Page 269 - Demo

265By the end of 1990, our family life had considerably improved and as Gabby and I settled down to live together I finally gave way on Alex%u2019s desire to have a dog. She was animal mad, (still is). We had had a cat that got run over and then another one called Scrap. Scrap was a tabby and was much loved but also quite independent. He would disappear for a few days in the summer and come back yellow having been in the oil seed rape fields. He once got trapped in the scout hut for a few days but was a bit more careful after that. After a certain amount of discussion, we bought a Brittany Spaniel we called Ginger. He was a lovely dog, very affectionate but from day one was subservient to Scrap. Brittany%u2019s are pointing, retriever type dogs but somewhat difficult to train. He was learning to come back to a whistle from me but was not so good at coming back to a call. I used to take him out to a field and if he did not come when called, fired a miniflare over him. That got his attention, and he would come back for a reward. One day gabby had him out, we put him back on the lead long before the end of the walk but unfortunately, he saw a rabbit at that point and was away. He went through two fields before racing across a road where he was hit by a car and killed. Gabby phoned me at work, and I went straight home. We were devastated and said if you feel like that with a dog, what would you feel to lose a child. At that time, we were paying a tutor to help Ben with his maths. That night the tutor phoned up and said that he would do it no longer as Ben often did not turn up and today%u2019s excuse that his dog had died was the last straw. Of course, we did not know he was skiving and just taking the money he was given and going to the pub. And so, the one time that his excuse was genuine was the one where he was caught out. After that Gabby used to drive him to the tutor and wait for him to finish. After a few days we wrote to the breeder that we had bought Ginger from and told them what had happened. A bit later they wrote back to say that a dog that may have been a Brittany had been found in Ashton