The Real Housewife of Kennington: THE GIGGY SIDECAR

This blog is dedicated to my friend Alistair, currently in New York, to help soothe his puppy-missing-pain

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Every good housewife deserves a bit of company every now and then while all the real men are at work, fearlessly saving the world. You know - someone to watch “Muriel’s Wedding” with when I should be looking for a job, that sort of thing. What about a nice, well-behaved dog to provide company and unconditional love at the same time?

Growing up in Scotland, we didn’t have dogs. I say that as if those two statements are linked. They’re not. Although the only dog that could have hoped to survive the persistently sub-zero temperatures would have been some sort of Siberian Mountain Lion Dog.

The closest we came to getting a canine element to the Vanderpump family was when my sister was old enough to go out to meet friends un-chaperoned.

Half Dog Half Carwash

“We’ll get a couple of Alsatians to go with you”, I remember my dad saying.

They could escort her to the school disco, or wherever she was going. Heaven help those that approached, they would be savaged forthwith. Male or female, young or old, friends at the disco, the DJ, the teachers supervising, the woman behind the counter at the chippy. All savaged. All the fish, burgers and chip suppers, eaten. Even the pickled eggs. Well, maybe not the pickled eggs.

Incidentally, my brother and I were afforded no similar offers of increased security unless we were expected to be rescued from the rough streets of Aberdeen by two guinea pigs, one of which was clearly far too young to hold its own.

There was talk of where these slathering beasts would live when they weren’t dragging my sister around the North East of Scotland in a short skirt, making sure she didn’t touch anything she shouldn't.

“In a kennel in the garden or in the garage”, said my dad.

It seemed that they would be cared for humanely but would not set a paw in the house. Like working dogs sniffing bags at Terminal 5, they would be singular in their role, committed in their mandate and would eat raw meat and prospective suitors like tigers. My dad would sharpen their teeth in the basement using a Black and Decker sander.

And so, it’s a good example of how parents can affect their children’s views. I grew up thinking that dogs were nice and that they had a role, but that most of their owners kept them in a level of luxury that they didn’t deserve nor want.

Fast forwarding more years than I care to admit saw Hubby’s broody quest to get a dog ending in the arrival of our black standard Schnauzer, Giggy, at the beginning of last year. We called him Giggy after my godmother, Lisa’s dog, in Los Angeles. LA Giggy is quite a bit smaller but with a considerably larger wardrobe.

When he arrived, our Giggy could look forward to sleeping in his basket in the kitchen (and only in his basket in the kitchen) and to eating a “complete food” of delicious dry biscuits and water, and playing with clean toys and chews designed to be pleasing to humans. He would walk to heel exclusively.

Giggy would not – repeat not - be allowed upstairs nor within three feet of any kind of soft furnishing. He would sometimes be allowed to lie in front of the fire on the rug if it was a special occasion like Christmas. We would never buy him a cow’s neck or a piece of intestine for him to chomp on to keep him quiet while we watched TOWIE.

But the older I get, the more I appreciate and accept that the difference between theory and reality can be considerable. In the case of Giggy, the cavern between the two could have been an American national park in itself.

The problem is, whoever designed dogs made sure they came with a range of heart-melting faces, all strikingly similar but able to plausibly be conveying our own, wide-ranging emotions.

“Oh look – he’s tired”. “Oh look – he’s hungry”. “Oh look – he’s happy”. They’re all pretty-much the same face for Giggy - a combination of cuteness and desire. A desire that is constant and burning. An in-built, instinctive quest for things that don’t cost us anything in particular but that are outside initially acceptable behaviour patterns:

Desire to come upstairs
Desire to get on the sofa
Desire to eat the remains of a slow-cooked lamb shank
Desire to gnaw on dead trotters
Desire to eat a “beef cane” (that’s a cow’s neck)
Desire to eat left over KFC in Kennington Park
Desire to eat pizzle (that’s a bull’s cock)

… and so the list goes on.

Salade de Cow's Trachea

So, I hate to admit it but we’re doing badly when it comes to the initial rules. Most of them are completely out of the window. There is no part of a cow that has not been Fedex’d to this door. No premium dog food that has not been sampled, us both looking on nervously.

“Does he like it? Oh he likes that one, that one with goose and duck in it. Oh good, I am pleased, oh and look Waitrose stock it”.

My father can smell failure on me from fifty yards.

So, as for the good friend that I was “revolted” at for sharing his bed with his dogs, I stood corrected as Giggy trotted into our bedroom like a small dressage horse. His three-month campaign to get there had made Obama’s last Presidential marketing effort look a bit sloppy. It seemed that sharing our bedroom was more important to him than life itself.

Giggy’s initially-authorised position in the bedroom at night was the floor. But soon, he grew tired of that and preferred the bed. Usually, the end of the bed, which seemed acceptable. But then there was the fight for nocturnal real estate as his four paws stretched and pushed for extra space in all directions, his body pencil thin like a black whippet.

I decided something must be done. We tried to get him to sleep in his basket in the bedroom but he seemed to always prefer the softness of the duvet. We put him on the lead and he spent the whole night forgetting that and jumping towards the bed, being snapped back in renewed surprise, each time.

“If only we had a small duvet beside our bed”, I thought, and voila! The idea of the “Giggy Sidecar” was born. I just hope my dad never reads this part.

If only i'd paid more attention in woodwork ...

Folding a regular duvet into four and placing it directly on one side of the bed on the floor, with a cushion as a pillow (Giggy likes the memory foam type if your house has a pillow menu, lavender if the pillow menu has scented options). Giggy could feel like he was in the bed but really he was in his sidecar. Traveling through the night with us, but not on top of us.

Everything seemed to be going well in the world of bed-and-sidecar equilibrium until one morning I came back from a huge night drinking in the guise of networking to find Hubby and Giggy asleep. Giggy was not in his sidecar but very much on my side of the bed, his head on my pillow, a single eye open, watching me lunge into the room. His look seemed to say, “Oh here he is. Pissed bastard". Then it said "You snooze, you lose”. It was slightly smug. I think. I’ll never know. He could have been saying “bring me a goose dinner”, or maybe he was just thinking “if I don’t move he won’t see me”.

Anyway, it seemed that his ultimate goal had been achieved. The end of a great journey. To butcher Shakespeare, “Journeys end in having my head on his pillow”. I was just surprised he wasn’t availing himself to my British Airways eye-mask with the rotting elastic and a couple of foam earplugs.

And so, I would like to leave you with a short selection of sidecars/baskets available and to help you choose which one might suit your dog.

DVP