dog can be expected to cope with most things, and knowing their character or nature can help predict how they will…
Grace & Danger
Since we first brought Leica and Flash, and later KiKi to live with us we have had to deal with what I call the “Disney” effect. The popularity of the “101 Dalmatians” films seems to have created a disconnect in many peoples minds between reality and fiction. For years we have experienced people and children…
Where The Wild Things Are
There’s proving to be a great deal we don’t properly understand about KiKi, and it’s certainly more complex than we were initially prepared for. Still, there are pleasures to be had in what we do know of her. At just over three years of age her enthusiasm for life is boundless. She leaves us in awe…
At bay
We have been trying now, for what seems like a long time, to manage KiKi’s behaviour. Her unpredictability has been a major factor. The struggle to understand how she feels and why she reacts as she does goes on. In broad terms, obviously, surprises don’t usually turn out to be good experiences, that much is…
Lost in Translation
In her past life, before us, before ASH, KiKi had apparently been kept by a family from Finland. I joked that we might need a phrasebook to help us communicate better with her, that English might not be her first language. At times, even now, she simply stares, unmoving as you ask something of her,…
3000 Dead Dogs 