Writing Prompt 13: Dog Crossing
Urban Dog
The dog goes one way and a car goes the other. The sun is hot. It bleaches out the colours in the photograph but sends the shadows of the hedge opposite into dense black. This dog has purpose. This dog knows where its going.
What are your thoughts about dogs? Any memories good or bad come up for you? There might be a story there.
Dogs. A Goldendoodle. We have one. She is a black Goldendoodle. Her father is a standard poodle called Raven. The golden in the name is the retriever part. Golden retriever.
Lots of people say, “But she isn’t golden?”
No. She isn’t. Sometimes known as a Groodle. I might start saying that.
A Labradoodle. Everyone thinks she’s a labradoodle. Different from our dog. Shorter legs.
A Jack Russell. My granny had one. White with splotches of black and brown. She had a firm body - was she a he or a she? I don’t remember - a firm body. Patting her felt like patting a bag of sugar. Then Granny got a boxer. And so did my friend. All muscle.
We had an Irish red setter when I was young. When I was six, she and a doggie friend unhooked the latch on my rabbit’s hutch and chased her around the garden. My mum managed to catch my rabbit but she died of shock in my mum’s arms. Some years later when we lived in a different house, my auntie clipped our red setter all over after she got fed up trying to comb out the knots from the feathery fur on her legs. My mum and dad were furious when they saw her. I thought she looked funny.
My paternal grandparents owned a Dalmatian and a sausage dog. I was very young and don’t remember them.
I’ve never liked German shepherds very much. What’s the difference between them and Alsatians? Our neighbour had a scary-looking one that killed my sister’s cat. My dad saw it happen from the window. Just too late to save her.
Despite all this I like dogs.
Story first posted January 2019 // Photo: Tanya Clarke - Tulum, Mexico 2018
