The pleasures — and pain — of dog-walking

The old dog was in a companionable frame of mind and she trotted along at my side, glancing up now and then at my face with a grin, perhaps with happiness at being out and about in a pleasant temperature in a changing season. Each evening we tread the same 40-minute circuit out of the village and back. Along the route are several doggy equivalents of a message board, of which she is a fanatical reader and contributor. Her evening walk is the highlight of her day. Otherwise the old girl sleeps.

The circuit is a popular one with other dog walkers. There is, for example, a French girl of about 15 who is Nature’s last word in animal beauty. It is better for me to look at the ground as we pass otherwise I have suicidal thoughts. She has a hairy mongrel. Also encountered from time to time is an English gardener. When he isn’t gardening he lives alone with his dog in a darkened house. Because he sees every person he meets as a golden opportunity to expend the backlog of words he has amassed during the previous 24 hours of solitude, my heart sinks when I see him. At this time of year his skin is nearly black and his lope is as distinct as his lively and affectionate little dog, a sort of leggy wheaten terrier, Italian by birth, found abandoned in Rome. This dog expresses the accumulation of his thwarted affection by always trying to poke his tongue into my mouth.

‘I don’t know what to do,’ said the gardener from 15 yards off. ‘I’ve got too many clients and they all want me at the same time. They all think I’m theirs exclusively.