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On the day of the break-up, I sat in my garden, crying and smoking, while Dennis, my terrier puppy, brought me tennis balls foraged from the bushes, dropping them at my feet. ‘Those are quite weird sticks she’s putting in her mouth,’ he presumably thought. ‘I’ll cheer her up with a manky old ball.’
I’d brought Dennis home three months earlier with my ex. We hadn’t been together that long when we started talking about a dog, only six months or so. But we were talking about forever, and children, and we’d both thought about a dog individually before meeting, so why not? We lay entwined in bed discussing options — a puppy? A rescue? A street dog from Romania — before I found a litter of Parson terrier puppies online, in a small town just outside Birmingham. They’re like big Jack Russells, Parson terriers —scrappy, loyal, funny, naughty little dogs. My mum has had two Parsons, and I knew instantly that I liked the look of a small boy from this litter, with dark brown and black markings on his back that looked like the world map.
Mike and I picked up the dog we’d christened Dennis six weeks later, and we drove back to my flat in south-east London, where he (Dennis) immediately cantered outside to the garden and squatted on the grass.
I didn’t think he could mean he was so jealous of a puppy that he would leave. Turns out, he did.
Unfortunately, things went less smoothly after that. All the books tell you puppies are hard work, but this was really hard — exhausting, because I was getting up twice a night to carry Dennis into the garden, and claustrophobic at times, because he couldn’t be left alone. Work took a hit because I needed to give Dennis so much attention, as did my carpets. And then Mike left. ‘I’m beginning to feel the effects of Dennis,’ he’d said, morosely, a couple of weeks beforehand, but I didn’t think he could mean he was so jealous of a puppy that he would leave. Turns out, he did.
That’s how I ended up smoking in my garden, a pile of old tennis balls building at my feet. ‘What now?’ I thought, looking at Dennis. I find those who compare puppies to babies annoying and twee — they are not the same, surely? But I felt like I’d been left holding a newborn.
‘That little dog will help,’ my stepmother told me firmly down the phone. ‘Because you’ll have to get up and put one foot in front of the other.’ She was right, too. I have traditionally been something of a wallower when it comes to break-ups; lots of lying around, listening to sad music, thinking, ‘Oh, this time a year ago, everything was perfect.’
But now I had to get up and take Dennis around the park. Fresh air, exercise, and I’d often fall into step with a fellow dog walker to discuss the weather, or the best kind of dog biscuit, or, on one memorable morning, the best age to castrate a dog. ‘Why don’t you try chemical castration?’ the dog walker suggested, and I wondered whether that might also be a good idea for men who promised forever and then suddenly left.
Dennis the Parson terrier
(Image credit: Sophia Money-Coutts)
Wearily, I re-downloaded Hinge. I wanted to date, because I felt like I needed the confidence boost, but how could I do that with a puppy? I went on one date but panicked throughout, like a single mother, about whether Dennis would be OK at home. I took him on another, a walk-in-the-park date, where Dennis paused every few metres to throw up or issue another torrent of diarrhoea. I went on a few dates with one man, but wasn’t sure how we’d ever manage a night together, because how could I possibly sneak out of bed at 6 am and say, ‘I’m so sorry, do you mind if I let my dog into your garden to do a shit?’
I wasn’t supposed to be on my own with a dog.
I resented Dennis at times during this period, because this hadn’t been my plan. I wasn’t supposed to be on my own with a dog. This dog had ended the most perfect relationship I’d ever known. Why had I gotten him in the first place?
Even writing that now makes me wince, because as the months passed, two things became clear. Firstly, my relationship hadn’t been as perfect as I thought. I was swept up in it, yes. Wildly in love, yes. But there were moments where, if I’d paid closer attention, I might have picked up on the odd warning sign. As Lily Allen points out in West End Girl, often we file these clues away, ignoring the red flags, because we don’t want to see it at the time. It’s inconvenient when everything else feels so lovely.
The second thing that happened was I fell in love with my dog.
This wasn’t overnight. I’ve told plenty of friends who’ve since gotten puppies that they have to push through the brutal first few months. But after that, once you’ve come to know that little creature who’s invaded your life, and once they trust you, it’s pretty magical. This may sound absurd to anyone who doesn’t have a pet, but there’s a freedom that can exist between them. We spend our lives trying to be perfect partners, perfect parents, perfect children, perfect siblings, perfect friends, but there’s no trying with an animal. With Dennis, I can be completely myself, which came as an enormous relief after years of trying to be something else — a better writer, skinnier, to eat less, read more, take more exercise, drink less, and so on. He didn’t need me to be ‘better’ in any way. He just needed me to be me, and that was enormously healing.
If you’re going through a horrible break-up, I’m not necessarily advocating a puppy, or a cat, or a guinea pig, or a tarantula (each to their own), but there can be wonderful and surprising outcomes to the moments in life when it all seems to go off-plan.
The Year Of The Dog by Sophia Money-Coutts (HQ, £12.99) is out now.
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