Sumi and Hoichi

Sumi was the first of our dogs.

I’d wanted a dog for most of my working life, but for various reasons, not least that I spent a lot of time doing hotel near client, rather than home at home, a dog never seemed practicable. In hindsight though, it didn’t stop us keeping rabbits, chipmunks, a lot of lorikeets which are a psychotic type of parrot found in South East Asia, and some African Grey Parrots, now trained as polyglots. So having dogs may well have been, just a doable, that didn’t get done.

We first heard about Sumi from a newspaper article out of one of the freebie english press newspapers that you pick up along the playa. They mostly contain a lot of nonsense stories about local criminal activity alongside more fulsome opinion pieces demanding something or other is put right in a style that Franco might have approved. We collect them as they go well when setting a log fire.

But in this particular paper there was a picture of a scraggy skinny bitch that had been found abandoned, wandering on one of the local beaches, and had been taken into the care of a couple in Mojácar.

The bitch was in a terribly emaciated condition, but it was clear from her teats, that she’d recently had a litter of pups. So having fed her up, they took her back where she’d been found, let her go, and then followed her.

Underneath some old brush, just up from the beach was a shelter of sorts, in a pile of old rubbish, and in there somewhere they’d found a litter of eight pups. The newspaper also had a picture of them. Very cute. Very cuddly. And then there was a phone number.

Well. It was meant to be.

The phone call was made and a visit to see the pups was quickly organised. I was rather excited. A new family member. We were going dog-friendly. It was all very exciting.

When it came to it, I found myself in a small room with eight gambolling pups doing full on cute at every turn. I sat on the floor and just watched.

One of the pups, ambled up to say hello. A paw on my leg. Big eyes and a fat tummy. You, I thought, have decided. I’ll defer to that. You, sweetie, are coming home with me.

And that was it. In she came, confused, frightened, suddenly away from the litter and feeling very alone. For most of the night, she cried. It was a plaintive number, made up of high pitched sobs that drifted into a whimper, rising to a full throated howl. She varied the repertoire, but each time when her tiredness was about to overtake her, she’d remember her fear and once again start sharing her deep-felt concerns.

She was tiny. Everything was new. She was dreadfully upset. Her distress needed to be addressed.

The following day I called the number from the paper again and got chatting with the chap who’d found Sumi’s mother. I explained the situation and without any serious thought or research into the matter, I asked about the other puppies, mentioned one in particular that had caught my eye, and then, on the pretext of some sibling comfort for Sumi, offered the little fellow a home.

And that is how Hoichi came on the scene. A beautiful boy with a variation on what is termed a blue merle colouring. The black, brown, grey, white mix is unusual, but his markings were very distinctive. With one ear so black, that in a darkened room, on his right side, he looked earless, his name was pretty much a no-brainer, assuming of course, that you are familiar with the movie Kwaidan.

Sumi and Hoichi were our first two pooches. And in fairness they still are our first two, taking seniority in the pack we have subsequently developed. Somewhere in the luck we had in finding them, there was some magic at work again.

It was as if powers were in play to draw these two dogs into our valley, to make their home here and to give them a garden to play in, but not just any old garden. This one is a landscape of constant discovery, with new excitements behind every bush, shrub and cactus. And for dogs that like to run, there is another huge plus. This particular garden just goes on forever.