It is mid-afternoon – post-lunch but safely before the schools let out – and I am walking the dog in the direction of what my wife and I now call the Triangle parks. The Triangle parks are the result of a long road cutting diagonally across the regular grid of suburban streets, leaving two small, three-sided communal gardens. They are close but hard to get to – a lot of roads round here come to unceremonious dead-ends – and it was only during my long lockdown walks that I eventually discovered a route to them.
Recently, however, they have proved useful: they’re both fenced and likely to be deserted mid-afternoon. When your dog is on heat, regular parks are out of the question.
“How long is this supposed to last for?” I say, on our return. “I swear the whole thing started over a month ago.”
“Did you have fun?” my wife says to the dog. “Where did you go?”
“The Triangle parks,” I say. “Where else?”
“You weren’t gone for long,” she says.
“I threw the ball about nine times,” I say. “Then we lost the ball. Then a poodle turned up.”
“A dog or a bitch?” my wife says.
“I couldn’t tell from that distance,” I say, “so we legged it through a side gate.”
“There’s no need to panic,” she says.
“I wasn’t panicked,” I say, “just embarrassed.”
“There’s no need to be embarrassed either,” she says.
“I don’t choose the things I’m embarrassed about,” I say. “They choose me.”
Most vets – but not all vets, I gather – recommend that an animal endures one season before being spayed. Our vet did, and I didn’t get a second opinion. I’d already paid enough for the first one.
My research suggested we were in for about two weeks of curtailed public appearances, but it seems much longer. I’m well aware of the risks – we have this dog because its mother, sitting out her oestrus in a locked kitchen, succumbed to the attentions of a local terrier who got in through the cat flap. That was only a year ago.
The next afternoon the dog and I head back to the Triangle parks along the loneliest route I know – north and east in a zigzag pattern, then down the alley by the demolished scout hut. Timing is crucial – the alley is very long and extremely narrow. If another dog were to enter from the opposite direction at the same time, we could easily spend our summer trying to get rid of puppies.
The alley is clear – at the far end we cut back sharply south. The first Triangle park is occupied by a small, yapping dog – too small, I think, to give us any trouble, but then I remember the cat flap terrier.
“Your dad,” I say. “Feckless prick.”
We head to the lower Triangle park, which is empty. “Right,” I say, unclipping the lead. “Let’s get some exercise, and then get out.”
I throw the ball. The dog hares off after it, catches it on the hop and brings it about three-quarters of the way back. When I approach, the dog backs up.
“Leave it,” I say, eyes scanning the perimeter. The dog drops the ball. When I take a step forward, the dog picks it up again.
“Do you want to keep it, or do you want me to throw it?” I say. This is a stupid question – the dog wants both.
I manage to snatch the ball from the dog’s jaws and throw it again. This time the dog tries to bury the ball to keep it from me.
“These aren’t the rules,” I say. We’ve been in the park for four minutes, and already I’m hoping another dog will show up and give me an excuse to leave.
On the fifth throw, the dog runs into a large stand of ornamental grasses, thrashing about so the feathery heads of the rushes shudder. Eventually she reappears, tongue hanging.
“Where’s your ball?” I say. “You went in there with it.”
The dog turns and runs back into the rushes, emerging after five minutes with the lost ball from yesterday.
“Well, this has been fun,” I say, clipping on the lead. As we leave, a woman with a collie approaches the gate, the collie already going nuts. We divert to the next gate along.
“He’s really friendly!” she calls out.
“Yeah, it’s just that she’s on heat, so …”
“Oh,” says the woman. “I did wonder why he was being so friendly.”
I can’t help it: my face goes red.
