Caerau Hopefuls

I wonder sometimes how the days of your life were spent. Was every day the same, broken up only by food and a short kennel break? Was a race the highlight of your week as something happened, something you had been made to work towards, something you tried so hard at to please people in the hope of a reward? Were you cold? Were you bored? Were you lonely? It’s not something I like to dwell on, but I sometimes look at you now and wonder. How different was it and how alien do you find this?

Being rescued improved your life immeasurably but I imagine there was enough familiarity that it wasn’t such a shock? I may be wrong, but there were kennels and routines and schedules, this time with people that loved you and cared for you for you, not just how well you did or did not do in your last race or your prospect for the next outing. These new people wanted you to be safe, comfortable, happy and loved. How different was this for you? What new things did you learn here? Was this where you discovered grass, toys, running just for fun and to play? Was this the place you discovered the wonder of cuddles? Was the newness and strangeness tempered slightly by the familiarity of kennels and greyhounds and routine?

I think about your days now and wonder. You like weekends less in some ways than weekdays – although we are totally available all day on a weekend, you aren’t quite sure about that. It throws the expectations of the day for you and the looks I get sometimes are very much along the lines of “but why are you on my sofa now?”. You take advantage of the extra cuddles but it’s with a slight look and disbelief. I’m more likely to leave the house intermittently on a weekend, leaving you with your favourite Morning Human. This confuses you a bit, as you come most places with me. Unfortunately Costco and Aldi are places you can’t go but people and woofers need to eat. You look at me leaving and wonder where I’ve gone – I hope you know by now I will always come back to you (although I’m sorry Joe is apparently inferior company and he makes you watch football).

Your weekdays have more routine to them, driven by the fact that even if we are flexible workers who work from home, we still have to work. So there is the morning game, where Morning Human (Joe) and Bea are in competition as to who can get up the earliest. My favourite days are when Joe wins as I am not a morning human and 5am is not a me wake up time. You take a wander into the garden and head back in as Joe makes a coffee and settles down to watch some morning tv – you might cuddle in to him or lounge on the other sofa and doze for a bit. Joe will always bring me a cup of tea (I’ve got him trained, should really work on you pair!) and you will come up with him, bouncing onto the bed to cuddle with me. Sometimes roaching, sometimes lying across my lap or legs but a comfortable and cuddly half an hour while Joe takes a shower and I drink my tea.

You always follow him downstairs in case he is willing to share his toast and wait for me to follow. You know what happens when I come downstairs and you get suitably excited when you hear me, dashing to the foot of the stairs and bouncing – because we do some playtime and a walk before breakfast (second breakfast for Joe…). We might take a toy to the garden or just do some zoomies and play tag. If it’s cold, we all get a coat, Joe and I grab travel mugs of hot caffeinated beverages and off we go. We go to the same park every morning, just 200m from our house. You seem to like the familiarity of the route – you pull and sniff at the same points every day, you decide that we cross the road at the same point and you take us the route you like around Squirrel Island. Do you like it I wonder? Do you like the familiar? Do you want to go somewhere else? We know the route home and we know what the word breakfast means – two earnest faces looking up at me as I narrate the breakfast options. You know where your bowl is and your excitement makes me smile every morning. Was this the highlight of your day? What sort of food did you get? Sometimes I sneak sardines or salmon in as a treat – did you ever get that?

Breakfast makes woofers sleepy and time for humans to work. You pick your places, the same every morning – Bea curling up on a dog bed just behind Joe, Sam joining me upstairs. Always in arms length of a person and a fuss. How often did you see people before? Are people a novelty because they are always available now? Have you learnt that people always love a cuddle and fuss as well?

The weekdays follow a similar pattern – we might play at elevenses and have a small snack, lunchtime we down tools and you have to start thinking for a change – there might be a Kong, or a snufflemat or a game where you have to think about how to get lunch. It always ends in the same way – with a tea and cuddle on the sofa. Sometimes work calls are conducted from the sofa, so we stay together. You get a person to cuddle into and your ears may be absentmindedly fussed. Do you like that? I think I know where you both like a fuss and where you don’t – did anyone learn that before? Do you know the benefit we get from you being there on days that are endless and stressful and frantic? The simple joy you get from putting your head in my lap and the joy and calm spreads over to us as well.

Except at 3 o clock. That is a witching hour none of us have worked out yet. Did something happen then? I hope you aren’t hungry now – you get lunch and a snack just a couple of hours before. Maybe you were hungry? Or bored? And you haven’t worked out how that translates over yet. You don’t want to play at that point but you will accept a cuddle.

Are evenings your favourite time of day? After another walk following a fractionally different route around the same park (once a week a blast out game of tag and play in an indoor barn) and dinner, we invariably all retreat to the living room. In the best of your previous environments you would have been settled into your kennel for the night now. How strange is this to you? Do you like it? Two humans, two beds and two sofas. You pick a place, mostly on a sofa cuddled in to a person (or kicking them) if you are a Bea, mostly stretching across two floor beds at my feet if you are Sam and you sleep. It’s a content sleep, snuggled down, deep even breaths and peace. It’s hours of peace and serenity, everyone tired, comfortable and content with their company.

We added a new part to the evening routine, popular with humans and woofers alike. We added toast time, where we all share some toast as a late night snack. You love that Bea, you run when you hear the toaster pop, Sam close behind. Sometimes it has peanut butter, sometimes pate. We sit on sofas and eat toast – could you have ever imagined such things existed for you?

I wonder about our days together. Do you enjoy them? Are you happy? Is there too much or too little of things going on that you need? I feel guilty sometimes if I have to work for a few hours extra and don’t have time for extended cuddles. I wonder what else I can do to make you life better. In the way that you make our lives better, and our days better, just by being here and by being you.