The Wolf at the Door

We have a very small terrier that comes and goes freely through a dog-flap. My wife and son walked into the kitchen this morning to find, standing there, a huge, long-haired, black and tan German Shepherd dog. It bounced up, put its paws on my son's shoulders and proceeded to lick his face.

They shouted up the stairs and woke me to deal with this most unexpected visitor, who was very happy to be prancing around indoors and kept running back in despite of my son's attempts to lead him out into the garden. This is a creature that can do exactly as it pleases, remember. (I'm referring to the dog in this case.)

When I arrived downstairs they had managed to shut the dog into the small porch, hardly worthy of the name "mudroom," between the kitchen and the outer back door. I could see him behind the frosted glass. It was the dog that often used to stand up on the fence at the bottom of our garden looking over at us from the other side, causing our terrier to get very excited, bark and jump up repeatedly without any chance of reaching him.

We were all flabbergasted that such a huge creature had managed to get in through our dog's small dog-flap. The German Shepherd's head alone is almost the size of our small dog. Our dog was far from thrilled with the new company and harried and bothered it with foolhardy verve. I had to lock him in another room. Fortunately, this visiting wolf-like beast was affectionate and playful. He managed to get out of his own garden through a breach in the fence caused by a newly fallen pear tree limb.

It was a warm morning. I lead the hairy wolf out of the kitchen with an old ice-cream tub full of water. He rapidly gulped (wolfed?) up about a litre when I set the water down for him in the garden. I called him down to the broken fence and tried to encourage him to climb back into his own garden. He seemed to think I wanted to play and kept biting off thick twigs from the fallen pear tree trunk to play fetch with. It did not escape my notice how easily he ripped small branches off the tree.

I spotted a dog tag on a collar under his long fur, and after several attempts managed to read his name - Giant (I have changed the name for this story) - from one side, and a phone number from the other. Giant was trying to be obedient, to "Go" and "Stay" as I tried to get back inside and shut him out, but his genial nature would not let him stay long without jumping on me and worrying me with his affection. Some manoeuvre enabled me at last to shut him out, and lock the dog flap - and the door, which he was about to open with his big paws leaning on the handle.

So I phoned the number. It was a mobile, and the number was out of date. I had to add another digit before getting through.

"Do you own a dog called Giant?"

"Huh. Yes." (Sleepily.)

There followed a slightly bewildered conversation. I got your number off the tag... I'm your neighbour... He's got into my garden and he can't get back...

"Uh. Well there's not much I can do about it - I'm in America."

I had woken him at 3 a.m. He gave me another number to phone, for somebody he assumed was looking after the dog. I got through to the second number and told the story.

"Well there's not much I can do. I'm in Liverpool."

"You're kidding."

"The owner is in America - on his honeymoon. If you go and knock on the door and ask for Eddie (not the real name), I think he's looking after Giant."

So I slipped on some shoes over bare feet and, forgetting all else, with hair uncombed and teeth unbrushed I drove around to the next road. I thought I might have to ferry somebody back to get Giant. The house was neat, but the grounds (and I use the word deliberately - the house has a huge plot) were in a state of dereliction with half-built structures and scrapped hardware strewn around. I was going to say there was half a pear tree just thrown there across the wall, but that would not be fair.

I went up some steps to the door, which had two doorbells. I tried both of them without response before knocking with the letter box flap. After five minutes or so, I thought I heard the footsteps of somebody getting up. It was about 10 a.m.

A postman leaned over the wall from next door, and offered me some letters. Just as I was declining, a young woman in a dressing gown opened the front door and the postman handed her the letters, before continuing on his way, stepping over the small walls between the stoops of these large Victorian terraced houses. It crossed my mind how civilian he looked for a postman - no uniform.

The young woman was - ah, what do you care, you're more interested in the postman - oh okay, she was comely - oh never mind. She had a foreign accent and knew nothing about the dog. I mentioned Eddie, who was supposed to be looking after Giant. She said, "Just a moment" and I heard her go upstairs and knock on a door. "I'm sorry it's early, it's about the dog." After a while Eddie appeared, a tall Irish bloke, efficient and helpful without being talkative. He knew about the falling pear tree incident, from a note that I had put through their letter box the previous week when it happened.

He beckoned me in and we went through the house. Downstairs was empty. He told me the dog’s owner was on honeymoon in America (I knew that) and the landlord was in Ireland for family reasons. We went out back and down through the garden / wilderness to the fallen tree limb, and called Giant. For a big dog he was surprisingly cautious about climbing through the not very high broken gap in the fence, onto the waist high wall behind it. Once onto the wall - a thick wall, say 18 inches - Giant was reluctant to jump down because of the way the space was cramped by the fallen branches. I kept repeating some useless suggestion. Eddie helped him down using his own method.

Giant is back in his own garden now, being looked after by the tenants of the house where he lives, and waiting for the owner to return. I'm hoping he stays there and does not reappear for breakfast tomorrow.

Stephen Moran