JANUARY THE SECOND.

FRIENDSHIP AMONG DOGS, KINDNESS WITH ADULTS.

Buddie the dog woke me this second day of the year by licking me on the face and whining with impatience. I ignored him until he settled down; towards the foot of my sofa bed but then, feeling guilty, got up and opened the kitchen door to let him out into the garden. Lying in bed, while he wandered; the chill air filled the kitchen and made me glad I was still tucked up in my downie.

He didn’t let me stay in bed much longer. Once he had come back in, he carried on whining; occasionally pawing at the kitchen door to get out into the rest of the house. I paid him as little attention as I could but he kept on coming back to sit on my bed and lick my face. I knew fine he was missing Dash the dog, who was upstairs with Wendy and in the end, I put my dressing gown on and opened the door.

Buddie rushed into the sitting room but Dash wasn’t there, then up to James’ room where he wasn’t either. While I carried on further upstairs, he rushed around the house until, not long after I had snuggled into Wendy in her bed, he clattered upstairs and joined me, Wendy and Dash.

Wendy got licked, I got licked. Wendy seemed determined to be asleep even though Buddie was draped over both our bodies, with his paws resting on her.

After his initial excitement Dash decided it was the start of the day and went downstairs. Buddie ran after him and then came back to us.

Dash, having presumably seen the neighbours cat through the window started barking, so Buddie rushed downstairs again to bark alongside Dash before coming back to us to lie besides us, panting.

They spent the next half an hour barking at intervals with Buddie alternating his barking from downstairs to up in our room.

In the end Wendy got fed up and asked me to see to the dogs; saying she needed another half hours sleep before coffee.

I ended up putting my jammie bottoms on and went to sit under the quilt in the sitting room. The dogs carried on with their barking but slightly less so. I read a book. After the allotted half hour there was no sign of Wendy, nor the half hour after nor the next half hour.

The dogs settled; just the occasional bark.

In Wendys absence I decided to get back into my sofa bed, drink some coffee and do some writing. Two minutes later I heard her on the stairs, ready for coffee, telling me Buddie would be picked up in half an hour.

In the early days, when Buddie was just a puppy, Dash got impatient with him. We would see him at the children’s dad’s and sometimes he would come to visit us when their dad was working. Dash would greet his presence with disdain and would make a point of sitting on the couch next to Wendy and not allowing Buddie up or getting possessive about his dog toys or his old chewed bones. Buddie was so well natured that he just continued to adore Dash, even when he got growled at when he got too familiar.

Nowadays they are very different. Both of them sit on the couch together, both of them sit at the look out cushion at the door or the high backed chair by the window in the sitting room to look at the world and bark at it. Buddie will play with Dash’s toys or nibble on his bones and Dash pays no attention. Instead they are always checking where the other one is in the house and often have to be in the same room together. They miss each other when they are apart.

I was going to say humans are not that good at changing their attitude when they go off each other and not that good at becoming friends when they have decided they don’t like each other. We tend to make firmer decisions.

But I think of when Buddies ‘dad’ comes to get him and how friendly he is; how this morning, when he picked up Buddie, he offered to take Dash out for a walk with him.

Both Tom and Wendy have done this so well. Even though they split up and would not want to be together anymore for very long at all; they are kind to each other. We look after Buddie when needed. Tom looks after Dash when we need this. They do not argue about the children. They never belittle each other in the children’s presence; instead they say kind things about each other. They are accommodating and adapt to each other’s lives. We all have a family What’s app page to manage things like the school run and other events.

I like this. I like that Buddie and Dash are now friends and I like that when it is easy to blame and feel bitter some people resist that temptation and act like you would hope most adults could be capable of.

Not much like this in my memoirs but do have a look if you are interested!