Stranded on Dog Island
2003 to present, Aberdeenshire, Scotland
By Tania Kindersley
Three years ago, pets made me think of bourgeois cuteness, smugness, anthropomorphism. Pets meant stupid names, stupid voices, awful coddling, idiotic diamante collars.
I was an animal snob. I was brought up in a racing stable. We did not have pets. We had horses who were finely tuned athletes, not there to be stroked and patted, but to be loved and admired. They could go at 30 mph over four-foot fences; they were creatures of viscera and higher purpose.
We had bantams for eggs, sheep for meat, cows for milk. The dogs of my childhood worked: Labradors for shooting, terriers for ratting, lurchers for keeping down the rabbits (who were of course at it like rabbits and therefore would overwhelm us if we were not vigilant).
Admittedly, my mother kept whippets; beautiful neurotic things who did nothing except lie around all day, slightly bemused, as if they were society ladies who had accidentally found themselves at a barn dance and did not know the correct etiquette. Perhaps they are where my horrid prejudice against pets was born.
When I moved to London, my pet animus distilled more acutely into dog animus. Dog people divided in my mind into two distinct categories: the fluffy lap category, with their Pekes and Pugs, their special cushions and indulgent hand-feeding, and the shouty hearty lot, with their leathery faces, undimmed certainties and voices that could carry over three fields in bad weather. The one terrifying trait that both camps held in common was their hardened sureness that you wanted to hear about their adored canines – oh, the endless prairies of boredom as each charming idiosyncrasy was described in ruthless detail.
I, unlike the dog people, was a creature of the true city. I hung out with poets and playwrights; I knew every single tranny bar in Soho, where you could get a drink at four in the morning and swap lipstick tips with very tall men in drag.
And then I moved to Scotland and, without meaning to, I acquired dogs. My sister moved suddenly to France and there was no one else to take them. Two sleek black Lab-Collie crosses slunk into my life. They were uprooted, a little confused; they stared at me with deep pleading eyes, as if fearing another abandonment.
I liked these dogs, always had. How could I not? They were so dark and pretty and well-behaved. They had been to special dog boarding school on the Isle of Mull, and had been trained to within an inch of their lives. I could look after them perfectly well until the French adventure was over. It didn’t mean I had to turn into one of the mad dog women (they were always women for some reason, in my imagination; most unfair on my own sex).
I want to write that I fell in love with a crash that reverberated around the hills. But actually, I don’t think it happened like that. At first I felt fondness, and a mild intellectual interest. I started buying books on dog psychology. I was interested in observing how creatures that humans have lived with for such a long time, but are so different from, worked. I learned about their different way of seeing, their inherent pack mentality, their ancient wolf hangover, their insanely developed sense of smell.
I started to be amused by them – sometimes, particularly when the snow came and turned them from elegant ladies back to rollicking babies, they would make me laugh out loud. I found their distinct characters funny. Even though they were sisters, they were quite different.
M (some bizarre notion of privacy that I dare not examine too closely prevents me from giving her full name) was the more Lab of the two: pure black, with a barrel chest, and a shark-like skill for retrieving. She was the needy one, all about the love. She wanted the love, begged for it, never could get enough, following me from room to room like a faithful shadow.
P had more of the collie in her, leaner, with delicate white feet and some ancestral memory of sheep; she knew that she had been bred to do something with them, but had never been taught what, and would stare at flocks of ewes with a beady look, as if trying to remember. She was the wanderer, the fearless chaser of any small mammal, could leap a high fence from a standing start like a deer. She would look at me with the considered regard of a duchess, bestowing affection absolutely at her discretion.
I watched all this. I thought it was with interest and amusement; I thought I was disinterested and detached. It blew into full-blown, unconditional, heart-stopping, no-holds-barred, love.
I have become, in a reversal that must have the Fates shrieking with laughter, everything I once despised. The dogs are at the center of my life. I talk about them, I talk to them; I kiss them and worship them; I cry when I have to leave them at the kennels, feeling like some heartless Dickensian villain putting orphans out into the snow. I think they are the funniest and dearest and most interesting creatures I ever met. I am, as one of my old city friends says, stranded on Dog Island with no chance of a ferry home.
They are asleep at my feet as I write this, yipping and twitching as they chase rabbits in their sleep. Outside, the night is dark as pitch, but here, in the enchantment of Dog Island, everything is light.
Tania Kindersley is a writer of novels and articles and lives in northeast Scotland with two dogs.
Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Friday, December 8th, 2006 | Email This PostThis entry was posted on Friday, December 8th, 2006 at 12:05 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
12 Responses to “Stranded on Dog Island”
Leave a Reply
NOTE: Please submit your comment only once. It will have to be approved by the administrator before it is posted.
December 8th, 2006 at 10:55 am
As a dog-owner of only a few days, I found this tour around Dog Island fascinating, funny, observant and beautifully written. If Tania Kindersley looks after M and P as well as she writes about them, they are two very lucky dogs.
December 8th, 2006 at 11:54 am
I have had dogs for most of my (fairly long) life but have never ventured as far into Dog Island as Tania Kindersley evidently has. She\’s going to need a mountain rescue team, not just a ferry, to get home. But her charming report from deepest Dog Island suggests she doesn\’t want to come home - why should she?
December 9th, 2006 at 7:55 am
Well, I haven’t been this impressed with a writer since I read Nora Ephron’s Crazy Salad. This article was awesome, fantastic - no - better than that, but I’m not creative enough at getting the right words out, so - the article is a wonderful read and you have a style that certainly compliments it.
Do you live in London now? Isn’t it odd, you have a British sound in your writing. That was my first thought when I read it.
What books have you written and where can I find them?
Thank you,
Linda
December 9th, 2006 at 3:14 pm
What incredibly charming posts; I blush to read them.
Specifically in reply to Linda: I am indeed British, and lived in London for twenty years, but now am happily in the north of Scotland.
You kindly ask about the books I have written: I would try Elvis Has Left the Building and Nothing to Lose, both of which you can get from Amazon.co.uk, or ABE books online.
Thanks again,
Tania.
December 10th, 2006 at 9:42 am
I began as a “cat person,” because I wanted to add pets to my life without the burden of midnight walks in the rain. Later, when I met the man who recently became my husband, I was forced to become a “dog person,” because his daughter had left her two dogs with him. It took a while, but slowly I became not a dog or cat person at all, but an “animal person.”
As Chief Seattle, leader of the Suquamish Indian tribe, is said to have said, “Where would man be without the beasts? He would die from a great loneliness of spirit.”
Granted, dogs and cats, domesticated as they are, do not exactly qualify as “beasts.” But they certainly soothe our spirit.
A great story, beautifully told. Many thanks.
December 12th, 2006 at 11:17 am
Tania- Beautifully written story.
It’s interesting that needs, trust and loyalty are all intermixed with a good human and dog relationship. I’ve often thought that raising a dog is like raising a child–a lot of responsibility to do it well. But there are the rewards.
I’ve got a English Springer Spaniel who is now in his fourteenth year, and pretty much on his last legs. The past year has been filled with many of his health problems which demand choices concerning whether or not to keep him “going on.” However, each day we just start over. Yes, I help him up alot, assist his eating with a wooden spoon most of the time, and fortunately the winter snows and cold have held off longer here in upstate New York. We live on a farm, so we get out and about several times a day. He’s always been ready to go, and loves to poke around outside. But I keep our sorties short, as he tires and heads back to the farmhouse.
Today, I was reviewing photos of past years of our time together–in the woods, swimming, and just soaking up the outdoors. Interesting that I would come across this blog for the first time, and find your story.
Thanks!
December 13th, 2006 at 11:57 am
Love the writing style and the tale of Dog Island! This is the kind of blog I want to read - well written, interesting, and inspirational. I cared about the writer and her experience. Thank you!
December 13th, 2006 at 3:22 pm
Tania - i write this with my lilac sweater clad lap dog in her appropriate place and my collie/golden mix off in the other room lounging on his chair dreaming of bunnies. I read your story because I am a native of dog island, in fact legend has it my first word was puppy. I must say that I nearly forgot why I was reading your story or how attached I am to the subject matter, so engaged was I in your incredible writing. I have just done the amazon search looking for your novels (as I must read more!) and I am happy to see your reccos here as to which ones to start with. Please keep writing. And thanks for speaking so beautifully about god spelled backward…
December 19th, 2006 at 11:28 am
A lovely woof and weft of words, Tania. You have woven a rich albeit small tapestry of your shift into dog land.
Funny, I used to trade lipstick secrets with the “girls” in the women’s washroom at Propaganda in Hong Kong. That was in my pre-many-stray-dog-hut-mate days.
Merry Christmas!
February 13th, 2007 at 9:36 am
I enjoyed this story very much and reminds me of the dogs I have loved in my 50 years of marrige and now, my husband has died and I have Nubby a black lab. she is with me all the time and I can look at her and remember all the great times john and I had to gether. Thanks for the memorios!
February 20th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
Excellant writing (but then the subject matter, was inspirational) . Somewhere they knew you needed them, so they found you.
October 26th, 2007 at 7:46 am
I loved reading this. I moved to Scotland two years ago from New Mexico and hauled my 90-lb black, part- Sharpei, part-Alsatian with me. He has been my True Companion for 8 years now, through the death and dying of my first husband, to helping me find my second husband (a dog-hater who turned into mushy dog-lover when he met Shaka). Nothing makes me laugh like Shaka - he healed me throughthe worst of grieving - I would do anything for him, I worship and kiss him, everything you described. His humor, intelligence and beauty amazed me on a daily basis. Loved, loved, loved your writing- as a writer myself I can say that!