Dating : How Grandpa’s dogs came back to life

… companions of a different kind, but just as loyal

Grandpa’s dog stood perfectly still, eyes fixed on an old, decaying tennis ball.

‘Shep’ was already covered in mud and dirt from standing too close to a trench his master had spent all morning digging. The deep and long cut of soil was part of a sewerage works coursing through our backyard in the western suburbs of Sydney, Australia. The weather was ‘stinking hot’, as Grandpa would say.

Edging a little closer to the trench lip, Shep was ready for yet another throw of his favourite ball.

Alf — my grandfather — was kind of busy… one moment digging the trench, next stopping to pick out the dog’s ball from near his feet.

‘He’s not going to stop Grandpa!’ I said, smiling as Shep continued to stare.

The black Labrador had been running to and from Alf’s position all day. I was nearby observing both of them, and occasionally having a throw of the ball myself.

‘Yeah, he loves it,’ Grandpa said as he hurled another pitch as hard as he could at the neighbour’s fence. The effect of the throw was always the same: Shep would run after the ball so fast and headstrong that he didn’t have time to stop before pounding into the fence.

THUD! Shep slammed into the already wonky vertical timbers. Another hit and I was sure he’d run right through into the pool next door.

‘But I’m never going to get any work done,’ Alf sighed. In hindsight, I think Grandpa was looking for an excuse to take another break, sweating right across his back, framed by a once-white singlet.

‘Shep!’ he said with a deeper, commanding ‘Master’ type of voice that really did mean something different: ‘No more Shep. No more. Let’s take a break.’

Reaching over for the shovel, Alf pushed it down into the mud as his foot found a small ledge in the trench to climb out of. I’d stand up from where I was viewing the back-and-forth, and walked alongside Grandpa as he headed for the low brick wall near the laundry. Alf walked slowly, exhausted in the dry, baking sunshine. I was a little slower without shoes on, moving around to avoid ‘bindies’ — or small thistles — in the backyard lawn.

We sat down together near the laundry door on a low brick fence.

Out of his sagging pocket, Alf felt for an old tin can with ‘Capstan’ written on top. Alf opened the lid and handed it over to me.

‘You hold this while I get my papers,’ he said, reaching for a bag of small cigarette sheets that he could roll tobacco in.

It’s a bit of a heart-stopping image thinking back now — an old man getting help from his 4 year-old son to roll a cigarette! But it was 1972 and smokes were still a big part of everyday life in Australia. Alf had smoked all his life, and it had become part of who he was.

What I remember more are the times we shared together in that backyard: Precious little moments of questions and answers. And all the time: Shep just a few feet away.

There were a few dogs called ‘Shep’ throughout Alf’s life. Every time Grandpa’s four-legged companion died its natural death, he’d get a new one, and maintain the same simple four-letter word for his tag.

‘Why change a dog’s name when you’ve found a good one?’ Grandpa told me as he wrapped a new collar around the next mate he’d confer ‘Shep’ on.

Almost 50 years later, I’ve become a grandfather myself, to a little boy as keen to spend time with me as I had been with Grandpa in the ’70s. The big difference now is just how immobile I am compared with Alf.

The reason is a rotten illness that I’d prefer to bury in the old sewerage trench if it were possible: Multiple Sclerosis! It’s a debilitating and chronic disease that remains incurable, for now. It was diagnosed in my brain and spine back in 2016, appearing as little scars on my nerve system to the radiologists.

These days, I spend every walking moment with a stick by my side, having become something of a companion — just a hand’s length away to keep me balanced.

One day, it struck me that my stick had become a new ‘Shep’ in my life — ever present and as close as a mate, only without the conversation.

A few more sticks were added for different purposes — one for home, one for going out, another that collapsed and went into the wheelchair I had started to use for longer distances or when my body wiltered under fatigue.

Just like Grandpa’s naming convention for his faithful mates, every one of my sticks has the same title: ‘Shep’.

‘Why change a stick’s name when you’ve found a good one,’ I said one day, smiling at the thought of Grandpa’s dogs living on in the form of mobility devices.

‘Would you like to have a hold?’ I said to my little grandson one day, handing him the main walking stick. ‘You can call him Shep!’

My grandson’s eyes widened at the thought of an imaginary character within my walking stick.

‘I think he needs to have a feed,’ I said, and then watched the little boy pretend to feed the handle like it was the head of a dog.

Mostly, though, my grandson takes Shep off on little trips around the house and yard, and often needs to be reminded to bring him back.

The best thing of all is the thought that my grandfather has lived on in some way — now in the growing mind of this wonderful little boy who sits on brick fences with me and listens to my stories.

I think Shep is something more than a number of walking sticks.

I think naming them after my Grandpa’s dogs is a way of finding some happiness in the midst of the pain and frustration of MS.

I want to make this disease less clinical and medical, and somehow live it out on my terms. I don’t want it to take over, and become a series of scans and tablets and needles and reasons for depression.

I want to humanise it, and me, and find happiness and hope in it all.

And Shep has that effect — especially in the grip of my grandson’s fingers.