Letter From America: When Tomorrow Comes
...Nothing is more noble or makes a finer sight to the dog lover than the rippling black mane of the Chien de Berger Belge moving in the evening’s breeze as she surveys all the land around with stiff erect pointed ears...
Today is Monday, tomorrow is Tuesday, and in a way, I am dreading its coming. It will mean a drastic change and although I am under strict orders from she-who-must-be-obeyed, I am not spiritually ready for the change that tomorrow will bring. There is something of grandeur in the winter coats of the English Border Collie, and the Belgian Groenendael that is lost when they are sheared like the sheep they were bred to round up and corral.
Yet, when tomorrow comes, the groom and clip lady, she of the arcane skills and flying, whirring, snipping electric shears will bring her state-of-the-art van to our driveway and induct my two furry daughters into the ranks of the shorn. They will emerge several pounds lighter with their noble ruffs and bibs almost as closely shaved as the millions of oven-ready Christmas turkeys which pop out of supermarkets faster than Russian cannonballs popped out of their fiery mouths at the Noble Six Hundred in the Valley of Death.
I will not say there is no feelings of guilt attached to this office, because there is. Nothing is more noble or makes a finer sight to the dog lover than the rippling black mane of the Chien de Berger Belge moving in the evening’s breeze as she surveys all the land around with stiff erect pointed ears, and knows she is the mistress of all she surveys and more besides, except the forward flopped eartips of the finest and smartest dog in the whole of the dog world, the noble Border Collie that has lived in my heart from more than nine years, whose snow white bib makes her easy to spot against the black and green rocks of the Yorkshire Moors where she and her forbears have done their work alone, out of sight of shepherd and home, for close to three hundred years.
When tomorrow comes, the hair will fill three or four California king size mattress covers and my babies will look like foundling puppies scarcely old enough to leave their dams. I shall be sad, but will love them no less. My vacuum cleaner will not need to be emptied three or four times for each room vacced, and there is the solemn consolation that gives the lie to the claim by some waggy tailed with that ‘Everything tastes better with dog hair!’ I know from experience that it just isn’t so.
After the technologically adept lady has gone from our coasts to her next victim appointment, my little, shorn, sweet smelling pretties will come to me for comfort, and I shall love them as never before to assuage some of my grief for them at the loss of their ‘crowning glories.’ And yet, when they snuggle down to me and offer their chins to me to be scratched, and plead for the last corners of my egg and Marmite sandwich, all the fraughtness of the cutting and grooming ritual will be forgotten and forgiven as we celebrate our love.
There are some troubled souls that have not yet learned to love man’s best friends. I have only sympathy for them, and to those that ask me if I think there will be dogs in heaven, I simply tell them, "If there are not, then I won’t be going there!"
Those that have patience and have not spent their lifetime’s supply of wonder can learn a lot from dogs if they will give them a chance to teach them what they know. Dogs know that people and dogs make mistakes that they don’t mean to, but dogs will readily forgive accidental errors, and are also munificent in forgiving intentional harm, all because a dog’s first loyalty is to its family, and if you have a dog, then you are the dog’s family, and the doggy looks to you as leader, guide, provider, and protector, and in return for your good offices a dog gives back a lifetime’s supply of love, devotion, protection from wolves, bears, woolly mammoths, spear-bearing Norman hordes, rent men, feudal politicians, debt collectors, and all outsiders that your pooch has reason to believe might do you harm.
Having written that I feel worse than ever, but the vacuum cleaner needs a break, I’d like to eat an onion sandwich without wisps of Belgian beard, and not have to clear moulting tufts of black dog hair that look more like Billy Bevan’s moustache than his real one, and my sister René is coming in two days to spend Christmas and New year with us.
Therefore, I have devised a cunning plan to assuage my guilt and at the same time show the doggies I mean them no harm: I will supply them with extra chicken strips. I will change them from the ordinary but nutritious dog food onto a new brand that will assist them to grow older with good health, supple joints, and lots of twinkles in their beautiful loving eyes.
So, when tomorrow does comes, it will also soon depart. When it does, with it will go its attendant angst, and what remains will be the pure joy of loving my faithful darlings. .
Copyright © 2011 – Ronnie Bray
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Ronnie's Yorkshire Folk Tales page:
http://yorkshiretales.com/
Listen to some of Ronnie Famous Yorkshire Tales Online at:
http://www.wix.com/jorvik/yorkshiretales
Read Some of Ronnie's Religious and Spiritual writings at:
http://www.scribd.com/Mormon-Quill
Historical Novel In Preparation:
"Luddite Spring: The Huddersfield Luddite Uprising of 1811 - 1812
Answers to Anti-Mormonism:
www.yorkshiretales.com/allaboutmormonism
