Day 1 of launch week!
I’ll be sharing on this substack excerpts from my upcoming books The Watcher and Love and Difficult Being(s). The first two of these you can already find here and here.
In Love and Difficult Being(s) (a fictional novel loosely inspired by real life) a Jackson-like dog features as a fictional minor character. For those of you who don’t know, Jackson is one of our dogs. In the book I’ve (for now) called him Jayco. This piece of writing is based on a real life (and pretty traumatic) incident, but the other dog in this story lives to tell the tale and is happy and well - he was not seriously harmed and the owner assures me he quickly forgot about it. Most dogs are wonderfully resilient, unlike us humans!
‘Noooooooooooooo!’
It’s a cry of anguish, and of disbelief.
I had relaxed. Seven years in, I had relaxed.
After all the learning.
After all the hours of counter-conditioning.
After all the studied avoidances, gradual exposure, careful management.
All the attempts at socialisation (the muzzles, the two-second-meetings).
After all the balls on all the ropes (all the play as stress relief).
After the good days and the bad days; the retreats and the triumphs; the trusting and the praying; the belts and the braces; the close calls, the delicate balancing of factors, the spilling over of energies. Mine, and his, and sometimes, too, others’.
After all the different schools of thought, all the varying opinions (of all the people), after all the judgements and theories, all the embracing and rejecting of all the strategies, after all the decisions and all the indecision.
After the moments of strength and of weakness (all the pride, all the tears).
After all the careful management.
After the coming to terms with things, the whole shebang that came after resisting (grieving, processing). Then, the shaking it off, manning up, getting it in perspective. After the acceptance that the white hot flame of responsibility of him and for him, for not only his emotions (that was bad enough) but also for his actions (the potential weight of them) is mine; after all that, I fail him. And in a spectacularly stupid manner too. I relax. I leave the boot of the car open - him in the back seat, not tethered. Untethered.
The Untethered Soul, my mind jokes with me, reminds me. I nod, acknowledging what she’s said. She’s droll.
June, last year.
Leaving the boot of the car open, I walk over to greet my husband from his tennis session. We kiss. Hell ensues; of course it does. As if to show me how bad I am at taking responsibilty, how bad at it I have always been. The universe gives you a lesson, you see, over and over, until you learn it. It’s relentless, the universe.
You, the one doing the watching of the thoughts, I hear in my head. Michael Singer. Not a dog guru, but a guru nonetheless.
The man is kicking and hitting Jayco’s face, and things feel dream-like, I can’t seem to hear anything. I know that the kicking won’t hurt him, I’m not worried about that. I’m worried because I know he won’t let go. I know that when he’s this quiet he’s frozen, blocked. He’s not aggressive, it’s not a frenzied attack – at least this section of it isn’t. I didn’t see the start; I have to admit that to myself, even this early in the process. Because it will be a process, I know that. I know it from the many hours I have spent on the Reactive Dogs UK group page, from being reduced to tears by desperate posts from loving, isolated owners of difficult dogs. As far as I know there’s been no ragging. No ruptured spleen then I think, relieved. It isn’t that bad, I tell myself. The reality is only that right now, at this moment, he has his jaws clamped around another dog’s neck. It’s - well - awkward. But it had just been instinct. The predation sequence. Eye. Chase. Grab bite. A trigger. An autonomic emotional response to the sight of something he construed as prey-like and which started off in him an involuntary chain of action. Instinct. A spontaneous, unbidden response to the dog crossing his eyeline, a dog in the wrong place at the wrong time. A first domino. An autonomic response, that’s the point. Not mean, not aggressive, not meant by him, not mechant, as the French would say. Their word describes it better, somehow. I try to think of the English equivalent. Malevolent? Too highbrow, somehow. Wicked? Spiteful? Malicious? No. Anyway, whatever word, we’ve established that he’s not that.
Not meant, I muse. If it’s not intentional, it means less, doesn’t it? It’s what I tell myself. Jayco could no longer help this than I can help my meltdowns. My autistic meltdowns, as I now think of them, almost fondly. No-one close to me yet believes that I am neurodivergent – even mildly – but that’s immaterial to me. I know. And it doesn’t frighten me, like it frightens them. After all, it’s all I’ve ever known. It just means not neurotypical, in fact, which is not that dramatic at all, when you think about it. Plently of people are not neurotypical. In fact, I have a hunch that in the end, they’ll discover the neurotypicals to be the odd ones out, the weird ones, not us.
Us? My mind echoes, arching an eyebrow.
Yes, us. I respond, defiant. She smiles. She likes contrariness, too, likes to be different.
He’s locked on, and he doesn’t know what to do, all he feels is that he shouldn’t let go. In his head he’s back in survival mode, on the streets again. Ducking, diving; stealing food, not letting it go. Surviving. Like that time he had grabbed a block of feta last month and his mouth had clamped on it like a vice, the juice oozing out through the puncture wounds in the thick plastic, through my fingers and onto the thick rug as I (too) kept a tenacious grip on it and tried to not let him gulp the whole thing back and once again attempt to inadvertently kill himself.
They think I’m just jumping on a bandwagon, you see. They should know me better than that; I’m far more likely to do the opposite. I know it seems odd but the suspicion - no, not the suspicion, I think, the realisation? No… the revelation – The revelation that I am on the autistic spectrum has been an enormous relief to me. It has made everything fall into place. If others are resistant to it or don’t believe me, that’s their problem. I know, in my heart, the truth of it. I knew it the moment that someone had uncovered for me quite casually, during a chance discussion, what ASD people are not, necessarily, and therefore, what they may, in fact, be. In the spaces between the things lies the magic, the answers. Yes, I think, that’s so true.
I try to stay calm. I am bent down over Jayco and I am looking at the man’s trainers. They’re white and they look new, and his dog has lost bowel control all over them. Poor dog, I would probably think, under normal circumstances. Should probably think. I don’t though. I notice that the dog has a stumpy tail, thick fur. I think it looks like some sort of Heeler. Is it called a Heeler? I think. Those Aussie dogs. A bit ugly maybe, by normal standards. My mind sticks on that thought. That word again! she objects, drawing my attention to it. Normal! she says. I nod, agreeing with her. Uglier than normal. Yes, it sounds wrong to me too, I confirm.
I don’t think they are ugly, anyway, I think they are sweet. I love all dogs – instantly, instinctively. Except, curiously, Jayco. Him, I didn’t love right from the start. But him, I now love extra fiercely. Boundlessly, like a parent does.
Good, I think, (good I mean, that it is this particular dog, this Heeler, over another, more thin-skinned, more delicate one)
and
Maybe the thick fur will protect him!
and
Maybe he hasn’t broken the skin. Though I know he will have. The dog tries to twist its head round and bite at me, in vain though since I stay completely calm and shift that hand, just slightly, just far enough that he can’t reach it. I’m impressed with myself, pleased at how I do this. I have one of my hands inside Jayco’s mouth and am trying – gently but insistently, with all my power - to prise it open – but his jaws are locked. I pray that he doesn’t break my skin, too. I know that my fingers will be bruised and that’s okay, but I don’t think I can take more physical or logistical complications this year. A bandaged up hand, one out of use would be a real inconvenience. I bear it in mind, consider the risk. I don’t care about the pain, but I do care about damage. I’m all about practicalities now. I don’t take my fingers out, though.
My brain arrives in the moment, and I am still calm. Later, I think about how I don’t remember running over to adjoined dogs (enjoined, my mind suggests, though only tentatively. Conjoined? I offer back, a question mark in my voice too). That five metres, those few seconds – blank. Funny, I don’t remember them at all. I don’t know whose cries I heard first - the man’s or the dog’s. Or perhaps Stevie’s cries of excitement. She had jumped out of the back seat and flown through the boot too. Such a small gap there though that they can’t have flown – rather squeezed and heaved themselves through and out, wriggling with excitement, whining. They pack, you know. That women’s voice in my head makes me shudder. I know what Jayco’s eyes will have looked like in that moment. It’s one of the things I’ve studied, along with the set of his body (still and quivering, or loose and relaxed?), the tightness in his bearded face, the angles of his lithe frame, the slant of his half tail, the fall of his silken ears. I can picture every snapshot of those five metres, even though I didn’t see it. In the rerun of my imagination, I flinch and brace for impact.
It’s a Porsche Panamera, the car – sporty and impractical, with red leather seats. We should have something with built-in cages, of course. Something sensible. A Volvo, or an Audi. Something with a grate inbetween the back seats and the boot, I think, at least. If only we’d had that, I think. This life of having to have it all, I chastise myself. Dogs and a posh car. Kids and nights out. A career and motherhood. A house and holidays. Stability and excitement. Freedom and security. My mind nods. Everyone’s guilty of it, she says gently - it’s not just you.
Of course she had gone with him, Stevie. She has his back, always. It could be dangerous, I have often thought. They pack, you know, that lady had told me – a dire and chilling warning indeed. Heaven forbid! I remember thinking, and suddenly understanding, in that little moment, the full weight of responsibility of having a dog.
Stevie is a joy, a tonic. I love her like she’s a part of me – some lighter, better part. Even in this moment, she lifts my spirit. She is prancing around in the dust, wide-mouthed, long-tongued, all glorious white gnashers and gleaming eyes – I know that without looking. I trust her and barely need to give her a glance. Jayco is not dangerous. I feel it, and I know Stevie feels it too. If she felt fear in him, she could be dangerous too, to the dog, the Heeler. She would protect Jayco, fly at anything that was making him suffer. But she knows that he has just – again – done something foolish. He has a knack for it. No wonder. How can a dog grow up right with no protection, after all, no guidance. He didn’t have an owner, as such. A hand that shoved a bowl of food or water into his cage when he had craved for it to stroke him. He had loved the smell of that hand, even though it had had no kindness in it. He had got lost and ended up in the city, on the streets. Then had come the big cut under his chin, the one that had left the scar. I wish I knew the story of that scar. Or maybe I don’t. From the streets, rounded up and taken to a kill shelter, death only narrowly avoided.
My heart pounds with love for him as my fingers gently, gently try to prise open his mouth. I focus on a point a few metres away in the dust, concentrate only on what I can feel. With my fingers I sense how much I can push, when to ease off. He’s considering relaxing his jaws now, I can tell. Gently, gently.
After a high comes a low. Always. It’s dependable, at least. But, what we forget is that if we’re lucky, after a low comes a high, too. After that inauspicious start, life with us; a rags to riches story indeed. Sailing round islands, hiking up alps, city hotels where he lays on marble floors whilst I soak in bubble baths. Scrawled notes on doors saying ‘DO NOT ENTER, DOG INSIDE!’ Not because he would hurt a hair on a human head, but because a dog passing along the corridor at any given moment could easily be ambushed and even killed, inadvertently. And, like all dogs who have lived in awful places, he has learnt to evade capture, escape control – he is a master at scooting out of small, quick, careless gaps. Vigilance required, relentless vigilance. Notes sellotaped on gates, lectures to anyone who comes to stay to please be careful. Their faces smiling back at us, thinking me neurotic and over protective. ‘Jayco?’ they say, disbelieving, stroking his big, relaxed, loving head which lays in their laps, gentle as a lamb with them, with their toddling children. My gut twists, knowing they won’t be careful, or careful enough. Such a burden, the burden to keep him safe. My world narrows and narrows in this quest to keep him safe. I will lock them all out, if I need to, I sometimes think.
It was just his instinct kicking in, I know that. An unfortunate lack of management on my part. He has become blocked now, but the immediate danger has passed. There’s no frenzied dog fight. Just the damage that is done. My heart sinks and lifts, with alternating fear and hope. The dog twists its head more and snaps, snaps, snaps at my hand but it is getting tired now, resigned. It has stopped crying. There’s no movement except dust stirred up by the light breeze, and there’s only silence. I stay calm and keep my hand angled just out of his reach. It’s beginning to ache with the effort but that’s the least of my issues. I summon my will. My will that’s been missing for ten years or maybe more, but that is starting to come back now, of late; my will that surges in me, like it should have all this time. I breathe, calm. I reiterate to the humans around, and the dogs too, to be calm, I appeal to them.
‘Mir*.’ I say, again, or think I say, maybe I say ‘Calm. Please just be calm.’ We will get out of this, I think, I just need to master my fear. Stay calm, breathe deeply. Wim hof again. Thank you, Wim Hof! I say in my head. Thank you for teaching me calm, for teaching me belief in myself. For teaching me not to flap and not to dramatise.
I wish we’d learnt that earlier! my mind says to me, laughing, but serious. I nod, agreeing. Me too. I say.
*Mir = peace in Croatian
Loudly, because I can feel that everyone has started fidgeting and fussing, impatient for something to happen, I command them. ‘Stop! Just stop!’ and I reiterate, more gently, when they do, ‘Calm, everyone calm.’ The man, to his credit, stills completely. He had already stopped hitting and kicking Jayco when I arrived. I thank him, mentally. My husband and the tennis coach are there behind me somewhere, but I am at the head end, with the man and his dog. We are bound, the six of us, though none of us wants to be, in this moment. We would all rather be elsewhere, not to have been interrupted by this inconvenient and awkward incident. Stevie dances on the periphery. I am in charge. I stay calm with ease, to my surprise. I have more dog experience now than I realise. If this had been 3 years ago, and certainly 5, I would have lost it. Panicked, crumpled into a useless, snotty heap. I am straddled over Jayco’s back, but I can only feel him with my hands. I don’t clamp his body, I take care not to. That’s the last thing he needs, to feel more hemmed in right now. I am just there as it’s physically the most optimal place to be, under the circumstances. I take care not to stress him unnecessarily. I focus in. His mouth. His teeth. I feel them. They’re not sharp. But they’re powerful. Those jaws are powerful. Not like a bully’s, but still.
I have made a promise to myself to rescue a troubled English Bull Terrier when Stevie goes. I know I’ll need something challenging to sear through the pain. I think about my plan, in this moment, and feel overwhelmed. I shake off the thought.
I look down at his eyes. He seems to be in a trance. They aren’t pooled, panicked like I have seem them before. There is no Hard Eye. There is no anger, no fury, I note. I can feel all this - I don’t need to look, though I do. I look down at him and the rush of love hits me. I feel him appealing to me to get him out of this awkward situation. I almost laugh. My mind starts to digress, talking to me about how much we cherish him. Set that aside. Be practical! I say to her, and I insist upon it. I know the spirals we can go into, the endless loops she loves to have us make. This moment is too important to start that. What I do now is critical – these immediate seconds, these immediate minutes.
His eyes aren’t pooled - they aren’t dark or hard. But they aren’t golden either. They are golden when he’s at his best. They are almost sleepy, blissful, now. Strange, I think. He looks like he’s disconnected. Like I feel when I do my meditations. His eyes look like he’s mentally in another place. Gently, gently. I say, to myself. Or rather, Wim Hof does. His voice soothes me, his imagined presence.
Everything is still. I speak to Jayco. It’s just him and I. Good boyyyyy. I say. And I will him to let go. I say it again: Gooooood boyyyyy. I keep my vowels long like Patricia McConnell taught me. Patricia McConnell, is one of my gurus. I have many. I have read all her books, in my quest for understanding, on my long, lonely journey of being a reactive dog guardian. I try to soothe him with my will, my calmness, my elongated vowels. I try to make the panic abate. It is a battle between dark and light, like everything, like always.
He’s a Drahthaar - a German-engineered dog, a machine. Tough. He won’t let go because of a few kicks in the head. He was oblivious to those, I saw that; hedidn’t even flinch. There’s damage there, to be so detached, I tell myself. But kindness and love is more powerful than force, always. And eventually, I feel a slight movement, a slight releasing of tension.
‘Gooooood booooooyyyyyyyy,’ I say. Everyone is holding their breath, everyone has bent to my will. I am powerful, I could think, but I don’t. The responsibilty is all on me. They are all looking to me to diffuse this energy, to deactivate this dog. I don’t enjoy the white hot, pure heat of responsibility, I endure it. Responsibility is not something that comes naturally to me, I have shirked it for the last twenty years, but a sea-change is happening, I’m changing.
Later, my husband tells me over the phone that he had put his finger into Jayco’s arsehole. I’d told him once that that could make him let go. I tell him that I don’t think Jayco even noticed the finger in his arsehole. We laugh a lot and feel bonded, briefly. We are anyway bonded in our love of this difficult being. Then that ugly phrase comes back to me, You sold yourself as a party girl, and I withdraw from him and say I have to go. He is confused, saddened. Well, I was saddened too. Quid pro quo, eh? My heart wrenches, it has a tear in it, and any direction I move seems to make it worse. I don’t know how to heal it, or the one in his. I send him a message to say goodnight, leaving off kisses but otherwise full of love.
He lets go, Jayco. The man pulls his dog away. He turns his back to us and crouches down, trying to comfort the dog. I feel my husband snap Jayco’s lead on and pull him away. The tennis coach is holding out something to me. It twigs; the water I had requested. My mind laughs, mirthlessly though – at, not with, I think. It’s a bottle, a small one at that - not the bowl or bucket I had pictured when I had screamed for it. It wouldn’t have helped anyway. Even a bucketful, a bowlful probably wouldn’t have helped. It would have had to have been ice cold, too. Who has that waiting around? Someone who has two dogs at home who have fought, I think, remembering when Stevie had had a phantom pregnancy and raging hormones. I had it around, once, I think, not that I would have admitted it widely. People are so ready to condemn non-humans, when humans themselves are so cruel, so violent, so brutal, and so unforgiving. Kids scuffle in playgrounds, adults fight in pubs or on streets or at football matches and yet if dogs dare to even growl let alone bare teeth they are instantly deemed savage, bestial, dangerous. I feel myself getting cross as these thoughts pass through my head. These years have been a rollercoaster.
When Jayco’s jaws have released and he has been led off, the man, before turning his back, had asked me, tersely but politely, not to talk to him. I have fallen silent. And I watch him now examine his dog, silent. I feel helpless, whiney. I feel slack-jawed, moronic. The power I had had is suddenly drained from me. I feel redundant, unsure. I look to Stevie, desperate. She always gives me strength. She grins at me. But even looking at her, I feel as if I’m under a layer of ice. This is bad, this shock, if even she can’t reach me.
There’s blood on your knee, my husband says, discreetly. I turn to him. I feel like there is a layer of cotton wool between us, between me and the world. I feel slow.
It’s nothing. I manage to say. My finger hurts, a lot, but I don’t tell him that. I am desperate to know is the dog okay, will it be okay.
It’s nothing.
It’s nothing.
Then the emotions rush in, and everything suddenly feels fast, not slow.
I’m sorry, I say over and over, as quietly as I can, almost under my breath, because the man has asked me not to speak and I respect that. But I say it in Croatian, so on some level I want him to hear me.
I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry. My fault. It’s my fault. He’s not bad. It’s my fault.
Zao mije zao mije zao mije, Moja kriva. Ja kriva. On nije kriv. Moja greska, ne njegova.
I try to talk to the dog. I apologise to him (is it a he? Or is it a she?) in my head, or in whispers, I’m not sure. I’m so sorry. I say, over and over.
Later, the tears come. The shaking, the trauma, the drama. The old me. The helpless, whiney one.
I would defend Jayco with my life. Now.
Once I resented him.
Once, he gave me Hard Eye, and I was scared of him. But he was scared too, then. Scared of big lorries, and scared of humans that try to pull you anywhere, even if it’s benevolently, off a bed to change a duvet. He attacked me, then, but I turned my head and his teeth caught only the back of my head. And it wasn’t an attack, but defense. He didn’t mean anything by it, he just didn’t like to be manhandled any more, after the pound, it made him panic. He came to me quickly and silently afterwards, doleful, big-eyed, sorry, forlorn. It’s all part of our joint history. Those moments make me understand and love him much more than had they not happened. The bad bits of relationships are necessary too, you see, my mind says, goading me, they are worth too. I ignore her, turning my head away.
Samskaras, samskaras.
The man doesn’t look at me. Mrtvo hladno.* Another great expression, I think. He just walks away - his neat white trainers covered in poo, the left one particularly. He speaks to his dog gently, encourages him (her? Now, I think it’s a her) to move. The dog is reluctant. It is terrified, traumatised. They walk away. They just walk away. The man hasn’t even looked at us. I watch them. As they reach the bend in the path, the dog does an all body shake. When it moves on, it is with more pluck already. That lifts my heart. Dogs are amazing, I think, and not for the first time. It looks back behind it, worried, as well it should, and the man moves it on quickly, as well he ought.
*Death cold, literal translation. In other words, cool as a cucumber.
He had had a small pony tail, the man, I think. A repic, it’s called in Croatian. Repic translates into ‘small tail’. Not stumpy, like the dog’s was. Not stumpy, but straggly. Unkempt, or arty, I’m not sure yet, I couldn’t spare the focus. But one or the other, which means he’s either not smart or not a poseur. That’s good, I tell myself. He will understand. I think. He won’t make me give our dog to the police. Surely?
The man doesn’t look like the type to go to the police. But you never know. He had a bite on his hand. I remember. Am pretty sure it was from his dog not ours. But still.
Selfishly, I don’t think much about his hand, even about his dog. I only really care about Jayco and the possible repercussions.
The trauma rushes in, the shock hits me. In my mind, the world is suddenly shifting, rocking, like I imagine it would in an earthquake.
I can’t take it. I can’t take it.
I can’t take it
I can’t take it
I can’t take it
I can’t take it
I can’t take it
I can’t take it
I say in my head. Or my mind says for me. I’m not sure which. I feel dislocated, somehow.
It’s too much
It’s too much
It’s too much
It’s too much
It’s too much
It’s too much
I start to panic and my breath whooshes in and out fast and uncontrollable. I’m used to panic attacks – I’ve had them before. The first one was on a pier in Southend at the age of twenty-seven, after the break up of my first relationship and on the cusp of my next. It was brutal. They are always, always brutal.
I’m used to the repetitive phrases too, it happens often when I am spiralling out of control.
It’s my brain scrambling for the gearstick, the brakes, the clutch and getting it all wrong.
It’s the corner coming too fast, the big drop at the side of the road.