The day my dog Bert met Antoin Rodgers... now Brexit rules mean pet owners more hounded than ever
SCRAPPING EU pet passports post-brexit for dogs entering NI from GB may raise worrying questions about our relationship with the rest of the UK, but it’s also a reminder of how a dog’s life has become steeped in bureaucracy and rules.
Dogs now need an Animal Health Certificate (AHC) even if they’re just with their owner on holiday in NI. That will reportedly cost around £150 a time in vet’s fees.
They also need a rabies injection, which can’t be given until pups are 12 weeks old and then they can’t travel for 21 days. NI’S puppy-raisers for Guide Dogs find themselves in an impossible position since pups are usually placed in homes at eight weeks old.
That can’t be right. People who take proper care of animals shouldn’t find themselves discriminated against because of oversights in Brexit implications.
What a palaver. And what a different existence looms for the canines of our day from that of the dogs of my youth, those outlaws of yore that relished such independent lives. Dogs today still have wonderful personalities, but they’re mostly enjoyed only by the people they live with.
Yet only a few decades ago, a dog was an individual in their own right. Able to roam more freely, many became legends in their neighbourhoods, revered to this day. Sometimes they hung around in dog gangs, like canine versions of Last of the Summer Wine. They made friends outside the family home. Some upped sticks if the conversation, food and lodgings were preferable.
I was struck by this again when I looked at the photograph of an RUC funeral on the cover of Ian Cobain’s book, Anatomy of a Killing. Five children sit on the kerb watching the solemn procession. Behind them stands a collie, peering over their shoulders at the murdered officer’s cortege.
In another photo on Twitter, a soldier is on his hunkers outside the gate to the Royal Victoria Hospital. There, in front of him, stands another creature on paw patrol, who has happened on what it must have thought was an odd-looking dog on all fours.
Mercifully, the days of daily murder are gone but so too is that era when a dog knocked about as a recognised member of a community. Stealing milk cartons from doorsteps, howling at ice cream vans, sprawled across the pavement sleeping just where you want to park the car.
There were the universal types known to all. The terrier who charged at the ankles of passing cyclists. The wily old collie who lay in wait on grass verges outside farmsteads, chasing manically after passing cars. Another variety of farm dog preferred a different modus operandi, hiding down the lane and only making his presence known when you’d walked past him. A growl and the glint of two piercing eyes, and you knew you were cornered — to the mutt’s evident relish.
Of course it’s completely wrong for a dog to bite, for delivery workers and callers to be terrified. But these encounters weren’t like that. Mostly, they were the stuff of slapdash comedy, of desperate swerves on bikes, of comedy escapes over a five-bar gate.
And not all dogs that got a bit of freedom were threatening. Some just brought friendship to the lives of lonely souls they moved among. Anyone who has seen a Labrador visiting a care home, holding the gaze of an elderly person with quiet empathy, knows the healing power that pets have.
I grew up with just such a dog. Bert was part brown Labrador, part gundog, highly-strung and utterly loyal. His father Prince, of similar build, lived close by, casting a protective eye over his wayward son. Their remarkable bond was the talk of the neighbourhood where they built a social life of their own.
If a particular postman was on duty, they’d travel a mile with him on his rounds. Then they’d double-back, calling at Theresa’s house for a few rounds of toast. We only uncovered this routine when Theresa asked my dad if he minded. Of course, he didn’t! It was up to the pair of boys if they wanted a second breakfast with a good friend.
Bert was almost arrested by the RUC too, falsely accused of bin-hoking. After an absurdly long and vexatious investigation, he was cleared in what was conclusively proven to be a case of mistaken identity. For years my father would marvel how, one Saturday, at the height of the Troubles, four officers arrived in an armoured Ford Cortina to interrogate the suspect.
Once Bert and Prince secretly followed my mother and I to an appointment with our dentist, Antoin Rodgers. A sportsman, well known in GAA circles, a gentleman and spouse of former SDLP MLA Brid, he sadly died on Wednesday. The first we knew of the dogs’ presence was when they stormed the waiting room, greeting us as if they hadn’t seen us for years.
My mum was mortified. I was terrified. Antoin was an excellent dentist but he wore half-moon glasses and wielded a noisy drill and because of that was a forbidding figure for a timid child like me.
We’d hoped to corral the interlopers in the waiting room but shortly after my mum settled in Antoin’s big black chair, in strolled Bert to see what was going on. My mother froze — and it wasn’t from the injection. “I’m very sorry Mr Rodgers,” she stammered. “That’s my dog. He followed us here... ”
But Antoin was already smiling. He saluted Bert and Prince, passed the time of day with them and carried on with his work. Later, he helped safely steer the dogs across the busy road outside.
Just by being themselves — full of slobbery charisma — dogs often bring out another side in someone, help seal friendships.
I still have Bert’s rusty old lead. That’s a relic too. Today dogs, like us, live in a materialistic world. It’s all harnesses, toys, blankets, coats, groomers, diet plans... and now an AHC. Other pets need one too, but it’s not the same. Cats have always guarded their independence, that won’t change.
Yes, it’s right that dogs are kept under control, that owners clean up after them, that they’re cared for properly. But more time should be spent hunting down the traffickers in animal mistreatment — the puppy farmers, smugglers and torturers. Instead we’re making life harder for law-abiding owners.
Dogs and their fond ways break down barriers, opening a channel of common humanity among people in stressful times. I will remember Antoin Rodgers with great affection, as a fine dentist who served the community around Lurgan. And also as a kind man who understood the convivial nature of an old dog that blundered his way into his surgery.
We can’t have Barney British Bulldog, Kevin Kerry Blue and Ivan Irish Setter queued up in Customs and Excise, suffering an identity crisis and looking for the nearest loo. Or Guide Dogs’ puppies unable to be trained here.
Some might say Brexit has made it one for the rest of us — but let’s not make it a dog’s life for dogs as well.