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| From the upcoming memoir "White Dog" |
{The book is now available at the shop>}
"I was born on the man’s farm. I don’t know where my father was, but my mother reared all seven of us pups. I can remember her smell, and what it felt like to be with my siblings in a pile after she fed us.
I remember running, and falling, and getting up and running.
I have broken visions, images in my head, of my siblings being picked up by people and held in their arms, and then they would drive off in a car and never come back. Until one day there was only me, and my mother. I always stayed with my mother. I was still a pup when the man let my mother take me down to the field with the sheep. She did her job, sitting on a perch watching, waiting for unusual sounds. She was stern with me. If I tried to play with a lamb, I was butted by her head. I learned quickly sheep were not to be chased, my mother told me this, and so did the mother ewes. I remember my mother’s eyes. I remember she seemed in charge. I felt safe.
I also remember the day the man moved me away from my mother. She and I could converse through fences, and we still could smell each other, see each other, hear each other but it was always through a fence. I took to lying against the fence at night if she was there, our fur and backs touching each other. But in time, I became more independent, and soon I became the dog the man took to the sheep field, while my mother stayed near the barn, laying about, but also looking after elder ewes."
