Finding Harmony

by Sally Hyder

  That night as I tucked Melissa in bed, Harmony curled up beside her. I held my breath: this was not part of Melissa’s bedtime routine. Usually if we break the pattern, we run the risk of hours of crying and unsettled behaviour until she finally goes off to sleep. Everything has to be right: no crack of light from the curtains that must be exactly and evenly closed, only one cuddly toy on the bed. The bed covers have to be perfectly folded and the Hannah Montana blanket on top, the right way round, even if it’s a hot night.

  ‘Can you read me The Enormous Turnip?’ asked Melissa, as if having Harmony on her bed for a cuddle was a regular evening occurrence.

  Melissa loves being read to and reading itself but her understanding of what’s real and what is pretend is limited, which makes choosing books tricky. Her favourite books are the Smudge series about animals that live and play together. She knows they’re not real because animals don’t wear clothes and talk – except maybe somewhere in storyland they do.

  ‘Once upon a time there was a very poor man who planted a seed …’ I began reading.

  Harmony snuggled up closer to Melissa. Delighted, she giggled.

  ‘Can Harmony sleep here?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Harmony has her own bed but she can stay here until you’ve fallen asleep.’

  It was my first insight into Harmony’s wondrously calming effect on Melissa. She accepted this fact with a smile and so began our encounter with the oversize turnip before moving onto Katie Morag and The Big Boy Cousins, another favourite book that reminds her of Nannie and Grandad Island’s house (my Mum and Dad) in the Isle of Harris.

  The next morning, Harmony woke me for her usual cuddle and Andrew made a cup of tea. Harmony trotted into the kitchen and made straight for the bin.

  ‘Yes, that’s the bin, Harmony,’ I said.

  There’s nothing like the smell of yesterday’s sausages and old teabags to entice a dog to a bin. ‘Bin engineering: how does this bin work and how can I get into it?’ turned out to be one of Harmony’s special subjects. Within days of her arrival, we had to buy a new pedal bin rather than our usual swing version, yet she soon mastered the use of the pedal to flip open the lid, enabling her to dive in headfirst.

  ‘OK,’ said Andrew. ‘We’ll just have to disconnect the pedal.’

  ‘That’s a bit extreme,’ I said. ‘How about moving the bin into the utility room and shutting the door?’

  In the end, we did both: the pedal was disconnected and the bin put behind a closed door in the room adjoining the kitchen. Now it was just a matter of remembering to keep the door shut. A week later, I was in the bedroom when I heard creaks and scuffles followed by guilty chomping.

  ‘Harmony!’

  Rushing through to the utility room where someone had left the door open, I found Harmony eating the remains of Clara’s Cornflakes, which had been tipped from the bin onto the floor.

  ‘I saw her do it,’ said Aurélie, who was in the process of sweeping up.

  Yes, this time my clever Harmony had stood up on her backfeet, grabbed the bin between her front paws and tipped the contents (spaghetti, cereal, more teabags) into her mouth – and onto the floor.

  ‘Go to bed!’

  Perhaps I should have got wise to Harmony’s bin fetish at the Canine Partners’ residential training course, where she’d put her head in the bathroom bin and then appeared wearing the lid like a necklace. Looking somewhat sheep-ish, she had wagged her tail enthusiastically. Look at me, silly or kind of cool? It was a ‘you-should-have-been-there’ moment: I didn’t have my camera but it made me laugh. Luckily the bin wasn’t stuck on her head for too long.

  Another purchase made over the weekend was a new ‘Henry’ vacuum cleaner. No way could the old one cope with the mass of hair that sticks to the carpets every day. My beautiful purple and burgundy carpets have both taken on a golden hue – so much for my request to Wendy all those months ago! I laughed. It reminded me of the training course when I wore my brand new black track-suit for Nicola’s grooming lesson. Everyone thought I looked hysterical in my hairy outfit and yes, I felt a bit foolish.

  Saturday morning and I knew that I must take Harmony for a walk. It sounds silly, but I’d become fearful of the idea. I could feel the dread building up: I was scared of losing my dog.

  ‘Just do it!’ said Andrew, with typical straightforwardness.

  As usual he was right. It was a gorgeous morning, the big two were still asleep, Melissa settled and I needed to get over my fear. Besides, we are lucky enough to have a park and woodland just a 10-minute walk from the house.

  ‘Will you come, too?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course,’ Andrew smiled.

  Now I could relax: I went in my shop mobility scooter. First, I took Harmony to the toilet area with the instruction, ‘Better go now!’ She peed but was clearly determined that was it. We turned right out of our street and left into the main road that takes you into the city centre. Harmony walked alongside: she knew exactly what to do, following my commands. She seemed completely relaxed, unconcerned by traffic, the boy who whizzed by on his bicycle or the convoy of prams and screaming babies. We crossed at the lights and turned into the park.

  As soon as Harmony got wind of the smells of all the other dogs, her tail began to wag. Once we’d got past the trees and were in the park, I let her off the lead. She and I always use the controlled release we had been taught: I get her to sit and then wait. I take off her coat and harness, wait a bit longer and then release her. And I felt so proud that we managed it: I didn’t need to worry either – every time I stopped my scooter or called her, she came straight back. She wanted my approval and of course I had the tube of cream cheese, just in case.

  Each time she ran off in the direction of a fresh scent and a new adventure, she’d return, ears pricked, to let me know what she’d been doing. You’ll never guess what I’ve just seen? A squirrel, but I can’t work out where it went. Hey, come and look at this! I’ve found the oak tree where all the other dogs have sprayed. I’d only been in the park for 10 minutes yet already I felt the emotional lift that Canine Partners talk about: to see Harmony sprint through the trees, her hind-legs bouncing in the air and screech to a halt like a crazy cartoon dog made me laugh out loud.

  Why had I never done this before? All those months and years of being trapped indoors, too depressed and overwhelmed by my frozen legs to leave the house for a simple walk in the park. It had never even occurred to me to go for a walk in the woods. Now look at me!

  That night, Harmony may have been dreaming of squirrels as she slept in her bed beside Andrew and me. Every so often she’d make a whinnying sound and shudder. I’d amuse myself with thoughts of her chasing squirrels in her sleep.

  Sunday. I knew green fields were the best place to do some obedience work with Harmony. This involves recall training, which is when she waits for me to return to her. We also practise wheelchair positions or loose lead walking and walking to heel with no lead in these sessions. I’d discovered that I really enjoyed this type of exercising; I felt she and I were learning all the time and the obedience work continued to establish the boundaries of our relationship. I also wanted to prove to everyone that my ‘blonde bimbo’ could do it. Her ‘emergency down!’ – if she runs into trouble this is used to establish immediate control; for example, if a bike or car suddenly appear or I need to take control – is still slow but we have managed to reduce the time lag considerably. Having said that, when it really matters she never lets me down and has always dropped immediately, as instructed. Say, for example, the game has got too boisterous or someone is trying to control their unruly dog then I always get a thrill when Harmony comes immediately and sits by my side while we wait for the other owner to gain control (butter wouldn’t melt!). I do remind admirers that I was given Harmony as a fully trained dog, though – I really can’t take all the credit.

  * * *

  More importantly, now that I’d rediscovered the big outdoors, there was no holding b
ack. We drove out to a private estate now in the council’s ownership called Cammo. These beautiful grounds include patches of wilderness, derelict buildings and a canal that begs to be swum in by dogs. Woods, trees, open fields … it has it all. Once again, I couldn’t stop smiling.

  The year we moved back up to Edinburgh, Andrew and I both bought Barbour jackets, mine ankle-length. Barbours last forever and they’re impermeable to Scottish rain on dreich (rainy, miserable) days. It wasn’t raining but the Barbour was the perfect foil to the cool country air as we tootled about. Andrew, as always, patiently walked at my speed: he never put me in the position of having to catch up, even in my walking days. The smell of wild garlic and the sight of bluebells were a reminder of my past – my years as a walker, a climber. Tears pricked my eyes as I realised I hadn’t seen them in more years than I cared to remember and I might never have done so, if not for Harmony. Andrew too was quietly content; suddenly things had improved.

  Oh dear, where was she?

  I called out her name: ‘Harmony!’ and she came instantly. After that episode, I learned to relax, confident in the knowledge that she would come back. Indeed I marvelled (along with other dog-walkers) that no matter what she was doing, if my scooter stopped then she would suddenly appear to check up on me. Recently, on the same walk I called and this time there really was no response. I called again, trying not to worry, and she reappeared. She then stopped to sniff a bush and gave me an impatient look that seemed to say: Yes, I’m coming in a minute!

  ‘No reward for you, Miss,’ I told her. ‘Just because you’re a teenager doesn’t mean you can behave like one!’

  I would have to teach her. After returning in a minute, she soon got the idea when she was rewarded with carrot rather than cream cheese (which is for an immediate return). These days, she comes at once every time but doesn’t know if she will get a reward – it’s all part of the game.

  Puppies and young dogs, especially if they are Labradors, eat everything. They chew shoes, devour cuddly toys and consume whatever they can shove their faces into. I’ll never forget Sandie eating my sixth birthday cake, the Christmas cake and various other cakes in between.

  A week after Harmony arrived home, Melissa became 10: she hit the double digits and we were to celebrate by taking her and some friends from Funky Monkeys (her special needs group) plus a bunch of others from her class on a narrow boat. It was a special boat that had been adapted for wheelchair-users by the charity, Seagull Trust. They run narrow-boat trips and have a specially converted boat for hire, enabling disabled users to access our canals.

  Melissa had already specified her cake of choice: chocolate, with Postman Pat on it. I was so tired after the two weeks on the residential training course that when Ali offered to make the cake, I thanked her and went off to take a nap while the kids were at school.

  The cake went in. Thirty minutes later, Ali got it out of the oven and left it to cool while she went out into the garden to make some phone calls. Half an hour later, there was no cake: just one very happy dog, with crumbs on her chin.

  Ali was in tears.

  ‘Harmony!’ I said, eyeing my new companion ruefully.

  But I wasn’t going to shout: our training had followed the cardinal rule of never shouting, always praising. After all, she was a Labrador and Labradors eat cake; it had been too tempting for her to resist.

  ‘You have let me down,’ I told her in a low, stern voice.

  We didn’t tell Melissa for it would have brought an abrupt end to a blossoming friendship. Food is as important to her as it is to Harmony. Instead I put on an apron, reheated the oven and baked another cake. This time it was left to cool on a high shelf, well above Harmony’s reach. It was a reality check: a reminder that I was living with a dog, not a saint. There would be many more such reminders to come.

  Melissa couldn’t wait to introduce Harmony to her friends at school. Again, this posed something of a dilemma: I didn’t want the children at the school gates to feel they couldn’t approach Harmony or that they should be afraid of her, but at the same time they had to know she couldn’t be touched or fed. Before I left for the residential training course, I had informed the school that I would be bringing my assistance dog to the school gates but she wasn’t a pet and I needed the kids to know this. I followed this up with a letter to the headmistress, asking for her help.

  Ultimately, the school was magnificent as were the kids on that first afternoon when I took Harmony there (it’s less than a mile from home).

  ‘That’s the dog we can’t touch,’ they said, pointing at her.

  Meanwhile, the mothers at the school gate studiously ignored me because they had been told to ignore the dog. Then I waved and they realised that I wasn’t entirely off-limits and it was possible to interact with me while respecting Harmony’s role as my Canine Partner.

  At this stage, Melissa was a pupil at a regular primary school with a special needs facility. The school was brilliant at injecting fun into her extra groups: Funky Monkeys. Two of her best friends at Funky Monkeys were Stuart and Caitlin, who have Down’s syndrome. It took about two minutes for me to realise I’d have to lift the touch embargo rather than attempt to explain to the two of them why they couldn’t say hello to Harmony Instead I let them greet and pat her, which made them feel special: they were allowed to touch Harmony! It brought smiles to a lot of faces.

  We’d had big family discussions about how I would maintain Harmony as mine: she had to remain my assistance dog rather than the family pet.

  ‘Hey, I’m the one with the rewards in my pockets!’ I said.

  Indeed, you can’t avoid the smell: I’m the one with poo bags and soggy Kibble (dog-treat mix) in all my pockets, which makes for horrible brown soapsuds if they get into the washing machine. Equally disgusting is the stench of rotten sausage in the car.

  After a day of country air and keeping up with Harmony the weekend after Melissa’s birthday, I was so exhausted. I flopped into my comfy chair in the living room – a big recliner with a footrest – to go through the schedule for next week. Who would pick Clara up from school on the Wednesday after her rehearsal? Melissa had to have a new swimsuit (she had lessons on the Wednesday) and Peter needed some cash for the millions of things that the school wanted money for.

  Melissa started to scream. She stood in the doorway leading to the living room and let out a scream from the top of her lungs. I have no idea why. It could have been the sight of a spider lowering itself from an invisible thread or a spot of blood on the au pair’s finger. It might have been distant sirens as ambulances hurtled to an emergency on the other side of the city.

  Without prompting, Harmony got up from where she was sitting beside me, walked over to Melissa and very gently leant against her. She sank to the floor and Harmony planted herself in her lap. With this, she wrapped her arms around Harmony, buried her face in fur and stopped screaming.

  It was a miracle … another miracle!

  Andrew, Clara and Peter came running out of their rooms and looked on in amazement. We were absolutely stunned: Harmony was obviously the right dog for us all. Months later, when I told Canine Partners about Harmony’s healing effect on Melissa, they said that she had shown similar intuition as a tiny puppy. While not yet a year old and living with her puppy parents, the very young son of friends had come for a sleepover. The little boy had recently lost his mother. Sensing his sadness, Harmony didn’t leave his side all weekend.

  It was then that I also found out that Harmony had been intended as a guide dog for the blind. Occasionally, there are exchanges like this between charities with a dog unsuited for one role who might do better elsewhere, or the charity has too many puppies at that time (as in this case) and so they offer them to other assistance dog charities for purchase. When Harmony was spayed, the vet nicked one of her veins and it wasn’t certain if she would live through the night. Somehow my miracle dog survived. Also, she was very nearly partnered with a lovely girl called Sarah, who was eventu
ally partnered with Harry (one of the dogs that I had worked with on my assessment days and her second Canine Partner). Sarah’s first Canine Partner was an assistant called Hazel. She and I have remained in contact: we both agree that H’s are the best and have christened ourselves the ‘Nearly Mums’. Fate could so easily have intervened on many occasions to prevent Harmony from being mine, but we got there in the end.

  Harmony quickly became Melissa’s new best friend: if she was worried or having a bad day, she’d ask for her. When it was time for her booster jabs (Melissa hates needles), Harmony came too.

  She was one of us now.

  Chapter 15

  An Expanding World

  ‘I’m redundant.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Clara. Of course you’re not.’

  Clara and I were settling down to an evening at home; Melissa was finally in bed. Exhausted, I had dropped into my reclining chair and Clara was next to me on the settee. We had our laptops open for some Facebook time while watching TV (I think it was Desperate Housewives, an addiction Clara had introduced me to). In the past I would usually drop the remote, or the phone or my mobile. Clara would get up, retrieve it for me and settle back down only for me to ask her to take off my slippers and socks. Up she would get and so on for at least the first half-hour of any evening together.

  I hated it: I hated knowing that Clara would have to get up and down for me at least three or four times before we could relax.

  Now that I had Harmony, I could settle down with my trusty treat bag and she would do all the work for me; I could resume control of the remote and the running of the house, of my life. By the time we were slouched in front of the TV, Harmony was just as happy to rest as me. These days, after a couple of requests to fetch socks and mobiles, she will raise an eyebrow: You’re joking, right? I mean, look at me. I’ve only just got settled – I’m comfy. She releases a big sigh and gets off my lap (yup, she still considers herself a lap dog) before taking off my socks. Then she gets back on my lap. More sighs. I love Harmony being on my lap. It only took her a few weeks to work out where to position herself so that she could dampen down my spasms; she has her tongue ready for a comforting lick on my hand whenever it goes into spasm.