Remembering Dexter

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Book excerpt

Chapter 1

Summer 2009

It was a lovely, sunny summer’s day, and like many families, we were trying to decide what to do with our Sunday afternoon.

            “Can we go to the dog place?” Victoria my youngest step-daughter asked.

            Two weeks previously, we’d adopted our latest rescue dog, a beautiful brindle greyhound/lurcher we’d named Sophie, from the dog pound, situated about 15 miles from our home. Located out of town in the countryside, it was a pleasant location and a nice little run out in the car, so we agreed to pay them another visit. The girls, at that time aged nine and ten, wanted to take Sophie with us, but we convinced them that wasn’t a good idea. Sophie might think we were taking her back there, and that wouldn’t do at all. We’d take our ‘pack leader’ Tilly, the little cross breed terrier blessed with incredible intelligence and ability on the agility course, and who was learning search and rescue techniques at dog training. She loved car rides so it would be a little treat for her.

            So, after lunch, we set off in the car and duly arrived at the pound about half an hour later. As soon as we got out of the car in the car park located outside the gates of the dog pound, we could hear the sounds of multiple dogs barking from within. They all wanted a home and were letting the world know it.

            We were greeted warmly by the staff in the office, as they knew us well enough by that time. We’d already adopted a few dogs from them, and we were no strangers to the place.       

            “Back again,” Louise asked as we smiled as if to say, “We didn’t have a choice in the matter.”

            “Just thought we’d have a look around,” I replied. “Sophie is doing really well, so we decided we might find another new friend.”

            “You can’t keep away from the place,” Louise laughed, and she was right!

            The layout of the kennels at the pound was basically a large rectangle with dog pens around the perimeter and another central building housing a further number of pens. Juliet and Victoria set off to the right, I went to look in the central building, and Rebecca aged ten, set off on her own to the left. After a few minutes of talking to various dogs through the bars of their pens, and wanting to adopt them all if I could have, Rebecca entered the building and called to me to come and look at something.

            “You’ve got to see this dog,” she said, and she took my hand to pull me in the desired direction. At the far end of the courtyard, two pens from the end of the row, she pointed to a dog. Because of the way the place was built, not a lot of natural sunlight entered the dog pens, depending on the sun’s position in the sky. Here, I saw the dog Rebecca wanted me to look at. Lying at the front of its pen in a tiny triangle of sunshine, was a medium sized black dog. That wasn’t the remarkable thing about it, however, as all dogs love lying in the sun. What was amazing about this particular dog, was the fact that he’d dragged his blanket from his bed in the stall at the rear of his pen to the sunny spot at the front, beside the bars. Clever dog, I thought.

            “Hello there,” I said to the dog, “Are you a clever dog, then?”

            As if he understood my question, his tail began wagging, as if to confirm a positive reply.

            “Can we have him, please?” Rebecca asked.

            “Whoa there, wait a minute,” I replied. “We only came to have a look around.”

            Of course, I was lying. We all knew that if we found a suitable dog, we’d be adopting another rescue. Juliet and I just hadn’t put that thought into words.

            “Oh, please can we have him? Look he’s got white socks on,” Rebecca pleaded.

            “We’ll go find your Mum and Victoria,” I said. “They’re looking around too, don’t forget.”

            Looking a little crestfallen, Rebecca trudged along behind me as I went to find the others. A minute later we found them on the other side of the courtyard-shaped kennels, looking at a little terrier in a pen, together with another slightly larger cross-breed.

            “Mummy, pleeease, come and look at the dog I found,” Rebecca said as soon as were within earshot.

            “What sort of dog?” Juliet asked.

            “Looks like a Labrador, I replied.”

            Juliet and Victoria duly followed Rebecca and I to the far end of the kennels, where we’d seen the black dog.

            “See how clever he is,” I said, suddenly feeling the need to put a good word in for him. “Look how he’s dragged his blanket into that little patch of sunlight in the corner.” Juliet called to the dog, who now stood up and for the first time, revealed his beautiful white chest markings, which went nicely with his white socks, that I now saw only applied to his front paws. His back legs were all black.

            Juliet agreed that he certainly seemed intelligent, but wanted to look round all the other dogs before making any enquiries about him. We spent about twenty minutes wandering around, looking at a sea of hopeful faces, wagging tails, and a few sad looking dogs who seemed to have ‘lost their wag’ and who just stood at the bars of their pens, looking out on a world that seemed to have abandoned them. Every time we visited the Pound, I would get a lump in my throat and I would wish we could adopt them all and give them a loving home for ever. Realistically, that wasn’t possible of course, and I knew it, and the best we could do was to give a home to however many we could fit into our home.

            Finally, we got to the end of the last row of pens, and we stood together to hold a quick family conference. The girls, of course, had already made up their minds. They wanted the black dog, sitting in the sun. Juliet and I agreed he was a very handsome dog, and that, depending on his temperament, he might fit in nicely with our little family of rescue dogs. It was time to go and talk to Louise in the office.

            “See anything that takes your fancy?” were Louise’s first words when we walked into the office.

            “Possibly,” Juliet did the talking. “What can you tell us about the black Labrador-looking dog in number XXX?”

             (After all these years I can’t recall the kennel number)

            Without hesitation, Louise replied, “Oh, you mean Dexter?”

            “He’s got a name?” I asked, as it was unusual for the dogs at the pound to have names. They were usually strays or abandoned dogs with no collars or I.D. tags.

            “He has,” she replied. “He’s even microchipped. But, he’s got a bit of a story.”

            I leaned on the tall counter in the office and waited for Louise to go on. I was worried that there would be a reason that would make Dexter a bit of an adoption risk.

            “Is there something wrong with him?” Juliet voiced our concerns.

            “Not a thing,” said Louise. “It’s a sad tale really. Someone was driving along the motorway one day, quite recently, and suddenly saw a car up ahead open one of its doors, and a dog was literally thrown from the car onto the motorway. As it was travelling at about 60 mph, the poor dog hit the tarmac with some force and rolled over and over until it came to a halt on the hard shoulder. Luckily, there was no other traffic following the car, or he could have been hit and killed. The person who witnessed it, quickly applied the brakes and pulled onto the hard shoulder. They were too far behind to get the number of the car that threw him out, which quickly accelerated away, and was lost to sight in no time. They checked the poor dog, as best as they could, then gently loaded him into their car and drove him to the next town, luckily only a few miles down the road. They found a vet, told him what had happened, and left the dog in his care, after leaving him with a short, written statement for him to give to the authorities. The vet treated the poor dog, and scanned him and found a microchip. Because of the circumstances, the vet called the dog wardens. He wasn’t keen on tracking down the person to whom Dexter was registered. Miraculously, Dexter wasn’t seriously injured. He had suffered severe bruising, internal and external, but the prognosis for his future was good. The wardens of course brought him to us after he’d spent a night recuperating at the vets, and we phoned the name and number that the microchip was registered to. This was where things got a little murky. The person they spoke to said they were no longer the dog’s owner. They said they’d sold him to someone but they didn’t have a name and address for the new owner. They said they didn’t want the dog and we could keep him.”