Jasper – my front-page splasher!
Jasper arrived in my life unexpectedly, by a complete accident, and under the greatest protestations of my other half.
Nonetheless, he ended a barren time in my life and set me up for many years of happiness.. not just with him, but ultimately with his successors too. In doing so, he not only got a great life, but he secured one for the rescue dogs that followed in the misery of his departure.
I was working as chief reporter of the north-east Sunday paper, the Sunday Sun , when I had occasion to go to Darlington to do a story on a ridding stables owner whose dog had been stolen. She put up her brand new sports car as a reward for information leading to the rare dog’s return.
The dog was indeed duly returned, and the person who located him would not take any reward.
But meanwhile, on my trip to the stables I was shown a black and white Sprocker (Springer/Cocker cross) Spaniel who was living in a stable, having been dumped.
I had taken my other half on this story and we were sitting in the interviewee’s lounge when she obviously sensed a soft touch, and asked her daughter to bring the dog to the house.
In he bounded through the French windows, ran the length of the huge lounge and hurled himself straight onto my lap on the settee. We had never set eyes on each other before.
My other half immediately proclaimed: “NO! No dogs”.
Somewhat unromantically, I told her: “Don’t make me choose between the dog and you; it might not be a good idea!” … and Jasper came home with us with a washing line for a lead, that we manged to purchase at a corner shop in Crook, at about 9pm.
I might say that a few weeks later, she was as devoted to him as I, and was every bit as heart-broken at his departure.
Jasper was an artisan – an incredibly intelligent dog who would begin a habit, and then cultivate it to the point of perfection.
His lifelong obsession was chasing sticks – which meant finding an instantaneous and long-lasting supply on every walk, or facing a baying dog running at you barking endlessly in complaint.
One stick wouldn’t do (nor would a dozen) – he had to have more and more… which turned many a walk into a nightmare! Jasper perfected a method of stacking his sticks on the ground, then hitting them with his paw and catching all at once in his mouth… meaning he could easily carry a dozen at once, and looked like Burnham Wood coming to Dunsinane!
Once he discovered his love of swimming, he would then repeat this trick in water (!), picking up as many as half a dozen sticks at once hurled into a flowing river. He also learned to scuba dive, holding his breath for more than a minute with his head completely submerged like a dabbling duck, as he scoured the river bed for sunken twigs!
From his arrival in August 1998, to his sudden death in 2007, my little pal was all that kept me on the planet as my life disintegrated and I suffered a huge breakdown, divorced, lost my job and home and living alone with him on a canal boat… before picking up the pieces of my life and putting them back together again in some fashion.
Ironically, Jazzy was at his happiest when I was at my unhappiest… he loved the three years that he and I lived on our canal boat – sailing the country and romping in the countryside as I overcame my breakdown.
When I finally got back into work and we moved back to a house, he was less happy at the previous prospect of sitting at home whilst I went out to work – and he made his feelings known.
I made the mistake of putting all my crockery and Pyrex in a lower cupboard in the kitchen… and came home one day to find everything emptied out into the middle of the room, and smashed to pieces with a leering Spaniel sitting amongst the wreckage, grinning form ear to ear.
After replacing the broken pots I could see he was just waiting to repeat the trick. So a cupboard swap ensued, with all my tins going in the lower cupboard, and the pots in a higher one.
It took about a week before I came home once more – this time to find a neat pile of tins at one end of the kitchen… and a gnarled pile of labels at the other! Many’s the time after that, that I ended up having sweetcorn and carrots on toast whilst hunting the beans – and he was made to suffer with me!
My other half was as instrumental in my own rescue, but I know I would not have made it without little Jazzy.
