Hugo

It was a round trip of five hours to see a dog I didn't think I'd like. The whippet rescue woman had rung me to tell me about him, and to ask if I was interested. "He's a big boy," she told me, "but the foster carer who's looking after him said he's a lovely person." He was nearly 5 years old, black, kind and gentle. He had been loved, that was certain, and very well looked after. Why was he being rescued then, I wanted to know. But apparently nobody ever tells the truth about these things. Seemingly his owners were moving somewhere they couldn't take him. Hmmmm. I agreed to go because he sounded so nice, but I didn't like the sound of 'big'. I was as nervous as someone on a blind date. Well, I met him, he put his head on my lap and looked up at me, and I was hooked. Beautiful, darling boy. Four days later I went and got him, terrified that I was making a mistake and I'd regret it. All the way home in the car he howled, two and a half hours of howls. It was truly awful. Poor little terrified boy.  Twice I stopped and walked him a little and gave him water, and on the third lap he was more settled, just whimpering a little. Once home I took him into the field which seemed to amaze him, he peed and pooed, and I brought him indoors to show him his new home. Oh, is he ever a lovely person. He's steady, calm, quiet, gentle, compliant, loving, sweet, funny and easy, so easy. He has the best manners imaginable. Upstairs as I led him from room to room and looked out of each window, he delicately, so sensitively, raised himself up on exquisitely soft feet to peer out beside me. Every time I've left the kitchen he's followed me, so silently I sometimes don't realise he's there. He is a peach of a dog, a class act. He's called Hugo, and he's my best boy.