It is Pablo we must thank for the fact that we own a dachshund. When Josh slept over at his colleague’s house after a “Thursday is the New Friday” drinks session got a bit out of hand, it was Pablo who woke him, tunnelling down into Josh’s sleeping bag demonstrating a sausage dog’s obsession with warm dark spaces. If Josh had not been the unwitting bedfellow of his colleague’s dachshund, he would not have expressed his desire to own one, neither would we have promised him one when he was ill, and nor would my work colleagues have gifted us the funds to acquire one in Josh’s memory.
Why am I telling you this? Perhaps to provide some context to explain how I recently found myself sitting in the kitchen at 2 a.m, reading to Mr Long because he could not – or would not – sleep in his own bed.
It started when we agreed to look after my brother’s dog, Bruno (a Vizler/Pointer cross) for ten days. On the first night, Badger’s ‘cousin’ opted to sleep in Badger’s small bed instead of his own, which meant he had to:
- Turf Badger off it
- Drag it out from under a low shelf and
- Curl up really tightly to fit on it
The first we knew of this low-level canine bullying was the whining of our little pet at the kitchen door. Bruno wasn’t relinquishing the bed, so we took pity on Badger and allowed him to sleep in ours. Badger was delighted and became quite accustomed to the arrangement over the following ten nights. When Bruno departed, Badger saw no reason why he should return to his old bed in the kitchen.
But, since we wanted our own bed for ourselves, we shut him in the kitchen anyway. Unimpressed by the return to his old dormitory, Mr Long whined; quietly at first, but then louder and with more urgency. And then he started to bark. Not incessantly, just occasionally, but regularly enough to awaken us as we were tipping off to sleep.
It was not as if Badger was angry. Just disappointed.
Eventually, I got up and tried bribing him with treats to stay in his bed. Which he did, until I switched the lights out. When I turned the lights back on after five seconds, to check he was still in bed, my dachshund was half way across the floor, frozen in mid-step.
I tried a couple more times, but Badger was beginning to enjoy his own version of Grandmother’s Footsteps. So I did what any exasperated parent would do and decided to bore him to sleep, by sitting with my book and reading, albeit not out loud. I am not that deluded (yet). Miraculously, it worked.
I only had to repeat the exercise a couple of times over the next few nights before Badger accepted his own bed instead of ours.
It was reminiscent of when we had to manage the kids’ sleeping patterns and is one of many similarities between bringing up toddlers and looking after a dachshund. It is no coincidence. Simply cuddling Badger seems to release a dose of oxytocin as if I am holding my child. Of course physically, Josh and Badger are at opposite ends of the scale: one, six feet four inches tall; the other with four feet but only six inches tall. And their respective characters are equally far apart: quiet, mild mannered and reasonable against angry, demanding and self-centred.
But the arrival of Badger is directly linked to the loss of Josh, so, we can be forgiven for treating him like our lost boy. Even our daughter ironically (or otherwise) refers to Badger as ‘the favourite child’ and there might be some truth in the observation.
Not that we ever spoil him or bow to his demands. Apart from the occasional bedtime story.
