With a stick she scratched into the wet sand, ‘Brenda loves Harry’.
Harry stared intently at her.
She stared back and said, ‘You don’t care do you? It’s the stick you’re more interested in!’
Brenda heaved the stick towards the shallow water and laughed as her aging beagle lolloped after it.
His gait was still affected by the arthritis in his hip, but at least he wasn’t whining in pain now his cruciate ligament had been repaired. It had cost her a big chunk of her savings, but worth it to have a few more years with her lovely boy.
They say your first love always has that special place in your heart and as much as she loved Harry, she would always think of her first dog Winston with the deepest of affection.
Brenda and her sister had always wanted a dog, but their mother was totally and immovably against it.
‘I’ve got enough on my hands with you lot. The last thing we need is another mouth to feed.’
The two girls promised they would take all the responsibilities of looking after a dog and it could eat our leftovers…
They all looked at young Alan when she said that. He left nothing on his own or anyone else’s plate!
It was a full house already, four kids, Mum and Dad, plus their housebound Granny who had lived with them for six years now.
Brenda had been playing in the park with her friend Anne when some little kids came up to them with three tiny puppies in a cardboard box.
‘Do you want to buy a puppy?’ The biggest kid asked.
After much oohing and ahhing over the little bundles Anne said she would take the female pup. The price was ten shillings and the trusting kids agreed that she could take the pup home, pointing out their house where Anne could return with payment later.
Brenda desperately wanted the male pup, but knew she would have a fight on her hands to be allowed to keep him.
She asked Anne if they could take her pup back to Brenda’s home and pretend it was hers.
When they revealed the sleepy little puppy to Brenda’s family they were all enchanted, all except her Mum who rattled off a list of problems with keeping a pup. Each member of the family countered with promises of solutions until Mum played her ace.
‘Your Granny would be stuck in with it all day on her own and she couldn’t cope.’
‘Oh no.’ Said Granny, ‘It would be company for me.’
With no more cards to play Mum gave in and Brenda was able to reveal that this pup was Anne’s and she was off to get their pup, so could she please have ten shillings to pay for him?
Luckily her sister still had birthday money and quickly gave the required amount to Brenda before their mother could object.
And so Winston came to live with Brenda and her family and for over thirteen years their ten-bob-dog was a wonderful family pet.
As Harry splashed back to Brenda and dropped the stick at her feet she thought about her search for a pedigree dog and how paying thousands of pounds to the breeder differed from the days of her childhood. In a time when paying for a vet to neuter your animal was an expense beyond the means of most people it was quite common to have folk looking for homes for a litter of pups or kittens and getting a few shillings in payment was a much better alternative to drowning unwanted litters.
Pound for pound it still seems like amazing value for years of devotion.