A short story by DJC
No one knows what happened to the dog next door.
The black Labrador looked unhappy, for sure, as he roamed his garden prison, making his own lonely games, wrestling with pieces of wood and chewing on anything that happened, by chance or favour, to come within his reach.
Then suddenly, mysteriously, he disappeared. No one knows what happened to him: no one, that is, except me.
There was no sign of a dog as my wife and I moved into our new home on a bright summer's day. It was a street of mixed fortunes. On one side of us was a very friendly family of four adults, not very well off, who, as we learned later, had a very interesting family history, and on the other was a young couple with a small daughter probably aged two. The latter were clearly better off, and at night, had a company van standing at the front of their house. They seemed "ok" at first, but in our six months there, we hardly exchanged a word with them. We didn't even find out their names.
Our new bedroom overlooked the couple's back garden - mostly lawn but with a rockery and water feature. The garden was fenced with wooden panels, but here and there the fence had been repaired with pieces of plywood and metal sheet.
When the dog appeared, we thought nothing of it. We watched him frolicking in the back garden and sometimes tried to catch his attention. We couldn't reach to him over the fence, but we could see him from our bedroom window as he stood looking up at us with his mournfully sad brown eyes. It was the sort of look that begged for love and affection - but we assured ourselves that look is common among pet dogs, especially Labradors.
However, we began to see more than just a natural look of sadness in that poor animal's eyes. If he saw us in our bedroom window, he would stare up at us. Ours were probably the only friendly faces he ever saw, but his tail-wagging slowed and stopped as he seemed to realise we could not help him.
We soon noticed he was never taken out for walks. Never! And he would be left on his own all day. No one ever played with him, stroked him or showed him the slightest semblance of affection at all. They didn't even go to him when they came home from a day's work.
Later we saw that he wasn't even allowed into the house. He had a makeshift shelter, not fully in our view, where he probably slept, and there was a tarpaulin mounted over a concrete area where he was fed. Neither shelter was to the dog's liking, and we would see him lying in the middle of the lawn in the pouring rain.
On other days, he would wander the garden, among piles of his own excrement, putting his front paws on any objects that might enable him to see over the fence. He was still a growing puppy, and we thought he might one day be able to escape. From time to time, the man of the house would gather up the excrement and carefully conceal it in garden waste to be collected for recycling.
Out of shear boredom and frustration, the poor animal chewed to shreds anything he could find, and even chewed away several inches of a plastic drainpipe - which could hardly have pleased his owner. The unfortunate plight of this unloved animal eventually caused me to take action. I took photos and phoned the RSPCA.
Regrettably, the RSPCA assumed I was complaining about dog noise which they were quick to tell me was not what they were there for. Even when I managed to explain, they were completely disinterested, saying the only requirement was that the dog was not left unattended for more than 24 hours. I suppose the RSPA have worse problems to deal with, but as far as I was concerned the only human contact the dog had was a hasty bowl of tinned dog food. He didn't even get a pat on the head.
While living there, my wife and I used to go the local gym. One morning, for reasons I cannot remember, my wife left before me, and when I came out by the back door, the dog was in our garden. He had probably pushed his way through one of the shoddy repairs to the fence.
He came to me with his sad staring eyes, slowly wagging his tail. I looked surreptitiously all around and there was no one in sight.
I opened the gate.
As he left, he turned his head to face me, and this time his eyes said "Thank you."
Postscript
Perhaps it was pure coincidence, but that afternoon I caught sight of the council's stray dog unit's van, but contented myself with the thought that the dog had at least experienced a few hours of freedom, and would probably be looked after rather better.
He never reappeared next door. I don't think the owners made any effort to get him back, and might well have been pleased to be relieved of the responsibility.
For my part, I allowed the dog's disappearance to remain a mystery, and only told my wife several months later, while we were on holiday. She wept.
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