A Dog's Life

by Peter Mayle

  With eyes tightly shut and ears tuned in to the hurricane warning, I listened to madame as she waxed indignant about footprints on the bedspread, ripped and rumpled pillows, and one or two other small imperfections that were going to disqualify us from winning House of the Year award.

  I heard her coming over to my basket, and I ventured a half-open eye. Madame’s accusing figure stood before me, brandishing the evidence, shaking the offending bedspread in front of me and carrying on as though I’d thrown up in her best hat (which I did once, but there were extenuating circumstances). I attempted the nonchalant and puzzled reaction, but what I’d failed to take into account was the size of my paws and the traces of mud that remained on them after the morning walk. Taking hold of one incriminating paw, she applied it to a large and well-defined footprint, and that was that. Dead to rights, guilty as charged, and serious repercussions on the way, I felt sure—unless I moved quickly.

  One lesson I’ve learned in life is that everything is negotiable. No crime, however foul, is beyond redemption. You can steal the Sunday lunch, shred books, bite off the heads of live chickens, and pretty much despoil to your heart’s content as long as your conciliation technique is sound. It’s known as plea bargaining, and it has allowed far worse villains than I to walk away unpunished, with scarcely a blot on their escutcheon. If you don’t believe me, read the newspapers.

  Punishment in our house, as in the legal system generally, depends not only on the gravity of the offense but also—and this is possibly more important—on the mood and general disposition of the presiding judge and the jury. There are days when a petty misdemeanor can lead to physical retribution and temporary exile; on other occasions, all you get for the same infringement is a verbal warning and half an hour’s probation, with remission for good behavior. A tricky thing, justice. You can never tell which way it’s going to jump.

  The atmosphere on this particular evening was fraught. I suspect it was not merely the nature of the crime but also the effects of an excessive lunch, which often come to the surface in the early part of the evening: nagging headache, dyspepsia, and bloat, accompanied by short temper. The judge was going to go for the maximum sentence, in my estimation, and so I decided to hold nothing back. The full repertoire was called for. It was time for some advanced body dynamics, or what I prefer to call the “seven gestures of appeasement.” I pass them on to you in the hope that you never need to use them.

  Punishment in our house

  One

  Roll over on the back, after the fashion of the cocker spaniel, and wave the legs helplessly. This serves to indicate remorse and to foil the first instinct of the angry human, which is to administer painful blows to the hindquarters. You cannot smack them at floor level with any degree of force.

  Two

  The tone of voice will tell you when the heat of the moment has subsided and it’s safe to get up and approach the judge and jury. This should be done with the modified shimmy—head down in shame, with the rest of the body wriggling in a frenzy of apology. Soft, contrite sounds are appropriate here if you have the knack of making them. Avoid barking or any baring of the teeth.

  Three

  Sit. Raise the right paw and place on the nearest available knee. For some reason, most people consider this endearing, and the chances of a clip around the ear are remote.

  Four

  Remove the paw and rest the full weight of the head on the chosen knee. In most cases, this will provoke an involuntary pat, and then you know you’re home and dry. If it doesn’t work, proceed with the rest of the program.

  Five

  Establish the whereabouts of a hand. After making sure that it isn’t holding a glass of red wine, butt it with a firm upward motion of the head. I mention the red wine only because of an unfortunate accident that I was once blamed for, quite unfairly, which rather spoiled the magic of the moment.

  Six

  By now, all should be forgiven, but it’s important to be seen not to celebrate too quickly. I always take the time for a few tender minutes of affectionate leaning—against a leg or an arm, whichever is most convenient. The appendage doesn’t matter; it’s the endearing gesture that is vital.

  And that, nine times out of ten, should do the trick. Only in desperate situations, when every blandishment has met with grim rebuff and hideous threats persist, do I have to resort to the ultimate solution and unleash my secret weapon.

  I should explain the history of it. Some years ago, one of my admirers presented me with a life-size replica of the traditional Christmas cracker in bright red rubber, with festive green sprigs of rubber holly at either end, a definite collector’s piece. It happens to be a very satisfying object to hold in the mouth; well-shaped and with just the right amount of give. You’ve probably never held the upper part of a squirrel’s back leg between your teeth. I have, and my cracker has a similar consistency. Firm but yielding, if you follow me. The other similarity to the squirrel is that my cracker squeaks when bitten. This amuses me, and for reasons that I couldn’t begin to explain, it makes people laugh. Never fails. And so, in extremis, when catastrophe looms, do I give up and wait for my just deserts? Do I cower under the withering gaze of disapproval? Certainly not. I fetch my cracker.

  Seven

  Even here, a certain delicacy of touch is necessary. Constant squeaking irritates the human ear, as I’ve noticed many times when the television is on, and so I sit with cracker clenched between the teeth, looking as forlorn as possible, and squeak at irregular intervals. And, what do you know, it always works. Always. Heaven knows why, but within seconds the storm clouds disappear and I am restored to grace, thanks to the squeak that turns away wrath. There’s a lesson here somewhere for mankind, and if you ever find yourself involved in litigation, my advice is to make sure you have a rubber cracker in your pocket.

  Mano a Mano with the Cat in the Garage

  The world, as Jean-Paul Sartre might have said had the thought occurred to him, is divided into those who like cats and those who don’t. I’m a founding member of the second group, which will come as no surprise to you when I tell you how cats and I first became acquainted. It was during my infancy, when, as I’ve mentioned, times were hard and food was scarce—for us dogs, at any rate. It was a different bag of bones for the house cat.

  Hepzibah by name, malignant by nature, she spent her days dozing indoors and, from the look of her, was grossly overfed. She was bigger than we were then—a monstrous, beady-eyed creature covered in mottled black and brown fur, with one long yellow tooth protruding over her bottom lip and a full set of claws, which all of us puppies felt at one time or another. Every evening at feeding time, she would waddle down and join us in the barn to inspect the chef’s offerings—knowing that, by mistake probably, we were occasionally given something more appetizing than stale bread and gristle. Whenever that happened, Hepzibah would lay about, cuffing us right and left to get to the trough first. And, do you know, it must have been for sport. It couldn’t have been from hunger; she was built like a sofa.

  To this day, after that youthful trauma, I can never look on cats with any genuine enthusiasm, and I never cease to marvel at the popularity enjoyed by Felis domesticus. What is he, after all, but an antisocial fur ball with delusions of superiority?

  The rot started thousands of years ago, as any historian will tell you, with the Egyptians. For some reason—addled brains due to the climate, possibly, or madness brought on by building too many pyramids—they elevated the status of the cat from common mouse catcher to religious object, protector of the Pharaoh’s Kitty Litter and icon in chief. Cats, of course, being altogether too pleased with themselves from birth onward, took this as their due and lorded it over the desert sands, taking a front seat at King Tut’s dinner parties, having their paws anointed with sacred unguents, giving up mousing for a life of idleness, and generally being obnoxious. And that has been their lot ever since.

  When the rule of the Pharaohs collapsed—which it was bound to do,
given the misguided people in charge—you might have thought that the world would have learned a simple lesson in cause and effect: Namely, cat worshipers come to a sticky end. The best they can hope for is a full-length bandage and parking space in a badly ventilated tomb. And another thing: You won’t find Tiddles curled up at their feet in eternal loyalty. If he’s given half a chance, he’s off looking for the next soft touch.

  Well, you may say, those were dark and primitive days, and we’ve come a long way since. Knowledge has increased in quantum leaps, and now we have more modern gods—television, for instance, or football players. If that is your opinion, dear reader, I must tell you that the cat movement has not only survived but prospered mightily, its furry tentacles reaching everywhere one looks.

  Take the arts. There are paintings of cats, volumes of prose and poetry devoted to cats, racks of ghastly greeting cards with Pussy smiling his supercilious smile. There is even, so I hear, a cat musical. I’d quite like to see that, actually, because the thought of grown men and women prancing around in false tails and nylon whiskers appeals to my sense of the absurd. I dare say the show is a sellout in Egypt.

  All this—and there’s much more, but I won’t belabor the point—is by way of explaining my position vis-à-vis the cat. I am not a fan. Call it sour grapes if you like, or blame it on the horrendous Hepzibah, but when I think of those overstuffed creatures having the run of the furniture and creamed-chicken gourmet dinners, it makes the blood boil and gives me grave doubts about mankind’s sense of priorities.

  Ours is an enlightened household, I’m happy to say, and so, apart from the occasional sighting of cats slinking through the forest on some furtive errand, I’m not bothered by them. I certainly don’t expect to find them anywhere on my rolling acres, and least of all in the garage. But one morning not long ago, I was strolling past the open garage door on my way to do some light work among the lizard population, when I was stopped short by my nose. There it was, strong and unmistakable: the scent of cat.

  There’s a popular misconception—shamelessly encouraged, of course, by ostentatious displays of washing and licking and paws behind the ears—that the cat is one of nature’s cleaner creations, odor-free and community-minded when it comes to waste disposal. This is bunk. Put a ripe old tomcat in an enclosed space, such as the garage, and you’ll need to hold your breath. It’s that bad.

  I put my head inside the door and looked around. To help you set the scene in your mind’s eye, I should tell you that the garage would not win any prizes for neatness and order. The car sits in the middle, surrounded by sacks of fertilizer, lengths of garden hose, a lawn mower, three or four garden chairs resting between engagements, drums of rose spray, old clay pots, and a range of shelves that hold everything from cans of paint to a chain saw. For all their talents, I never suspected the management of larceny, but this muddle of equipment looks as though it had been removed under cover of night from a hardware store and tossed willy-nilly into its new home as it came off the back of the truck. And somewhere, hiding among the wreckage, was the trespasser.

  Through the door I went, moving with infinite menace, and looked around. Nothing stirred. He was probably pressed up against the wall, frozen with terror, or maybe he’d tucked himself behind the potting soil, but he wasn’t in any of the obvious places. They like to hide under cars, you know, which is why you often see them with an elegant smear of car oil down their backs. This one, however, had gone into deep cover.

  I knew he was there, though, by the smell, and so I picked my way through the clutter toward the shelves at the back, the nose questing and every sense on the qui vive, a lethal weapon poised to strike. And then I saw him—or, to be strictly accurate, part of him.

  The highest shelf was used for the storage of shallow wooden seed trays, stacked in a pile, and I noticed that the topmost tray seemed to have grown a tail. A bushy, ginger, grubby-looking thing it was, similar to the brushes people use to clear a blocked drain, and, in my view, equally unsavory. It was hanging over the side of the tray. Aha, I said to myself. Follow the tail and you find the cat.

  I noticed that the topmost tray seemed to have grown a tail.

  The plan was to give the dangling tail a sudden yank and see if our ginger visitor could break the world record for unassisted flight by getting out of the garage without touching the ground. But much to my irritation, the end was just out of reach, even at full stretch on my hind legs. I was pacing back and forth, mulling over tactics and determined to preserve the element of surprise, when I felt that I was being watched. It’s a knack I have, a kind of extrasensory perception developed during the old days of living rough and dodging brooms, and it hasn’t failed me yet.

  I looked up, and there was a sight to curdle the cream. Pussy’s head had appeared, the size of a small melon, with two badly mangled ears and eyes the color of old rabbit droppings. I’m a generous soul, so I’ll merely say he wouldn’t have won any beauty contests and leave it at that. We looked at each other in silence for a few seconds, and then I decided to show him that I had no intention of taking in lodgers. Up on my hind legs I went, and I gave him the full treatment. I snarled; I barked; I foamed at the mouth with blood lust. You can’t imagine the savagery of it all unless you’ve been to a literary cocktail party with no restrictions on the drink. And do you know what he did? He yawned, closed his eyes, and gave every appearance of going to sleep.

  I was getting a little hoarse by this time and, to be honest, not too sure of my next step, when there was a sudden gust of wind, and the garage door slammed shut like an explosion. That woke the brute up, and he was out of the seed tray and standing at attention behind the lawn mower in a split second.

  He was, if it’s possible, even less prepossessing at ground level, and it was made worse by the ridiculous attitude he’d assumed. His tail was pointing to the sky, his back was arched, his fur stood straight up, as if he’d just swallowed some high-voltage milk, and his tattered ears were pressed flat against his moth-eaten head. I remember thinking he’d be out of luck if he auditioned for the musical, and then events moved rather quickly.

  We sparred for a few seconds, with me bobbing and weaving and him taking a few unsuccessful swipes with his paw before he realized he was outclassed. I had him on the run. Through the paint pots and empty bottles we went, scattering all before us until we came to the door, which, as I’ve told you, was shut. Now I had him where I wanted him. Pause for breath before round two.

  This was when I learned another piece of practical wisdom, which I urge you to bear in mind should circumstances require. The cornered opponent with nowhere to go is not to be trusted. They say that about rats, as you know, and highly placed government officials who are caught with their hands in the till or their trousers down, and it’s quite true. They lash out, ignoring the possible consequences, causing pain and woe to innocent parties—which is exactly what happened to me.

  I had the intruder with his back to the ropes, in a manner of speaking, up against the garage door, with no chance of escape. Had he surrendered peacefully, I would just have given him a swift mauling and sent him on his way, but he came out of the corner like a thing possessed and caught me one on the muzzle, with a surprising amount of force for a small, tubby creature. He had all his claws out, too. Instinct must have taken over then, I suppose, because the next thing I knew, I’d taken a flying leap backward and upward, landing on the hood of the car. Undignified, you may think, but then you weren’t on the receiving end.

  It was at this point that the management, attracted by the noise of our negotiations, came to the cat’s rescue by opening the door. He went off like a flea on skates, with me in moderately hot pursuit, and found refuge in the high branches of an almond tree. I took up a position at the base of the tree, growling and stamping and flexing my whiskers as though I was spoiling for action, but if truth be known, I was quite happy to leave things as they were. But it was not to be.

  One of the disadvantages of country life is
that you are never completely free from the curiosity of your neighbors, who will take every opportunity to stop what they’re doing to watch what you’re doing. I was on my hind legs, giving a convincing impression of trying to climb the tree, when there was a shout from the vineyard below the house.

  “Attention!” said the voice, “that is the cat of Madame Noiret! He is old and delicate! Disengage your dog!”

  We looked around, the management, the cat, and I, to see a ragged figure sitting on his tractor, flapping his arms in a frenzy, as the French tend to do in moments of crisis. I barked. The cat hissed and moved up a couple of branches. The other half seized me from behind. The busybody dismounted from his tractor and stumped up the drive to join us.

  He insisted on shaking hands, which gave me the chance to slip out of the other half’s clutches and put some distance between us. I declined the management’s invitation to get back in the house, and I sat out of reach, waiting for gravity to work its magic on the cat. He was by now perched uneasily at the very top of the tree, swaying in the wind, and I had pleasant visions of his bough breaking—the almond is not all that sturdy—and the ginger missile plummeting to earth. Thus perish all trespassers.