Joules, a mongrel
The story behind the poem
Our two golden retrievers came with us when we moved
to Italy. One day when we were buying dog food from a pet store, we
saw a litter of puppies in a play pen outside. They had floppy ears
like golden retrievers but the pet shop owner explained they had been
found abandoned in a field and so were of unknown breed and origin. One of them caught my eye and I
picked him out and held him. We drove away - but went back.
Joules - we continued the tradition of physicist names - is the
result. From the start he had a quite different character from our other two dogs. He is noisy, always barking
at cars, motorcycles, strange people or people he considers strange,
prams, cats - in fact practically everything that moves.
He is a tease, but so
affectionate that those who get to know him are completely enchanted.
Whenever I go out, he watches and waits for me till I return and then
jumps all over me in welcome.
I have a
particular soft spot for him because he has hip dysplasia and the
quality of his life was for a while under threat. We put him through
an operation and now he runs so fast I wonder whether he has greyhound
blood in him - along with the Spinone ancestry which (we assume)
gave him the fur which covers his eyes and adds to his appeal. by Damaris West Read the poem
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