Robert the Westie. My life. By me.

7. Autumn, regime change and bye bye Karl Marx.

I recall with fondness an early November day.  My master sits in the garden, the Sunday papers spread across the mesh top of a wrought iron table. Out of a clear, startlingly deep blue sky, the sun projects a ray of heat that cuts through the slight chill in the morning air. My master removes his shirt and stretches, luxuriating in the unseasonable warmth.

            The tall trees that frame the southern edge of the garden are shedding their gloriously golden leaves, noisily. They rustle as they encounter their fellows, still attached, on their swaying glide earthwards. They whisper together conspiratorially as a puff of wind rounds them up and sends them tumbling along the roadside. The majestic beech is now shorn of all its plumage. Only the hazels, still drenched in swathes of red and orange, and the chestnuts, speckled with russet splashes, still retain their hints of summer days now long passed.

            The only sounds that accompany this scene are those bestowed by nature. An aggressive robin reminds all comers, from his perch on a rhododendron bush, that it is he who ranks as master of all he surveys. A nuthatch swoops onto the birdfeeder scattering the blue and great tits in all directions. Hanging upside down, it pecks furiously at the seeds until a favourite is clamped in its beak. Meanwhile a fat collared dove struts below enjoying the bounty raining down from above.

            My master closes his eyes, leans back in his chair and sighs deeply. It is a sigh of contentment. He was always a committed sun worshipper. I roll over on my back, pawing the air, embracing the moment of shared tranquility. I stroll across the still dewy lawn and flop at my master’s feet.

“Okay, Robert, walkies soon,” he promises.

In such moments is the magic of life to be found. Yes, I know this all reads a bit lyrical for the reminiscences of a dog, however articulate. But what can I tell you? These moments come upon me. I pour out whatever is in my heart and if, dear reader, it’s all just a bit too poetic for you, well, that’s your problem, not mine. I may be located in dog heaven now, but I had many memorable moments of dog heaven while still on earth, so there.

In fact, my particular dog heaven took many forms, one of which, as you may have already realized, was witnessing the great events of history that passed before me, most enthralling when seen through the eyes of Steve. The collapse of communism, a little later that November, was just such a moment.

            “Well that’s Karl Marx on his way to the dustbin of history,” Steve observed, as pictures of smiling Germans hacking at the concrete of the twenty-eight mile long Berlin Wall burst on an astonished world.

            Now, history has never been my strongest point, but I had some grasp of what he meant. As he had read history at university, I took his statement as authoritative. This was clearly the turning point in the great philosophical battle between capitalism and communism. Really, it should have come as no surprise.

            In our doggie universe, once the early joys of a pampered puppy-hood are behind us, we speedily enter what even the humans call a “dog eat dog world.” Humanity might pay lip service to theories of equality and shared wealth. It might even allow the Marxes and Hegels to seize an apparent moral high ground, advocating the redistribution of wealth to the needy. But you only need to open your eyes to see that inequality is the natural way. All packs need leaders. All leaders will try to secure superior comfort for those closest to them. There will always be the rich. And there will always be the poor. Okay, call me a cynic, but take a look around your world the way it is today. Try telling the starving millions of Africa that the rest of the world will rush to their aid, dig deeply into their pockets, drive living standards upwards and combat the evils of drug dependence, corruption, disease and prostitution. Now listen for the hollow laughter. Communism, bah!