Books by Ian Rogers
Books by Ian Rogers
Judy was a brilliant dog. Good natured, affectionate, quick to learn. I used to walk around the country lanes near our rented house. There were no pavements and only thin, weedy verges beside the hedges. If a car came, I’d say ‘side’ and step as close to the hedge as possible. Soon I could walk with Judy off lead. If a car came I’d say ‘side’ and she would go to the hedge at once. Just by talking to her and her seeing things, she learnt. At a crossroads I could say ‘stop’ and she’d stop. When all was clear I’d say ‘cross’ and we’d step out together to cross the road. A few years later, my then girlfriend Abi visited and we walked the dog. Abi was so good at obedience that I had to apologise for the abrupt commands!
In 1964 the family moved to the newly built bungalow that my parents had chosen. Judy, who had been a stray and a scrounger before we took her in, kept up her old habits. One day an old lady on the estate told us what a lovely dog she was.
“She always comes to my back door for a slice of chicken,” she said.
Our bungalow was perched on the side of a ridge, overlooking a steeply sloping field and the flood plain to the River Severn. The lower part of our garden was the start of the steep slope. Then there was a twisted, old, iron-railed fence which the builders had reinforced with waist-high chestnut fencing. This cheap, crude stuff was made from galvanized wires, twisted together near the top and bottom and with tight loops a hand-breadth apart. Each pair of vertical loops held rough cut wooden stake.
Long legged Judy could run down the sloping garden, leap in the air, and easily clear the chestnut fencing. She would land like a ski jumper on the lower slopes and canter on without breaking stride. She loved to roam the fields and to run along the overgrown towpath by the river. We’d see her coming home across the fields, loping uphill to the garden fence. Then she’d make a prodigious uphill leap, jumping both the iron and chestnut fencing before cantering up the garden.
Fishing permits were cheap for the entire local river bank and Dad, my brother and I used to fish quite a lot. Judy would be with us, completely free to roam. She was half collie half retriever and her retriever side loved to flush out moorhens and mallard ducks. They would break across the wide river towards the far side and Judy would swim after them, sometimes right across. On the far side of one bend was the small beach where, on fine days, families would picnic and children could play in the shallows. Hearing all the happy chatter, Judy would swim across to join them, cadge a snack or two and then swim back.
Taking off on her own was nearly her undoing. There were ponds for cattle in the fields between us and the river and one of these - as big as a tennis court - lay across a field boundary. To prevent cattle swimming from one field to the next a spiked iron fence followed the hedge-line down into the water, across the pond, and up and out on the other side. All that could be seen where the water was deepest were the tips of vertical spikes, needle sharp with rust, just breaking the surface.
One day, when I was by myself at home, I looked out over the fields and saw Judy labouring home, limping badly and obviously in pain. No way would she be able to jump the garden fence in that condition. I climbed over the fence, picked up the big dog and lifted her to my shoulder height.
Judy was now level with the top of the fence and there was nothing wrong with her back legs. She thrust herself away from me, made a bad landing and hobbled towards the bungalow. I got up after being pushed flat on my back, climbed the fence precariously and let us both in. Judy collapsed on the floor and I had a look at her. A great flap of skin has been sliced loose from the right side of her chest, just behind her front leg. It wasn’t bleeding, it looked like clean-washed meat. The bones of several ribs showed.
Aged 14 and on my own, I phoned the vet and demanded that someone come out to look at her. I thought she’d need loads of stitches. The vet, sympathetic but practical, took a quick look, dusted the wound with powder, and said it would heal itself. When he asked how it happened I said I could only guess. I thought she’d probably put up a duck by the pond with the iron railings, swum after it and tried to climb over the dividing fence. If she had slipped, the spikes would be just too close together and at least one would have spiked her chest. She’d have had to struggle to get off it.
The vet thought this was very possible. I thanked him profusely for coming out and said Mum and Dad would pay for the call but - a real James Herriot touch – I don’t believe we were ever billed. Judy recovered in a week or two, although she had a big, indented crescent scar on her side for the rest of her life.
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