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IN REMEMBRANCE OF RUFUS
We had gone on holiday to Normandy in the spring of 2010, and the people who ran the gite had a pair of Brittany spaniels, mother and daughter. My son Nate, six years old and desperate for a dog, fell in love with them. I am a dog person, and I too fell for the Brittanies. But I also thought he was still too young to be responsible for a dog, especially a working dog like a Brittany, who would need lots of attention. But this trip had contained a moment of revelation when I discovered my marriage was failing, and when we returned a dog seemed another good way to attempt to glue it back together.
So that summer we found ourselves at a farm looking at Brittanies. Rufus was a pedigree dog from a litter of eight. The two bitches were sold for breeding; four of the males were sold as working dogs. Rufus and one other were being sold for pets, though they’d also had their tails docked. As we walked into the room where the two runts of the litter were waiting, one of them saw us and immediately dropped a load on the timber floor. Just as immediately, Nate decided he loved the other one.
I did the deal, and we went back a few weeks later to pick him up. When we walked in there was one puppy alone. Nate rushed up to him, “there he is!” The breeder whispered in my ear that the dog Nate had chosen was taken away yesterday by another couple; this was one who’d pooped. Okay, I said, glad…
