‘You don’t have long. That dog won’t be a puppy for ever. Don’t waste this precious time.’ Those were the wise words of my friend Vince when I brought Cydney home.
‘Get out there with her,’ he explained. ‘Walk her in all the big parks. Maximise your pulling opportunities.’
Vince claims he never had so much luck with women as when he paraded his pug puppy around Hyde Park and, notwithstanding my disaster-prone nature, he was sure that even I could manage to attract a mate whilst walking a cocker spaniel as cute as Cydney.
The little black hound does indeed have powerful magnetic qualities. I cannot get down the street without a dozen people stopping to tell me how adorable she is, and, yes, some of them are men.
The law of averages would suggest that sooner or later one of the men who stops to pet my puppy will be single and attracted to me. We will get talking about the relative benefits of slip leads versus harnesses and the best disposal bags on the market for pooper-scooping and then we will walk off into the sunset together.
My mother, who once read that a TV star she likes met her husband whilst walking her dog on Hampstead Heath, has been telling me for years that dog walking is the premier method for a busy thirty-something woman to meet the man of her dreams.
And sure enough, the other day, I met him. He was playing with his golden cocker in the middle of Tooting Common.
He was tall, dark and handsome, bearded but in a rugged, rock-starish way. He was sporting the sort of trendy, patterned woollens that said he was sure enough of his manliness to wear a bobble hat. He could have been in a Christmas advert for Gap.
I gave Cydney her instructions. ‘This is it, Cyd, this is what we’ve been working towards. Ready? Go play with the golden cocker. Good girl!’
Cydney trotted off obligingly and engaged with the spaniel. As the two dogs gambolled about, the guy looked up and smiled at me. I beamed back and started walking towards him. He started walking towards me. It was working like a dream. This was it. I was about to meet Mr Right whilst walking my dog. I would soon be living happily ever after in the Cotswolds. Then a voice behind me said, ‘Melissa, is that you?’
It was an old friend I hadn’t seen in years. What the hell was she doing here? I wanted to scream,‘Go away, for goodness sake, I’m about to get lucky.’
‘It is you,’ she said, rushing over to me. ‘No, no, go the other way. Go on, shoo!’ I wanted to shout. It entered my head that I should try to pretend it wasn’t me. As it was, I just stood there with my mouth open.
The man with the golden cocker was still smiling, but he had stopped walking towards me. This was a tragic moment. My new life flashed before me. A cosy evening scene with the pair of us sitting by the fire in our Cotswold equestrian property, dressed from head to foot in Gap woollens, went all wavy and started to disappear. I was frozen to the spot. I wanted to go on walking towards him but I had to turn around and greet the old friend.
I ended up doing a weird sideways dance in which I tried to engage both of them at once.
‘Hello, there,’ I said, greeting the friend whilst turning my head round every few seconds to smile and nod at my prospective husband.
‘How wonderful to see you, how have you been?’ said the friend, looking a little confused at my lack of enthusiasm.
‘Er, ha ha, yes, fine,’ I said, turning my head to smile at the man, then back to the friend, then round to the man, then back to the friend again. I realised I now looked like I had Tourette’s.
The man went back to playing with his dog. I prayed that Cydney would save the day by refusing to leave the golden cocker until the friend had gone away.
But the friend had a chocolate Labrador. Cydney loves Labradors, or indeed any big dog she can have a proper rough and tumble with. Before long she had deserted the golden cocker and taken up with the Lab, who wrestled her to the ground then sat on top of her.
‘Oh dear, is she alright?’ said the friend, as Cydney wriggled ecstatically underneath a mass of Labrador. I looked round forlornly, only to see the man with the golden cocker disappearing over the horizon.
‘So, how have you been? What’s been happening in your life?’
‘Oh, you know, nothing special.’
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