On my command he sat on the pavement at the main road traffic light while I crossed the busy intersection. I paused and looked back at him. Cars rushed past between us in both directions. He looked proud. Pedestrians glanced curiously at him as they swept past like a river flowing around a rock. When the light turned green again and it was safe to cross, I tapped my hip and said, “Come on boy”. He hurtled across the street and nuzzled me. I stroked his head, called him to heel and we made our way to the bookstore. He walked in that high stepping gait peculiar to Irish setters, with his head held high. His silky red coat gleaming with health drew many admiring glances from the Saturday morning throngs.
“Dogs should be on leads!” some old guy grumped at me.
“He’s not a dog, he’s a unicorn,” I said, without slowing down.
We didn’t stay long in town because I was falling behind in a tricky part of my dissertation.
Our excursions to Rondebosch shops would have to be curtailed. I got down to work as soon as we were home. He was content to snooze at my feet while I grappled with my thesis. He only stirred if I got up for any reason.
He was the beneficiary of my having to master behaviour modification for my thesis and needing a subject to practise on. Sitting on command and walking to heel were learned early. I had also taught him to wait for permission before he wolfed down his food.
People were his kryptonite, however, and they sent his neural circuits haywire. When Neddy visited from Durban, on his motorbike, he was in danger of being bowled over and licked to death. “Basket,” I said and then again, louder still. If we were alone, he would have given me a doleful look and padded off to his basket, but with Neddy there his brain had gone off. He only calmed down when I had made Ned some tea and we were sitting in the lounge talking. “Hey, hello basket,” Ned said softly to him while he stroked his head. Ned loved animals and they loved him. “His name is actually Rip, short for Euripides,” I said
“Basket is the command, watch this!”
“Basket!”, I said loudly and firmly. He gave me a reproachful look and trotted off to his room.
“Impressive! You’ve got that dog trained to within an inch of his life,” Ned said
Neddy wanted me to ride back to Durban with him. I was tempted because my parents lived there, and I had a girlfriend there. It was out of the question because of my dissertation, and I had nobody to look after my cottage and dog. “Well, he is pretty smart and I’m using behaviour modification, focusing on rewarding desired behaviour.”
I was determined to prove the breeder wrong. When I had taken him at 12 weeks, she warned me that Irish setters were virtually untrainable and that they were completely crazy and required to be galloped every day, not just walked, to keep them sane. He kept me sane as well. I was obliged to walk him to Keurboom Park every day for a gallop. He also took the edge off my being alone and lonely in a new city while I wrote my thesis. We were constantly together and became attuned to one another.
Our favourite game was ‘find and fetch.’ I would make him sit in the lounge, then present a sock for him to sniff which I hid in my bedroom. On returning I stood next to him and said “Fetch!” He would trot off, come back with it and drop it at my feet. Then he’d give me a look which said “That all you got? Can’t you give me something more complex to do?”
I had six months of this idyllic existence with Rip. Then my thesis was ready to be submitted, and I had to find a job. I found a temporary job as a substitute teacher at a school in Strandfontein, while my dissertation was being marked, and my paperwork processed for registration with the Health Professions council. I loved the job although I wasn’t a very good teacher.
Rip hated my absence and started acting out. Prior to this I’d only been away for an hour or two whenever I had to spend time at UCT library. Now I was away all day until 3. He took to pulling an item of clothing off the washing line and snuggling up to it until I came home. Months after this I found my favourite tee shirt rotting, half buried. under the lemon tree in my garden.
The teacher I was subbing for came back. The headmaster asked me to stay on in some other capacity. I was tempted, but my registration had come through.
I found a job at a residential institution for the mentally handicapped. They had not had a psychologist for five years. After a brief interview with the medical superintendent, I was hired on the spot. I threw myself into the work, diligently, spending Saturday mornings in the library researching intractable problems. I loved my work even though it was the lowest status psychology job in Cape Town.
A psychologist I had just met at a lecture said to me on learning where I worked “Oh, so you’ve finally found people more fucked up than you to work with.” I was amused by his audacity, while content to know that I was doing meaningful work, improving the lives of vulnerable people.
The staff at the institution celebrated me and the superintendent loved me because I was solving long standing problems that his two ancient medical doctors were powerless to cure with their primitive prescription pads. They hated me.
Rip hated this new work arrangement. Snuggling up to the faint odour on my clothes was no longer sufficient. He used his ingenuity to break out and search for me. I got calls from people who found him wandering halfway to Westlake, where I worked.
I would have to act fast. I asked the superintendent if I could bring Rip to work as a therapy animal, citing various studies showing the benefits. His response was lukewarm but after consulting his two medical colleagues it was an emphatic ‘No’.
I was devastated. I would have to resign and disappoint my parents who had carried me through years of study, or I would have to give up my beloved companion. I dithered but my hand was forced that week when I got a call that Rip had been found on Claremont station on the centre island with trains whizzing past on either side.
The thought of that magnificent creature being mangled by a train made my blood turn to ice. I placed an ad that day offering him free to a good home. I settled on a woman who lived on five acres in Durbanville. She had two sons and one other dog.
She came to collect him the next day with one son. I took them inside to fetch his meagre possessions. It was a knife in my heart when she said, matter-of-factly, “Take him Cal, he’s yours now.”
They bundled into the car, and I watched them drive away. Rip looked back at me with an expression that said, “what’s this game we’re playing now?” My vision blurred and I had to blink rapidly. When I could see clearly, the car had turned the corner and disappeared.
I never saw him again.
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Image: ChatGPT remixed