Good Decisions and Otherwise by Little Dog

Chapter Three

‘Dogs are capable of amazing things' said Mr Wright, in response to the question from Sophie. ‘Indeed, perhaps we should consider them as no less capable than humans. Little dog might do anything that we might. He can pick things up and move them from place to place, and he can communicate, just as we can.’

Mrs Wright rolled her eyes.

‘I've read the book too Sophie. Wait is the next lesson and then heel.’

‘Rebecca I heard somewhere that the average dog has the capacity to learn over one hundred words. We might get more with little dog, but let us use them wisely. Heel will not be one of them. Follow I believe is the appropriate term, and remember to always say please and thank you. Follow is a more flexible word. He might follow anything, whether with wings or with wheels.

‘But I come back to my original argument, that we must teach him to understand, for no tool has any use if its object is misconceived. However, with one well-aimed paw he might… He might save someone's life - dogs have been known to - or remind you of your next duty, something of great importance to someone else.

‘Last weekend we taught him his name and ours. This weekend we will teach him of the world beyond. We will teach him to cross roads, and to stay calm when the way about is crowded. In general he should learn to be observant, in the interest of self-preservation, but if we have time and find the appropriate opportunity, we should also seek to instill in him the spirit of inquiry.’

Early the next morning, with the sun yet low but anyway bright in the sky, the Wright family set out for Oxford. Mr Wright had thought it necessary for the family to retire ahead of their usual hour on the evening before so as to be up on time and yet fresh, to give little dog a fair chance when they arrived in the city, otherwise there was a risk - what with the maelstrom of tourists and shoppers - that the experience would be overwhelming to his innocence. But then Mr Wright marvelled at the morning, for there was evidence for the renewal of God's works in abundance.

‘Are we not ever in creation?’ he asked to no one in particular.

‘...But we are closer to nature during the early hours, I am sure of it’ he continued.

‘Yes dad’ said Alfie. Even if in the tone of his voice it was apparent that he was to some extent humouring his father, he knew that he was right. He, like the others, relaxed in appreciation of this awakening glory - the warm spring day which around them rose with the sun.

Soon however they had arrived in Oxford, and Alfie suddenly became excited to show the city to little dog.

Little dog of course had never seen the city before, or even for that matter a town or a village, and so the scene to his senses was sparkling. There were so many points of novelty and interest that he barely knew which way to turn his head. Because all of these lay above the backdrop of general beauty he was tempted to let it simply pass about him, to enjoy the whole as a shimmer, but there was always something that succeeded in catching his eye, and so to the left he turned, or to the right, or span about in a circle, to see better what there was. Here the interplay of light and shadow across the varying shades of stone - such as accentuate structure and form, there the stretch of a spiralling turret or the broad swell of a bell tower.

It was not only admiration for the architecture that made this a day that little dog would always remember. There were not very many people out on the streets at eight o’clock on a Saturday morning, but there were anyway far more than little dog had ever before seen, and all to him were a source of fleeting fascination. In between the buildings, there were many who came across his youthful regard - elderly professors for example, shuffling along in the midst of an idea, or groups of university students, smartly-dressed and eager in conversation, and suddenly then one or another of their peers, late for a lecture, speeding by on a bicycle with a basket full of library books. Too there were tourists on the look-out for breakfast, and fathers on their way back from buying a newspaper, and mothers on their way out for a coffee, and sons in tracksuits jogtrotting towards the sports ground, and daughters carrying hockey sticks or netballs towards the Saturday-morning game.

Sight was not the only sense of little dog's stimulated by the new scene, for of course there was much that he might detect through his superior skill before scent. Such was often invisible, at least within his present field of vision, and, being a young dog, he could not help but be intrigued by the difference between the two. What might it be and where, that signified by its aroma, something never before encountered, the value of which he imagined - given how magical the location - might be as large as a house, a church steeple or even the sky.

The sense of smell of a dog is a very different thing than that of a human, more advanced in its range, and capable of a comprehensive survey. You might compare it to the bird's eye view of an eagle. Otherwise, perhaps it would help to think of a landscape painting. You are looking out on the opening of a valley along meandering lanes and the course of a stream. To the left are white-washed cottages with smoking chimneys; to the right the principal buildings of a country estate - manor house, stables and hunting lodge; in between there is a working farm; behind on the mountains sheep are grazing. In a city you should never see all that is contained within a space of equivalent size, but a dog might take such a snapshot, knowing the scent of all at once, and yet more, over time, all that has happened during the last few hours. The dog will have some idea of direction, but unless it has before followed the aromatic trail to identify its bearer it will not know their true nature.

Think then of a jigsaw, where all of the things within the picture are described to you by one feature alone - their scent - but where the image is for the most part blank, covered in darkness, except those few pieces which are well known to both sight and smell. Little dog was not entirely unenlightened - from the market he knew of sausages and small meat pies, and too of coffee and toast, and of course there was us, mankind, of which so far he had met so few. Now there were thousands, and alongside the comforting scents of the Wright family - soap, cotton and wool - he met with others, which at this point in his life he could not make sense of.

‘Are your intentions good?’ Sophie asked her father, seemingly out of nowhere.

‘Of course’ said Mr Wright.

‘And what about your decision making? Which road is it that we will teach little dog to cross, and why?’

‘My considerations in this matter are as follows: first, how busy a road should we select, thinking that too busy or too fast would be risky for a first lesson, but that the road must present something of a challenge, or the lesson would be without substance, the experience of no value; second, similarly, not too wide and yet wide enough; third, I would like a decent length, so that we might look a good way along it for oncoming traffic, and so that it presents to us a variety of situations, specfically, we should cover zebra crossings, traffic islands, traffic lights and junctions; fourth, I think it best to head out of the city centre, where the degree of potential distraction is likely to be lower. As it is, we shall try first the Iffley Road.’

‘Good decision dad’ said Alfie.

‘What can possibly go wrong?’ asked Mrs Wright.

‘All that may go wrong surely one day will’ replied Mr Wright, ‘as says the famous law. But I hope we should be alright.’

Just at that moment a voice called out from off to the side, in fact from down on the floor. A man with rude clothing was sat against the wall clutching an empty bottle. Before him lay an empty cap containing one or two golden coins.

‘Give a dog a bone! Argh ha!’ he cried and then broke down into a fit of spluttering and coughing.

Little dog looked away, but Alfie stared in horror and Sophie tugged at the sleeve of her mother.

‘What does the man mean?’ she asked. ‘Do you think little dog would like a bone?’

‘He is referring to himself, and money is the bone of contention’ intervened Mr Wright. ‘What do you think children? Shall we give him some?’

‘If he is asking for a bone then he must be very hungry’ said Alfie, ‘and I rather think we should.’

‘Has something happened to you?’ asked Sophie. ‘Has life been unkind?’

She turned to her father. ‘Yes we must help him’ she concluded.

‘Very well’ said Mr Wright. He then reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out a twenty-pound note. ‘Here you are' he said.

‘God bless you' said the man on the floor, and then ‘Argh ha!’ again for good measure, before once more taking up his cough.

The family walked on and soon afterwards reached the Iffley Road, where for the next hour, precisely indeed one full hour, they took it in turns crossing the road with little dog, each turn consisting of a different situation - zebra crossing, traffic island, traffic lights and junction - but always making sure to include the essentials: first to find a safe place to cross, where down the road in all directions might be seen; second to stand back from the traffic; third to look all about and wait for a gap in the moving cars, a gap that is somewhere between large and very large, and certainly nowhere near not large enough; finally to cross, where one should remain calm, proceeding gracefully to the other side of the road, and if there is not enough time to do so, then to wait for a suitable opportunity. Alongside these instructions the family introduced the words “wait” and “follow”. So it was that little dog learnt the Green Cross Code, which Alfie and Sophie had themselves learnt in the years preceding, but which Mr Wright thought to complement, to see that he fully understood.

‘Car’ he said, pointing at the line of cars coming down the road towards Oxford.

‘Car bad’ he said.

‘Car, little dog please wait’ he continued, ‘or…’.

Mr Wright then threw himself, lightly enough, against the bonnet of a stationary car, fell to the floor and rolled about clutching a leg and groaning in feigned discomfort.

He got up.

‘Car bad’ he said again.

He then held out his hand, on which lay a treat.

‘Little dog good’ he added, as an afterthought, the cause of which remained obscure, perhaps as an abstract of his experience, compared to the innocence of the puppy.

The rest of the day the family spent very pleasantly. First they visited the Botanic Gardens, and then took a walk along the canal towards Jericho. Finally they stopped for lunch. All the while Mr Wright expounded to the family his theories of good behaviour, beginning on this occasion with disposition, to remain calm yet alert, “being” the basis for all that we might care to achieve. Observation, next, was no more than proper appreciation of the senses, which might generally be enjoyed in a state of peace, but the spirit of inquiry went further, applying reason to the sum of observation, perhaps refining such through systematic tests and structured experiment.

Eventually, despite the pedagogical skill with which it was delivered, the family had grown tired of instruction, and so in the early afternoon they made their way back to their own car, and on the way Mr Wright stopped at the newsagent to buy a weekend paper to read in the evening. He stopped at the counter, having looked at the front page and exclaimed, ‘Rebecca look at this, “Hilltop Housebreak”, but look, that is Peter and Dawn's place. I hope they are alright. Everything stolen. Found tied-up. Oh God. Mysterious crime syndicate. But what are they doing in the Chilterns?’

Outside on the street little dog lifted up a notch his head and sniffed.