Tea and Dog Biscuits Read Free

breaths.
    Think! It’s no good me running after the dog – he can run faster than I can. But I can’t call him, he hasn’t got a name. Just try calling him without a name? And look welcoming?
    â€˜Come on, boy! Here!’ I called out. Lion-Maned Dog looked round momentarily then promptly ran on to the next gap. What would a dog trainer do? Or a police dog handler? And while you’re thinking, walk slowly towards him.
    I took two or three slow cautious steps. Lion-Maned Dog looked up and bolted on to the next gap. I didn’t go any further.
    Since we had started the rescue work we had become friends with a police dog handler. Now I realised the truth of what he had told us: you haven’t got control of a dog unless you can get it to come. The secret, he had said, was to be more interesting than what the dog was doing. His advice was to squat down to the level of the dog, so you’re not towering above him like a threatening giant. Then waggle your fingers about in the grass as if you are trying to find something.
    I squatted down. Immediately, I realised that my head was about level with the dog’s teeth. My movement must have caught the attention of Lion-Maned Dog; he turned his head. I put a hand down and wiggled my fingers about.
    Some dogs have faces which allow you to read more easily what they are thinking. Lion-Maned Dog had such a face. And it seemed to me he was thinking, What’s that idiot doing? He quickly turned back to resume his excavations of the current gap.
    â€˜ooohhh… What’s this?’ I said. Then, excitedly, ‘ooohhh – look what I’ve found!’
    Lion-Maned Dog turned his head for the briefest of looks then hurried on to the next gap. The next gap was the one big enough to provide his ticket to freedom.
    In case Finding Something Interesting hasn’t worked, our dog handler friend had gone on to reveal the Technique That Never Fails. He told us that he himself had only ever done this once. It had been taught to him at police dog training school as the ultimate weapon. He told us it took guts.
    From the squatting-down Finding-Something-Interesting position, roll over onto your back. Stick all four arms and legs up into the air and move them all about simultaneously in a cycling motion. Think of a beetle that’s rolled over onto its back and can’t get up again. No dog can resist that, the handler said – he’ll have to come over to see what’s happened.
    I rolled over onto my back in the grass. Through my shirt I could feel I had dropped onto something sticky and damp. In fear and dread that Lion-Maned Dog would disappear through the next gap and be gone to wreak havoc and terror in the village I thrashed about wildly, arms and legs flailing.
    Lion-Maned Dog stopped his excavations. In fact, he froze and stood staring.
    I pedalled faster. ‘Good boy! Good boy! Look at me! What am I doing?!’ But Lion-Maned Dog wasn’t looking in my direction. I turned my head to follow his line of sight.
    My heart must have missed a beat. There at the top of the garden stood a grey-haired lady. She held a collecting tin. She was staring at me. I scrambled to my feet. ‘Go away! Can’t you see the sign?’ I yelled. ‘Go
away!’
    â€˜It’s all right. Dogs like me,’ was the reply.
    Lion-Maned Dog stiffened, then launched himself off in the charity woman’s direction.
    He was racing past on the other side of a flowerbed. Somehow, both feet at once, I sprang up into the air -and then forward. I felt myself actually sailing through the air, then down on top of him.
    Sixteen stone of me came from out of the sky, landing squarely on him. He crashed to the ground, his legs splayed out to the sides.
    For several seconds we both lay there motionless, me covering him completely. I looked down, resting my chin on my chest, and could see his head underneath me. I raised myself up a couple of inches to