My Third Ear

The Dog That Is Not Ours insists on living with us for at least some of the 24 hours that make up the day and night.

Some days she disappears off with her friends, who wait for her outside our gates with all the stoic patience of members of the public lining the route of a walkabout by Royalty. Some days she is gone all day. Other days, especially when the weather is iffy, she disappears into the campo just long enough to do what a dog has to do before returning, pleading hypothermia, and going back to bed.

But without fail, no matter where or for how long she has gone, she is there at sundown. Before the weather went Siberian we endeavoured to keep her outside in her fully weather proofed luxuriously upholstered detached palace, but she quickly showed us the error of our ways by barking at regular intervals throughout the night.

Had she been a human baby I would have accepted getting up 3 or 4 times a night to sush her, but with babies broken nights are a phase, whereas dogs, who spend much of the day asleep, can afford to spend most of the night vocalising their opinions. So in the interests of my sanity she was brought in at night and the Biggs household, con perro, slept the sleep of the innocent once more.

Then she suffered a kidney infection and her bladder, which had previously had the capacity of a camel’s hump, would need emptying before daybreak. She solved this problem by creeping into the bedroom, standing in the doorway and licking her lips with an almost inaudible smack.

I would be out of bed and opening the front door in a sort of reflex action, which has been fine tuned to perfection over many years of attending to the needs of animals during the night. That tiny noise, a signal of need, would be tuned into my ever wakeful subconscious and, no matter how deeply I may be sleeping, my body would respond and get me to the front door before Lake Superior is released onto our bedroom floor.

I have an ear that is tuned to discern even the quietest of sounds if they signify the need of immediate human intervention, yet I can sleep through storm and tempest!

It’s a variant on the old joke ‘How many ears has Davy Crockett?’ ‘Three – a left ear, a right ear and a Wild Frontier.’ I also have three ears – a left ear, a right ear and a Something’s Wrong You Need To Get Up Now Ear!