Two Dachshunds at Troy - A dog's tale , livre ebook

Pneuma Springs Publishing - Jeremy Lousada

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78 pages

English

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This delightful light-hearted book is the true story of a love affair. A love affair between the author and his two miniature dachshunds, one with which anyone who has ever loved a dog will empathise. They were born in Africa and travelled widely there. They were quite possibly the first dogs ever to cross Europe, solely by water from the North Sea to the Black Sea. They swam in the great lakes of Africa, in seven seas, chased baboons in Africa, rabbits in the High Jura on the European watershed, and lizards in the ruins of Troy. Sometimes they enjoyed it, sometimes they found it confusing, sometimes, as in a Turkish winter, they distinctly disapproved. It was an adventurous life... This is a dog's tale, a tale of two small dogs. Small dogs they may have been, and perhaps like Pooh, of small brain, but very few dogs can have been as well travelled or better loved. The author was born in England but grew up on the continent and in East Africa. He served in the British army then moved to Zimbabwe, or Rhodesia as it was, in the BSA Police. After a career in local Government, hotels and sports clubs and finally as bursar of a group of private schools he returned to the UK where he now runs a small convenience store. He has been married to his wife Jean for forty one years, has two married daughters and four teenage grandsons. His passion is boats of all kinds and he spends as much time as he can on his small barge in France, and after studying 'French in 3 Months' for five years he hopes in a few more years to master the language. Book reviews online @ www.publishedbestsellers.com

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Publié par	Pneuma Springs Publishing
Date de parution	05 août 2011
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781782281641
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0160€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Two Dachshunds
at Troy

A dog's tale

Jeremy Lousada
Copyright

First Published in 2011 by: Pneuma Springs Publishing
Two Dachshunds at Troy - A dog’s tale Copyright © 2011 Jeremy Lousada
Jeremy Lousada has asserted his/her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this Work
Pneuma Springs
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Lousada, Jeremy. Two dachshunds at Troy : a dog's tale. 1. Lousada, Jeremy. 2. Lousada, Jeremy--Travel. 3. Dog owners--Great Britain--Biography. 4. Dachshunds-- Biography. 5. Human-animal relationships--Anecdotes. I. Title 636.7'538'0929-dc22
Kindle eISBN: 9781782280019 ePub eISBN 9781782281641 PDF eBook eISBN 9781782280859 Paperback ISBN: 9781907728204
Pneuma Springs Publishing E: admin@pneumasprings.co.uk W: www.pneumasprings.co.uk
Published in the United Kingdom. All rights reserved under International Copyright Law. Contents and/or cover may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written consent of the publisher.
Dedication

For Jean with love
Chapter One
“Master this is thy servant. He is rising eight weeks old,
He is mainly Head and Tummy. His legs are uncontrolled.
But thou has forgiven his ugliness, and settled him on Thy knee,
Art thou content with thy servant? He is very comfy with thee.”
R. Kipling

This is a dog’s tale, or rather a tale of two dogs, small dogs. Those of you who keep and love pet giraffes, baby crocodiles and cats need read no further. Small dogs they may be, and perhaps like Pooh, of small brain, but few can have had such adventurous lives. They were almost certainly the first dogs ever to cross Europe by water from the North Sea to the Black Sea, they walked on the same stones the Turkish fleet was tied on before Lepanto, they chased baboons in Africa, hunted rabbits in the High Jura and lizards in the ruins of Troy. What they thought of it all we cannot be sure, communications were generally good but not perfect. In some cases, such as Rommel’s perplexity with sea water, the thought processes were obvious, in others the nuances of thought were beyond our communication levels and I have had to use some poetic licence. But let me start at the beginning.
She was born on the 9 th of December 1984 in Highlands, a suburb of Harare, Zimbabwe.
Her father was high born of impeccable lineage, numbering champions among his forebears, and he himself, having championship pretensions. Her mother was an orphan and nothing is known of her maternal relations.
Their owner was my dentist.
Regretfully none of her vital statistics were recorded at birth, but I imagine they ran to about two inches in length and a couple of ounces.
I didn’t see her until nearly the end of January 1985. She was to be the first new puppy in our household for nearly twenty years.
The reason for this had nothing to do with a want of dogs in our household, in fact the opposite. Zimbabwe abounded in maltreated strays and mongrels of a parentage which would have baffled the best judges at Crufts.
My home at the time suffered from a surfeit of females, including my wife Jean and daughters Alex and Sarah. All were addicted to animals. We never had time to start with puppies. Abandoned strays and starved juveniles came to their attention with monotonous regularity. Others swamped by female households, will understand the pressures involved, but for those of you who have escaped the tyranny I will give an example.
Jean and our next door neighbour’s wife were chatting by the gate when an African passed dragging a very small cross bred Maltese poodle along by a piece of string. It was filthy, covered in sores and suffering from malnutrition.
Without considering what they would do with it subsequently, they launched themselves into action. The dog was seized, the owner threatened with prosecution unless he handed it over then and there, and finally five shillings changed hands to the complete satisfaction of the previous owner.
Left triumphantly holding a string with six pounds of dirty, tick infested misery at one end, they looked at each other in consternation. Only then did their respective husband’s strictures on the collection of further strays come to mind!
They made one of those unprincipled pacts so dear to female logic. Whoever’s husband returned home last would be presented with the specimen.
My daughters returned from school – ‘poor dear little dog’.
One would think that the God of our destinies would reward honesty and hard labour. Had I been out drowning my day’s labours in a bar, I could have understood it, but as it happened I was working late.
My arrival home was greeted with hugs.
‘Poor darling working so late. Come and sit down and relax before supper.’
Hardly was I seated before one daughter brought me my slippers and propped my feet on a foot stool, and the other had poured me a cold beer.
Husbands, fathers of daughters, or any fathers for that matter will know that behaviour of this kind is so abnormal as to be positively frightening. I ceased to relax and demanded and explanation.
All fled to the kitchen from whence came agitated twitterings.
Presently all three emerged and lined up sheepishly before me. Eldest daughter then produced from behind her back the latest applicant for family membership. It had been scrubbed and disinfected from nose to tail and for one of the few times in its life was sparkling white.
Dogs are not stupid, it knew immediately that this was the final and fatal interview. It cringed flat on the floor at my feet, gazed imploringly up at me with soft brown eyes and wagged its tail hopefully.
The word flood broke. Jumbled phrases tumbled together.
“Poor little dog – isn’t it sweet – no home- starving to death – always beaten”
I prefer bending with the wind to ignominious rout and as a reward I was allowed to name it. I called him ‘Whitefang’ in protest. It was the most totally unsuitable name that I could think of.
For years variously assorted dogs ranging from a neurotic white Alsatian to a kind of fox terrier with a passion for low life, passed through the house and in due course went the way of all flesh.
My two beautiful Alsatians, Zeus and Molly, whom I had had from puppies and who predated my marriage, succumbed to old age. Alex went nursing and Sarah to boarding school, and suddenly the house was empty except for one cat and Fang, then Fang was also gone.
Fang (mercifully shortened since he was seldom white) was one of the only four men I have known in my life whom I would have classified as lady killers. None, including Fang, were either particularly good looking, charming or even intelligent.
They did have one thing in common and that was the extraordinary belief that no woman would ever say ‘No’ to them.
Few did.
Fang despite his diminutive size was convinced that he was what every bitch on heat was looking for. They responded to this huge ego with enthusiasm and to the discomfort of other suitors.
Great Danes, Alsatians, Dobermans, Rotweilers, Labradors all fell under the spell and suffered the resulting unrequited love arising from a ground clearance difference of two feet.
We were living in Kariba in Northern Zimbabwe at the time. The town is sited on hills overlooking the huge lake created for a hydro-electric scheme. When it was built in 1955 it was the largest man made lake in the world, it is also the centre of a large wildlife area and residents have to co-exist with a certain amount of game.
On the fatal evening Fang escaped from our yard and visited a Labrador bitch which was particularly besotted with him, he dallied too long and returning after dusk met not an irate husband, but a hungry leopard on the Post office steps – a fate witnessed by a number of passers by.
At least it must have been a mercifully brief end for an aging lady killer, returning home from another illegal assignation. There were probably worse ways to go.
Talking of wildlife, apart from leopards the biggest nuisances were baboons and elephants. Baboons will occur later, elephants though could be a real nuisance. We had one once in the garden standing nine feet from us and pulling Jean’s pot plants out from under the veranda roof whilst we shouted imprecations from the safety of the front door. They love clean water and a swimming pool is an open invitation for a drink. One problem being that they also flatten your front gate and fence when accessing this oasis. Oddly enough they hate being sprayed with a hosepipe and will leave at a run. This, I have to say, was, at that time, an interesting way to get rid of them as the water pressure was usually low to say the least.
However, my favourite elephant story concerned a middle aged lady who had just moved up to Kariba. As I said it is built on hills and the road up is narrow and winding cut out of the hillside. Driving home one evening she came round a corner to find three elephants occupying the centre of the road. She was on her own and very nervous, behind her was a sharp curve which (being female) she did not want to try and reverse round, on the other hand she could not go forward. She wound up her front windows and sat gripping the steering wheel and praying for them to move.
Then she felt the tiniest whisper of something moving her hair at the back of her neck. Petrified she looked in her mirrors - she had forgotten to close the rear window, and an elephant stood by the car with its trunk through this gently sniffing her hair with its trunk!
As with anyone possessed of passable hearing, eyesight and the ability to look around me, I prefer dogs to people, but to truly enjoy the best of a dog you need to get it as a puppy and raise it yourself. Jean had never had a puppy in her life.
I decided that the time had come, but puppies like children are a long term commitment, one which should never be undertaken lightly. I l