Eva Ibbotson: One Dog and His Boy

On the other hand, dogs were nice. They were fun, and some were very beautiful. To be seen with a graceful, freshly groomed borzoi in the park, or a frolicsome fox terrier, was very agreeable. So what could be more sensible than just to rent a dog – for an hour, or an afternoon, or even a weekend? All the dogs would be pure-bred animals with long pedigrees, and they could even be colour matched with the clothes of the person that was hiring them: a red setter to go with an autumn outfit of russet and crimson, or a snowy Pyrenean mountain dog for a man or woman who liked to wear white.

Of course renting such a dog would be very expensive; the dogs wouldn’t just have to be groomed and dewormed and examined regularly by a vet; they would have to have their hair done, tied up in a tuft like a shih-tzu, or shaved in parts like a poodle – and that meant regular visits from hairdressers and beauticians. But people would pay, the Carkers had been sure of that, and they were right. A year after Easy Pets opened, the Carkers were on the way to becoming really rich. And because they had to pay out to so many specialists to help them, they made sure that the kennel maid who did the ordinary work of cleaning out the dogs and feeding them did not have to be paid much. She was a young girl called Kayley, who came in each morning on the tube from Tottenham, and worked all hours of the day because she loved dogs – and as you would expect, the dogs loved her.

The Easy Pets building was in a fashionable street in the middle of London next to a row of expensive shops, but at the back there was a big compound where the dogs slept and a yard where they took their exercise. Kayley woke them early and reassured the dogs who had had bad dreams, like the huge English mastiff who, quite by mistake, had bitten off her mistress’s little finger when she was being fed a sausage, and never been punished. Not being punished when you feel you ought to have been is very upsetting for dogs, and the mastiff still suffered in the night. Then Kayley took the dogs out for a short run in the yard and gave them their breakfast.

After that they went to be washed and groomed and have their hair done and their nails polished and their teeth cleaned – and those of the dogs who wore their hair tied up away from their faces were given fresh ribbons, and those like the Afghan who needed extra brushing were taken away to a special dressing room. Then the dogs were sprayed, each with a special scent mixed by a lady who kept a perfume shop, because the smell of dog wasn’t thought to be right for the rich people who took the animals out. The St Bernards’ scent was called “Mountain Glory”, the poodles were sprayed with something called “Dark Dancer” and the collies were covered in “Heather Mist”. The dogs disliked these scents more than anything – a dog’s smell is as much a part of him as his bark or the way he holds his tail – and they did their best to lick themselves and each other and roll on the ground, but it was almost impossible to get the beastly stuff off.

Then when they were ready for the day’s work they were taken to the front of the building, where there were a number of rooms with elegant cages and soft lighting and fitted carpets. Over each cage was the dog’s name and above that the name of the breeder he came from. The dogs were not allowed toys – rubber balls or squeaky animals or plastic bones – to chew on because their cages had to be kept tidy to impress the people who came to pick out the dog they wanted. They just had to sit still and look desirable.

When they had first come to Easy Pets the dogs were full of hope. They had thought every time someone came for them it was someone who wanted a companion for life. Someone who was going to give them a home and to whom they would belong. They had gone off with their heads held high and their tails signalling their happiness – but always and always they were brought back, whether it was after an hour or a day … back to their cages and to the waiting.

They had each other, and they had Kayley, and they made the best of it, but it was hard.

In Room A there were five dogs. It was the smallest of the rooms and it was rather special because it was next to the little cubbyhole of an office where Kayley worked when she was not out in the yard, and the dogs who spent the day there had become firm friends.

The largest was Otto, a St Bernard with a tan and white face, and deep-set mournful eyes. Otto was wise and strong but gentle. He had had a tragedy in his life: his mother, who was an exceptionally large and heavy dog even for a St Bernard, had rolled over on to her puppies by mistake and squashed them, and only Otto had survived. This was in the mountains of Switzerland in a famous monastery where St Bernards had been bred for centuries to find people trapped in the snow and bring them to safety.

When something like that has happened to you, you don’t waste time fussing about small things. Otto had grown into a brave and useful rescue dog, but when a rich young man had insisted on buying him and taking him to England, Otto had made the best of it, though he had been so happy with the monks. Even when the silly young man found that he could not keep a St Bernard in a London flat and sold him on to Mr Carker, Otto somehow managed to stay dignified and calm, and to soothe the other dogs when they complained about the food or the disgusting perfume or the boredom.

Next to Otto was a dog as small as Otto was big – a tiny Pekinese called Li-Chee with golden hair down to the ground and a black scrunched-up face. Li-Chee adored Otto; when they were loose in the compound at night he curled up as close to Otto as he could, and when the St Bernard woke he sometimes felt that he had five legs – four of his own and one that was really a Pekinese. Pekes are lion dogs bred to be the companions of Chinese emperors, and the guardians of palaces and temples – and Li-Chee was as fierce and cross as Otto was silent and calm.

The cage beside the Peke was occupied by a black standard poodle. Francine’s coat was clipped and trimmed in the fussy way that people expect of poodles, with fluffy pompoms on her legs and tail and a close-shaven backside, and she was usually rented out by actresses and show people who wanted something glamorous. But inside, Francine was a practical hard-working dog and exceedingly clever. Her family had been circus performers for generations, doing incredibly difficult acts: running up ladders, jumping through rings of fire, balancing balls on their noses… Francine had loved the life of the circus – the companionship, the travelling in a caravan between one site and the next. But then someone had said training animals to perform was cruel and the circus had been shut down and now she had to sit still all day in a cage waiting to be chosen.

Across from Otto, Li-Chee and Francine was a rough-haired collie called Honey. Honey was very beautiful, with her long coat of black and white and sable and her soft and trusting eyes. But she was not easy to rent out because she couldn’t stop herding things, and because there were no sheep in London she herded anything she could find. She had herded a whole nursery school of little children on to the bandstand in the park, and kept a dozen squawking ducks penned up in a bus shelter.

Honey had been a highly trained sheep dog before she came, but the farmer who owned her had gone bankrupt and had to sell her. All the dogs missed being useful, but for a collie not being able to work is agony. The others worried about her. Mr Carker always sounded angry when she was returned early – and they knew what happened to dogs who had displeased Mr Carker – they simply disappeared and were not seen again.

The last inmate of Room A was an unpleasant bitch who lay on a special satin cushion with a hot water bottle under her stomach. Queen Tilly was a Mexican hairless, a small twitchy dog with a naked spotted skin and legs like sticks. They are a rare breed and most of them are nice, though delicate and shivery, but Tilly had belonged to a wealthy heiress before she came to Easy Pets, and had eaten off silver plates and slept on her owner’s silken pillows, and she behaved as though nothing was good enough for her. The other dogs had tried to be friendly when she first came but she just tossed her head and yawned. The only time she spoke was when her hot water bottle cooled down and then she yapped and squealed till Kayley came and heated it up for her. She was the most expensive of all the dogs for hire and actually she wasn’t worth the money.