My Best Friend's Good Turn

MY BEST FRIEND’S GOOD TURN

Jumbo was a “Water Spaniel”. He arrived early in my life as gift from a friend of the family. He was jet black, with a coat of long curly hair. He sported a moist tongue encased for most part in a halo of halitosis of an extraordinarily pungent nature. The ends of his long ears were often encrusted in the remains of his last meal. His rampant libido occasionally caused embarrassment as well as jealousy, especially in the case of any dog that dared venture into his orbit. But he was also an obsequious animal when confronted with anything that he could not intimidate, especially my father, whom he regarded as the leader of his pack and the authority in all things.

This dog of uncertain mood and character was, (especially as far as my mother was concerned) Dad's dog. A feisty beast, he was always ready to pick a quarrel with any other male dog and to defend his patch. But Jumbo was also a good family pet who withstood the constant petting and teasing foisted on him with patience and forbearance for most of the time. Occasionally he would growl and snap to indicate he had had enough but for the most part he was a lovable pet.

My relationship with Jumbo ranged from slobbering love through petting to incessant teasing leading sometimes to terror and the pain of a well-deserved bite. He regarded me as just a minor member of Dad’s pack and, for the most part a confounded nuisance as I liked to tease him. But occasionally he saw some advantage in my company especially when playing with a ball or going for a swim.

He was a natural swimmer and did not need to be invited twice to enter the water. Except on one occasion when we travelled down to Acapulco for the annual family holiday. The drive lasted over 12 hours along the twisting rough road. It got hotter as we travelled from the cool climate of the Mexican Plateau down to the hot the tropics of the Pacific coast.

We all suffered from the discomfort of car sickness and the heat, but none more so than Jumbo. He sweltered in his black thick coat and his engorged tongue hung from his open jaws like a great wet fleshy sponge spraying slobber everywhere. Yet, when we stopped for a rest, he still had the energy and the wherewithal to leap out and leave his mark on every available bush nearby. His supplies of liquid seemed inexhaustible!

When we finally reached the beach in Acapulco Jumbo saw the blue water and leapt from the car and headed straight for what he thought was to be a cooling swim and a thirst-quenching drink. Poor dog…it took him what seemed an age to realize that the water was quite undrinkable. He staggered onto the beach and started retching and heaving to get rid of the nasty stuff. By the time he had finished he was a sorry sight. Shortly after some kind soul produced a bowl of fresh water to revive him. Even then he took time to convince himself that this supply was alright. But as for the sea, we could not convince him that it was alright to swim in for a long time. As for drinking the stuff, well he never attempted that again!

The conifer stood as our only tree in the front yard. It seemed to have been there forever, somehow surviving the harsh climate and the never ending dust from the stone crushers that ground the rocky silver ore into powder on the other side of the high stone wall that separated home from the mill. The trunk of the tree split into two above the ground and continued into a sparse set of branches and needle like leaves and just a few cones to emphasize its scrawny appearance. It rose to a height of about 30 feet, its colour an indeterminate grey, caused no doubt by the layers of dust that had accumulated over the years. It had survived many repetitions of the heavy downpours of the short rainy season and the long dry spells that followed. By some miracle it also survived repeated use by Jumbo as a convenient marking post. Perhaps his frequent ministrations were the real key to its survival, at least during his lifetime.

That tree provided a refuge for me. Its split trunk was just right for nailing half a dozen rungs on which to start a climb. Above the last rung were a few well-placed stumps of sawn off branches that made it possible to reach the lowest limbs of the sparse canopy. Here someone had built a small platform which served as a place on which to hide and spy the land as the local pirate king or Wolf pack leader. But as a hiding place it was not much use when Jumbo was around. I think he was jealous of my ability to get to the top and refused to play the role of subservient and silent guard dog. Although there was no way he could climb the tree, he was glad to patrol the bottom and bark to give me away to anyone who might be interested, especially my father.

Home was a noisy place. But it was not because we were a rowdy family. It was noisy because the ore crushers next door worked day and night and produced a constant roar. That roar was punctuated occasionally by the rumble of iron balls used to pulverize the ore as these were delivered about once a week by trucks that dumped them down chutes that backed onto the house.

But the most memorable noise was Jumbo’s howl.

Every day there would be, regular as clockwork, the noise of the hooters of the Loreto Mill and San Juan mine. These, day in - night out, signaled the intervals between working shifts. But they were also used to signal emergencies and other events of note. Like VE Day in May 1945 when they hooted for hours on end signaling the end of the war.

The problem was that Jumbo hated being shut up in the kitchen at night. He also hated the mine hooter. For some reason it was only the mine hooter and only when he was shut up in the kitchen that he gave vent to his feelings. Almost like clockwork when the mine hooter went off at night, Jumbo would start to howl and he'd go on howling long after the hooter had stopped. This often ended when, with a cry of rage, Dad would wake up, climb out of bed, go into the kitchen and chastise the dog. No doubt Jumbo did it to get attention and to protest about the unfairness of banishment, but he never learned and the routine was often repeated…sad really. I had a certain fellow feeling for Jumbo's woes.

But for all its smallness and noisiness that house gave me a sense of security, warmth and welcome that has been hard to replace ever since I left in 1946. I did not see home again for another 12 years. It had not changed much in that time except that Jumbo had gone. He died at the ripe old doggy age of about 14 when he collapsed climbing the steep hill to the house. Always the loyal dog he was following his master’s footsteps home when he decided that enough was enough.

Dad buried Jumbo on the slope below the conifer tree. That tree survives him still, with its wooden rungs and platform in place. So it managed to do without Jumbo’s ministrations after all.

Jumbo’s good turn to me? Well he taught me that loyalty, tolerance and affection are emotions not confined to humanity.

Ough Family Memories
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