DOGS
Deneys Reitz is a dog-friendly zone, especially for dogs that are intelligent, good company and not incontinent. Although we were totally forgiving of one delightful Border Collie, which shall be nameless because of his acute embarrassment, when he could not restrain himself from emitting the entire content of his somewhat liquid bowels on the foredeck. The poor dog was consoled and the deck pump immediately deployed to feed the fishes.
A real favourite was Reg the Lurcher, friend of Jen Day and a hound of sagacity and good humour. Reg accompanied Jen in her Romahome to many countries and spent a long trip from Belgium to Kiel on the Baltic. Reg liked the sea and only became anxious when the engines were stopped at sea to facilitate the strange ritual known as “pump-out”. Then he started shaking, enquiring why the engines, which he knew to be an integral part of being at sea, had so suddenly failed - and were we all doomed?
Reg was once refused access to a bus from Oban, in Scotland. “Do you realise”, said BT, “This dog could run your bloody bus company better than those who invent such silly rules??” Reg could run and jump like the wind and was specially amusing whilst running free in thick bracken. Now and then, with a “boing”, he would spring vertically and re-orient himself.
But Reg's best thing was his refusal to enter Jen's Romahome if in his judgment she might have consumed a little too much alcohol. Then he would bark furiously and sit obdurately, refusing all blandishments.
Alas, Reg is no longer with us, but a successor Lurcher is Alf, supposedly a small grey specimen who has turned out to be large lean and black. Alf is still a young dog and has not yet acquired the sagacity of Reg (who was unfairly named after a member of the dreaded criminal Kray family). But he is a dog of great charm and enthusiasm with a tendency to greet old friends by knocking them down lovingly and with great gusto.
A third favourite is Bob the Dog, who is Jen's successor dog to Reg. Bob is another enthusiast of great charm, who as a stray found Jen on a Portuguese beach, and with great pathos implored her to save him from a life lacking in meaning and companionship.
Alf, Jane, Jen and Bob are pictured below.
Jane and Alf - going to empty the dog
Jen, Bob the Dog and Totty