The making of Eurodogs

It’s been a tough rite of passage, for Toffee and Luci, being turned into European toy poodles. A process not without its bright moments – indeed, there have been quite a few – but difficult all the same. Adaptation to change is never easy, is it?

Still, I’m sure it’s done them good. Neither had previously been out of Britain. In Toffee’s case, one could feel a certain incipient xenophobia, perhaps an infection from the toxic effect of Brexit. Certainly, where in Luton she’d always been prepared to be friendly towards selected dogs (small, unaggressive, with a certain je ne sais quoi, though I don’t know what that is), in France she barked at every passing dog, irrespective of size or attitude.

Which isn’t wise when you weigh not much more than a Great Dane’s evening meal and are barely shoulder high to a Pomeranian.

Luci, I’m glad to report, behaved in exactly the same way to the foreign dogs as to English ones: she backed away from them all, as she does with any people or dogs she doesn’t know. At least she was consistent across the Channel. So it seems she can’t be accused of xenophobia – she’s scared of everyone equally.

Exploring the Loire at Tours
When it comes to water, Luci still leads the way

What went better was that we visited some places they liked. They went bathing, at least at the paddling level, in the river Loire at Tours. They went paddling in the Atlantic at Mimizan, where Toffee developed a glorious technique of sideways jumps whenever the sea, in a devious and brutal manner, sent a larger wave than most to sweep her from her feet. Luci just enjoyed the water but Toffee, less brave with waves, preferred to keep out of the way.

Luci enjoying the Atlantic with Danielle
Toffee had decamped...

What they enjoyed least was the actual travelling bit. Twice we had to lift Toffee bodily into the car. In fact, the only thing that prevented her making a break for the long grass was, I suspect, the dread that we might actually leave her behind, a fate even worse than being forced into the car yet again.

She made her desire for freedom particularly clear when we stopped overnight in Lumpiaque, a town of 900 souls outside Zaragoza in Spain. It’s surrounded by fields and orchards – we were invited to help ourselves to figs, there were huge fields full of tomato plants that made Danielle sigh with envy, and excellent long walks along country paths. Toffee felt that we’d found a place after her own heart and could see no purpose in further travel in that nasty, smelly, wobbly thing we call a car.

Lumpiaque was fun for the humans, too. We had a meal in one of the three restaurants in the town. They weren’t really restaurants so much as bars that also did food. The kind of place where the proprietor proudly shows you her menu and then tells you which three of the fifteen or so dishes on it she can actually provide.

So the trip was a rite of passage for both dogs. But I think it coincided for Toffee with a coming of age, too – not always in the best way. For a long time, she has been a fierce defender of what is hers: Misty, our cat, or Luci were not allowed anywhere near her food, for instance. It was quite amusing watching that tiny bundle of fluff seeing off the massive Misty, twice her size and with claws as deadly as his teeth, whenever he had the gall to approach her bowl.

Now, though, she’s become a fierce defender of not just her own, but also of things that certainly aren’t hers. These days, when two bowls go down on the floor, she likes to move to the one that’s closest to Luci and start eating. If Luci then approaches the other one, Toffee moves back to it. She’s clearly worked out that making sure of your bowl is great, but having two to yourself is even better. I imagine she’d be blocked by a kind of glass kennel roof, but otherwise I could see her enjoying a glittering career on some board of directors in the City of London.

To be fair, she often leaves Luci her stuff. Say if they have a chew each as a treat. But then what she often does is to wait for Luci to finish while Toffee just toys with hers. Then, as soon as Luci’s finished, she’ll deliberately, ostentatiously and slowly nibble her way through hers with every sign of pleasure.

It’s cruel but so refined in its cruelty that I find it hard not to admire. Guiltily.

Luci does get her own back. The best way to get her to pee on a walk is to wait for Toffee to relieve herself. Then Luci will hurry to the spot and pee on top of it. I think she feels this gives her a certain superiority. I believe Toffee, who by then has generally gone off to look at something more interesting, doesn’t give a damn, and who could blame her? Still, if it makes Luci happy, who’d begrudge her that?

There are lots of things on which they see eye to eye, of course. They like Valencia and they like the flat, into which they’ve settled admirably. They enjoy defending it, too, against the Yorkie next door and the other Yorkie downstairs. They seem to have no linguistic barrier over communicating with Spanish dogs – both sides have a great time barking at each other.

Not that this kind of territorial defence had to wait until we got to Valencia. They were both engaging in it on the way. Though, honestly, it was a little hard to understand what they hoped to achieve. Defending a café terrace as their territory? A patch of beach? The space around a picnic table? I don’t see it.

So it’s great they now have something of their own to protect. Their flat. What’s more, it has a couch, just like the place in Luton. They’ve settled down on it and that makes it home. Doesn’t it?

Well on the way to being Eurodogs, both of them.

Settled