When people see me walking around with the dogs, which truth be told I do as little as possible, they laugh. I’m 6’2” and 15 stone. The dogs, who have floppy ears and extra waggly tails, are chestnut-and-white Cavalier King Charles Spaniels. Lap dogs. Toy dogs. They are extremely affable. They are extremely thick. People think they are sweet, until they clamber up onto their knees with muddy paws. Both of them on a lead at the same time is quite a handful. “Look,” laughed a mum once, to her four-year-old. “Two dogs taking their owner for a walk.”
When you are walking dogs, people feel at liberty to ask you about them. “I inherited them,” is my usual answer, which is fairly truthful. When I moved in with my girlfriend, they were already there. I attempted a name-change, to make calling them on Malling Rec less embarrassing. But ‘Masher’ and ‘Gnasher’ didn’t catch on. So ‘Nelly’ and ‘Portia’ they remain: two of King Charles the First’s many mistresses.
Any time you get a plastic bag out of the bag full of bags, they get excited and start whining. This is a Pavlovian response: a bag is necessary for a walk. A bag is necessary for a walk because dogs poo, and these are no exception. As soon as we hit the Rec, they run off in different directions, and defecate at exactly the same time. It is difficult for a colour-blind man to track down both piles of excrement. You can feel its warmth through the plastic as you pick it up, before carrying it to the purpose-built bins. This is the ultimate ignominy of inheriting a pair of dim toy dogs. My turn for walking them, which I get out of when I can, is Thursday morning. Come to Malling Rec and laugh. Man’s best friend? Behave.