This was only the first litter of Snow’s puppies that would join in Storytime before their Choosing came. Snow was as fiercely proud in motherhood as in everything else and no pup of hers was allowed to step out of line. She passed on all the old family stories, all the pride in being a Soum de Gaia, but she passed on something more important, too. However much she chivvied her babies, she couldn’t disguise the tide of affection that swept over her just at the sweet clean warm-straw smell of little ones, the pat of a tiny paw or the innocent faces asleep in a puppy-pile. After their Choosing, Snow would race round her terrain, hurling last instructions out into empty air and she would fill Storytime with memories of the foibles and adventures of each of her little treasures.
‘There you are,’ I told her, when she passed on news of such and such a puppy, whose family had sent a photo or some gossip to our Breeder. ‘If they didn’t go out into the world, they wouldn’t have their own adventures, and you wouldn’t have all these stories to tell me.’
Snow had stories of her own too, of travel, the show circuit and all the people she met. It was a great moment for Soum de Gaia when Savoie-Fer, now Champion of France and Spain, was eligible for Crufts, and went there. He’d have been proud of the celebrations in the Pyrenees when we heard the news that he’d won not just Best Male but Best in Breed. Snow had explained all the terms to me but I still didn’t really understand any of it. I just trusted her judgement and if she said ‘We must celebrate’ then celebrate we would. If my Breeder found that another piece of shed had mysteriously self-destructed, then so be it.
‘Of course he didn’t win Best in Show,’ Snow explained to me. ‘Patous never do. Even the most prettied-up, powdered patou is in a different league from most show dogs.’
‘A league of our own.’
‘Exactly. How can you compare a patou with a Pomeranian!’
‘Perhaps one day...’
‘Not in our life-time, Sirius, not till they recruit judges differently. Even with specialist judges, it’s almost the same with Best in Breed – male, male, male. Males are bigger so males are better, more patou than us females. No, they don’t judge what’s in front of them, they look for what they’ve already got in their heads. Prejudice rules. And I can tell you that they only have to see certain names – yes, including Soum de Gaia – and they’re already thinking, ‘Hmmm, I can’t go wrong if I choose that one,’ unless of course the breeder has argued with them and annoyed them – and then they go the other way! And there’s more than one judge likes a pretty face and a smile – on the handler, not the dog! Don’t get me started. If it wasn’t for my puppies and their futures, I’d say to hell with shows, but there it is.’
Snow wasn’t the only one discovering motherhood. Little Tab had disappeared in late spring and when I heard the mewing, I knew it was only a question of time before a little stripey band of thieves and burglars played ‘Stalk the dog’ under their mother’s supervision. Little Tab herself always reclaimed pride of place against my body and, with her as role model, these kittens were the boldest I’d ever known, swinging experimentally from my tail if I stood up or batting a fly off my nose with a ‘Woops’ when they clawed my nose instead.
And time passed. Three litters of Snow’s puppies joined Storytime and left the farmhouse. Snow’s joy echoed across the mountains when one little girl was Chosen by her Human to stay and Ulla added her little voice to the twilight. Four litters of Little Tab’s kittens discovered places on a dog’s body that kittens really shouldn’t dig their claws into. ‘Happy third birthday, little brother,’ rang into the night, and ‘Happy fourth birthday.’ I had forgotten I wore a chain, I had forgotten that I once had a family but there was always the hard nut in my stomach reminding me that I was waiting for something, that I was observing others’ lives, not living my own. But I think I’d realised that this might be it. That you could spend your whole life waiting and you just had to make the best of it. My youth was over.
So it was a shock when, having already seen my Breeder that morning for top-up on food, I heard two voices coming up my hillside.
‘I’ve looked after him for nearly three years now – and I can tell you that no other breeder would do that for a dog. You do it for one and every irresponsible owner thinks he can just return a dog when he’s had enough, like taking clothes back to the shop.’ Same old story. I lay down again. ‘Well I can’t keep him any longer. This is a working farm and we need the land.’
‘Have you tried to find a home for him?’ Female, warm, melodic voice, hiding thoughts.
‘Well of course, we tried.’ Big sigh. ‘But people want puppies. And I have to be honest so if someone asked about him, I’d have to say that he bit a child. That’s why he was in the S.P.A. you know. And as soon as they contacted me, I went running to rescue him. But I have my own dogs to think of and...’
‘So tell me about him.’ A hint of coldness.
‘He’s a beautiful dog, a Soum de Gaia of course – I assume you’re familiar with our pedigree? His first owners separated and the second owners were probably too soft with him. You need a fist of iron in a velvet glove with Pyreneans, you know. You have to be firm.’
‘So I keep being told.’
‘I’d forgotten, you know the breed of course. Do you have any yourself?’
‘One three-year old I adopted, and a black patou puppy.’
Tinkling laughter. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, but that must be a Newfoundland. There’s no such thing as a black patou.’
‘She is a one-off. Dad has never been identified but all she seems to have got from him is the colour – she’s pure patou. Black patou.’
Audible sniff. ‘Well Sirius is a good guardian, marvellous with other animals – he lives with horses, cats, even chickens.’ My heart sank. I could see the new S.P.A. notice already, ‘Sirius, Pyrenean Mountain Dog, 4 years old. Good with animals.’ Was I really four years old? ‘He’s not suitable for a household with children, of course.’ Of course. ‘And I think you’ll find that he’s quite sociable, although he hasn’t seen anyone other than me for some time...’
‘For how long exactly?’
‘Well... let me see... for nearly three years actually.’
There was a long, cold silence.
‘And how is he with other dogs?’
‘Obviously I haven’t been able to keep him with my dogs...’
‘Obviously.’
‘... but in principle there’s no problem.’
And the two figures came into view and I couldn’t help myself. Even if she was from a S.P.A., even if it meant madness in a pen, she smelled of happy dogs and my tail wagged of itself when I saw her and as soon as she came within reach, she held out her arms and said ‘You sweetheart, you,’ I didn’t have to be asked twice. I jumped at her, put my paws on her shoulders, licked her face and she didn’t seem in the least bit taken aback. She laughed and scratched behind my ears, blew at me with a horse-noise and laughed again when I shook my head, stood down and wuffed. I went into a play-bowing position and she stamped her feet. I bounced, she stamped her feet again. She ran backwards, I ran towards her – and the chain stopped me. I stood looking at her, unable to get closer and her mouth turned into a narrow slit as her eyes focused on the chain.
Nervous giggle from my Breeder. ‘It wouldn’t do if he escaped. I told you I take my responsibilities seriously. And he can reach the shed for shelter, he has food and drink, and it’s natural for a patou to guard his flock on the hillside. I think that’s how he sees all the other animals.’ Little Tab chose that moment to pay me a visit and I automatically bent my head down to receive a rub and a purr, and lick her in return before she went off on serious cat business.
‘Well aren’t you just gorgeous,’ the woman said to me, with no trace of the coldness that seemed to come and go in her tone.
‘So you’ll put him on the rescue website?’ my Breeder asked, selling voice back.
‘Of course! No question about that.’
‘I realise he’s too old and there’s no hope but at least he’ll have had his chance. And I can’t keep him indefinitely...’
‘I understand exactly what you’re saying.’ Real frost in the voice. ‘I don’t think you should be so pessimistic. There’s lots of good reasons why a dog might bite a child and of course I agree it’s too big a risk for him to go to a family with children, but there’s plenty of other homes. And there are advantages to having an older dog. He’s house-trained for starters.’ Doubt crept in. ‘Isn’t he?’
‘Well, he was,’ my owner answered, carefully, ‘but he hasn’t been near a house in... some time.’
‘I see. Well he’s over the puppy stages anyway.’
‘Oh yes, and he’s not at all destructive, at least not up here...’ she tailed off.
I was being treated to some regular back rubbing and then – oh bliss! – the side of my face was being stroked, delicately, from muzzle to ear along the lie of my hair, just the way that I liked it. ‘I’d take him myself if I could...but I mustn’t, not at the moment, not with a pup to bring up... can I take a photo?’
‘Go ahead.’
‘It always helps to have a photo. That and a name.’ And a really really sad story I thought. Yes, I knew the routine. And I looked straight at the camera. Read this really really sad story, I told the machine, as it clicked and whirred.
Then I had the chance of one last cuddle and I made the most of it, my aroundera saying everything that my eyes hadn’t already. ‘I’ll find someone for you, Sirius, I promise.’ I licked her face but that didn’t stop me thinking, just one more human promise to add to the collection.
Then they were heading back down the hillside.
‘And vaccinations?’ the woman asked.
‘He doesn’t need them where he is now...’
‘So you’re saying they’re not up to date?’
‘You could say that...you don’t know how hard it is to be a breeder. Last week someone tried to get a puppy out of me for free, told me their own, one of my last litter, had died of parvo-virus, but when I checked with the vet, they’d taken him to be put down because he had a bit of a limp – like patous often get when they’re going through the main growth stage – the vet refused euthanasia and found a home for him and of course I sent the couple off with a flea in their ear, but you can’t trust anyone these days and they’re all about money, money, money....’
I surveyed my animals, my mountains and my stomach churned. I’d forgotten what it was like, the connection with a Human, and now the memory was re-awoken, it hurt all over again. I couldn’t stay here, my Breeder had said. I would have to say goodbye to the mountains, to Little Tab, to Snow and Ulla. And I had to face the truth; no-one would come for me. Or worse than no-one. I was heading back to a S.P.A.. I was four years old and I knew what the S.P.A. thought of dogs over five. So that was my future.
When you Humans know you’re going to lose something, you react one of two ways. Either it becomes doubly precious or you give up on it completely and can’t enjoy it any more because you’re going to lose it. Dogs always choose the former. If you see the biggest dog in the world, swaggering towards you, growling, with his eyes on your bone, those last teeth-grinding chomps on your treasure are the most satisfying moments you have ever spent with that bone.
Every purr and head-rub, every cloud shadow on a mountain, every story at twilight was stored as treasure in my memory. Even when the wind blew up from stillness, under a blackening sky that rolled over from the invisible mountain-tops and the summer storm cracked open the sky with searing zag-zags of light to a background roar that shook not just my shed but the very hillside itself, even then I was not afraid. Instead I thundered back, rearing up with eyes shut in the rain that fell like stones, pounding on my muzzle. I became part of the storm itself, part of my landscape, the Great Pyrenees. How could I be hurt by weird light that flashed the landscape illuminated and then blacked out as if a great bulb were being switched on and off in the skies? What was there left to be afraid of? What could be worse than what was to come anyway?
I thought back over my life. I remembered how I used to sit on Marc’s lap in his low deckchair in the garden, my legs touching the ground as I grew bigger. Then the day Marc clambered into a new seat, slung between two trees. I jumped onto his lap as usual and this seat tipped us both out so Marc was flipped like a pancake to land flat on his face on the floor. Or the day Marc and the vet chased me round the surgery because I didn’t want her looking in my ears. Or the night Marc had taken me out for a pee and the door had slammed shut, locking us out. He hadn’t dared wake up Christine so we’d spent the night under the hedge, beneath the stars – until the sky clouded and the drizzle started. We’d been drenched when we sneaked in the next morning after Christine unlocked. Marc had rushed to the bedroom unseen so he could throw on some clothes and pretend we’d been for an early morning walk. I remembered the little daily pleasures. When Marc or Christine called, ‘Aperitifs!’ I would run to the kitchen and find them standing by a huge cold cupboard. They would push a button, then after a whirr and a clink, ice cubes would arrive in their hands and, one at a time, proceed from there straight into my mouth.
And I remembered Stratos. His betrayal. Humans are fond of an old, old story, about a Prince who goes hunting, leaving his faithful hound to watch over his baby son, who is sleeping peacefully in the cradle. When the Prince comes back, the hound greets him, covered in blood and the baby is nowhere to be seen, so the Prince puts his dog to the sword. Then, when he goes further onto his property, the prince discovers the baby, unharmed, in the cradle, and beside him the corpse of a wolf the other side of the cradle, a wolf killed by the faithful hound. Distraught, the Prince watches his dog die. Why do Humans love this story so? Why don’t they understand it better? And why don’t they at least realise that if it had been me or Stratos, or any self-respecting patou, the wolf would never have got so close to the baby?
Stratos had put his paw on something that I still hadn’t quite got clear in my head. He’d worked out what it was that all dogs want. But of course, being Stratos he didn’t know he’d worked it out and it was up to me now, to do the thinking for him, to make that his last gift to me. Remembrance, love’s last gift. What was it in all that he’d said which kept rumbling away in my brain like thunder in the distance, the storm never quite breaking?
It was while I was puzzling over such thoughts that I once more heard two voices. So this was it. I almost whimpered but I was determined to show more pride at the end. I listened.
‘Of course you’ve heard of Soum de Gaia. We have many Champions in our line. One of my boys. Savoie-Fer, is current Champion of France, Spain and he won Best of Breed at Crufts. And he’s Sirius’ brother... so you saw Sirius’ details on the Rescue website, you were saying.’
‘Yes.’ Just one word and my heart somersaulted worse than Marc’s hammock. I knew that voice. Someone had come to keep a promise.