Dog days

When I can stop feeling self-centred about my own depression for more than a few minutes the one thing in particular that really bothers me is the quality of life our dogs have had since the children were born.

I’m sure the quality of my previous work might have been better without a dog on my knee but they loved it, curling up contentedly like an oversize cat. Once Harry came along, their place on my knee was usurped by this greedy, boob-mad baby. They weren’t best pleased.

They also used to have an hour long walk every morning across rolling farmland and woodland and then they were free to play in and out of the house all day. Now, because of their nasty habit of eating their own sh*t, they are confined inside until such time as I can go outside with them and watch them. This is planned like a military operation. I find the most exciting activity I can think of at that moment and settle the boys down and then I take the dogs out into the garden. Defa loves to play ball so I spend as long as I can out there with them while watching the boys through the kitchen window. When I hear fighting from inside, the ball games are over.

Some days I walk them, but it is tricky with two small children, two dogs and a big muddy field. When we get back all of us have to go under the outside hose (and you think I’m joking). And then some days I can’t walk them and I have to rely on a dog walker. He is, at best, unreliable. But then, in such a small village, we don’t exactly have people lining up to walk them. So some days the dogs sit in their basket looking at me forlornly. I can almost see the black cloud hanging over their heads as they look at me with their sad spaniel eyes.

Surprisingly, you’d have thought they might take it out on the children but they couldn’t be sweeter or more tolerant, especially now William has reached the age where he thinks the dogs are some sort of ride-on toy.

I know my life will return to some sort of normality once the children are a bit older. But how do I explain to the dogs that their lives will return to some sort of normality one day too?