A Puppy Called Hugo

‘Water and a bone for you all,’ he said, setting the treats on the floor.

‘Thanks, Eric,’ I woofed along with Peg.

We turned to Hugo to remind him of his manners. Only to find he had started on the chewy treats already.

I opened my mouth, about to tell him off, when Peg beat me to it.

‘Hugo, that’s enough,’ she yapped. ‘Do not show me and your father up in public. You know you don’t eat a treat without saying thank you.’

At the sound of the sternness in his mother’s bark, Hugo dropped his bone to the floor in horror. I could see the fear radiating from his eyes.

‘Oh, Peg, don’t be too harsh on him,’ I whined, my heart full of concern for my poor boy. ‘He’s poorly, he’s not himself.’

Hugo rewarded me with a gentle rub on my snout as he looked apologetically at his mother who was settled by the fireplace.

Peg gave me a lick as she gestured for Hugo to continue. ‘Maybe you’re right, Percy. Perhaps I am being too hard on him. But, honestly, why is he so badly behaved all the time? Is it us? Are we doing something wrong?’

Before I could answer, I saw Hugo had lost interest in the bone and was charging up and down the living room, wagging his tail, scampering through the boxes.

‘Hugo!’ I ordered. ‘Calm down.’

Only my barks fell on deaf ears once more as Hugo darted over to Doreen, who had her hands full of teacups, and jumped up at her.

‘Easy now, love.’ She smiled down at my son. ‘You nearly had me over.’

Hugo didn’t reply. Instead, he charged away from Doreen and rushed over to Eric who was sitting in a chair by the windowsill trying to do the crossword he had found wrapped around a plate.

‘Eric! Eric!’ Hugo barked playfully, sitting at the older man’s feet.

Eric lowered his paper and beamed at my son affectionately before scratching his ear. ‘Hello, Hugo. Heard you ate some potpourri. Can’t say I blame you, it’s all it’s good for.’

‘That’s what I thought!’ Hugo replied, thwacking the floor with his little tail.

‘Did us a favour, boy. Can’t abide the stuff,’ Eric grunted with alarming honesty, causing Simon to burst out laughing.

‘What did I tell you?’ he chuckled, turning to Gail. ‘I said Eric wouldn’t be interested in all that smelly nonsense!’

Jenny sighed and shook her head in mock-exasperation at her father. ‘Dad! It is not nonsense, it’s stuff to make your house pretty.’

‘You tell him, Jen.’ Gail giggled, as she sat cross-legged on the floor and bit into one of the cupcakes her mother had laid out on a plate.

‘So did I really do you a favour, Eric?’ Hugo barked, his eyes shining with pleasure at the thought of one of his actions doing someone a good turn.

‘You can knock a bowl of potpourri over for me anytime.’ He smiled and gave Hugo one last affectionate pat on the head, before turning back to his crossword.

Clearly moved, Hugo jumped up onto Eric’s lap, determined to give Gail’s dad a cuddle filled with gratitude. Yet the sudden movement left me wide-eyed with horror as, despite Hugo having the best of intentions, my boy had jumped on top of Eric’s lap with such gusto he sent the vase filled with Gail’s fresh flowers cascading all over Eric.

‘Oh you dammed dog!’ Eric howled, clearly soaked through. ‘What were you doing?’

‘Is it like the island?’ Hugo barked excitedly. ‘Will I need to swim?’

I rushed over to my son, determined to get to Eric’s aid, but was beaten to it by Doreen, who handed her husband a towel.

‘It was only an accident wasn’t it, Hugo?’ Doreen crooned, picking up the flowers that now littered their new living-room carpet.

‘An accident that could have been avoided if Hugo hadn’t been charging about the place,’ Eric fumed, drying his navy chinos off. ‘Honestly, this dog’s a menace.’

‘He’s not that bad, Dad.’ Gail bridled, as she, Sal and Jen helped Doreen replace the flowers in the vase.

In that moment I loved my owner more than I ever thought possible. Even after all Hugo had done today, she was still defending him.

‘Hugo, come here now, please,’ I ordered from my place next to Peg. ‘Just stay out of the way while Doreen and Eric sort themselves out.’

Obediently, Hugo did just as I asked and, as I gave him a lick, I exchanged a worried glance with Peg. There was no way our son would find his forever home with behaviour like that.

Jenny sat next to Sal on the edge of Doreen’s brown leather sofa and grinned at us. ‘Don’t feel too bad, you guys, it’s hard being a parent.’

Doreen let out a low chuckle as Eric returned to his crossword and she took a seat next to her granddaughter. ‘Know all about it do you, chicken?’

Jenny shrugged as she bent down to kiss my head. ‘No, ‘course not, but I know Mum and Dad had a pretty tough time when I was sick. It can’t be easy raising a family, that’s all I’m trying to say.’

‘Oh bless you, child.’ Doreen smiled, kissing Jenny’s cheek. ‘Why weren’t you more enlightened at this age, Gail?’

Sal roared with laughter. ‘Yes, Gail, why weren’t you more enlightened?’

I looked up at Gail and watched as she spat her tea everywhere. ‘What’s that supposed to mean, Mum?’

‘Nothing.’ Doreen sniffed. ‘Just our Jenny has a very wise head on very young shoulders.’

‘You’re not wrong there,’ Sal agreed, smiling at Jenny.

‘Very true,’ I barked in agreement.

Gail raised an eyebrow. ‘And while it might be true, Mum, if you want a hand getting these boxes unpacked I’d start singing my praises, and possibly Sal’s as well as Jenny’s if I were you.’

‘Fair enough.’ Doreen chuckled, her green eyes radiating the same kindness as her daughter’s. ‘You know I think the world of you, you’re my favourite child!’

‘I’m your only child,’ Gail said, returning her grin. ‘I’m so happy you’ve moved here, it’ll be wonderful having you and Dad on the doorstep.’

Getting to her feet, she pulled her mother in for a hug.

Doreen returned her daughter’s hug, and rubbed her back as if she were no more than Ben’s age. ‘And it’ll be wonderful for us having you so close by. We’ve missed you.’

‘And we’ve missed you,’ Jenny cried.

She rushed towards her mum and gran and wrapped her arms around them. I gulped, I didn’t want to miss out on a family hug. Together with Peg and Hugo, we bounded towards the women and pushed our noses into their laps and knees, much to their delight.

‘They’re everywhere.’ Jenny giggled in delight.

‘Oh you dogs are gorgeous.’ Doreen smiled, bending down to smother us with kisses.

‘And we think you’re gorgeous,’ Hugo barked, licking her hand.

‘But not as gorgeous as Peg and Gail,’ I barked loyally.

Gail beamed down at me, and planted a sloppy kiss on my snout. ‘Percy, you’re the best boy in the entire world.’

I howled in delight. There was nothing nicer than being surrounded by family.

As we broke apart, Sal glanced balefully at a box marked ‘outdoors’. ‘Shall I take this out to the garage?’

Doreen flashed her a grateful smile as she got to her feet. ‘Thanks, love.’

‘And I should get cracking as well.’ Gail smiled, as she finished her second cupcake. ‘Where do you want me?’

Doreen handed her daughter a pair of scissors and gestured to a box with black writing all over it. ‘The pots and pans are in that one,’ she explained. ‘Can you give your father a hand with them in the kitchen. He knows where everything goes.’

Nodding, Gail picked up the box and turned to Eric who was still engrossed in the paper.

‘Are you ready, Dad?’ she asked.

Eric glanced up from the crossword in surprise. ‘Ready for what?’

‘To help me unpack the kitchen stuff,’ Gail replied patiently.

Eric looked blank as he scratched the bald patch on top of his head. ‘If you want, love, though I don’t know where any of it goes.’

‘You do,’ sighed Doreen in exasperation. ‘We discussed it not half an hour ago!’

‘Did we?’ Eric narrowed his blue eyes in confusion.

‘Yes! What’s wrong with you?’ she grumbled. ‘You’re always forgetting things these days.’

‘Am I?’ Eric asked, his blue eyes rich with surprise.

‘Yes!’ Doreen sighed again.

Gail raised her hand in between the two of them.

‘Come on, you two, there’s no sense arguing now. Dad,’ she said, turning to Eric, ‘why don’t you come and help me with all this. I’m sure that together we can work out where everything’s meant to go.’

Eric put down the crossword and obediently got to his feet. ‘All right, love.’

Together they trotted off to the kitchen leaving Doreen alone in the living room. As she set her teacup on the coffee table, she sank her head into her hands.

Watching the rise and fall of her shoulders, I suddenly realised she was crying. Turning to Peg, I gave a little bark of worry and we padded across to the elderly woman.

Getting nearer, I saw her body was wracked with sobs. I was dumbstruck. Doreen always put a brave face on things and I had rarely seen her cry, not even when Jenny was so poorly. She was known for her strength, something Gail had relied upon when they had faced difficult times.

Exchanging worried glances with Peg, we did the only thing we pugs can do in times of crisis. We used our tongues to mop up Doreen’s salty tears, determined to be there for as long as she needed us.

‘Do you think she’s all right?’ I whined quietly to Peg in between licks.

‘Fine,’ she yapped in reply. ‘She’s probably just upset because she’s tired with the move. It’s very distressing you know, upending your home.’

As Doreen’s cries became quieter and she stroked each of us in turn, I moved my head and crawled onto her lap to show her how much I loved her. Breathing in her warm, homely scent, my doggy instinct fired on all cylinders as something told me there was something very wrong indeed.

Chapter Three

The next morning I woke to what I could only assume was all hell breaking loose. Opening my eyes and sitting bolt upright in my basket in the kitchen, I tried to make sense of the scene playing out in front of me.

Gail was standing at the stove, balancing a screaming baby Ben on one hip and heating his bottle with the other hand. At the table, Jenny was bellowing into her mobile phone, making plans to meet a friend at the cinema, while Simon was sat at the pine kitchen table engrossed in paperwork and furiously typing away at his laptop.

Blearily coming to, I looked around for Hugo, but he wasn’t in his basket or in the garden. Anxiously, I padded out of the kitchen and into the sitting room. Even though it was the middle of summer Hugo loved nothing more than curling up on the sheepskin rug by the fire, but he wasn’t there and neither was he anywhere upstairs.

Returning downstairs, anxiety gnawed away at me as I wondered where Hugo would go. He was still poorly, so he couldn’t have gone as far as the park and, besides that, he knew never to go there alone. There was a chance he could have gone to see Peg, I thought, but again, he had never been there on his own, and I knew that the times we had visited he hadn’t taken in the route as he had constantly yapped all the way there.

A creeping sense of horror coursed through my fur as I started to imagine all the places he could have gone and all the things that could have happened to him. Just as I was imagining Hugo being eaten by a hungry pack of wolves, or abducted by a Cruella De Vil type, the house phone rang, interrupting my nightmare.

‘Oh you’re kidding, Mum,’ Gail gasped into the receiver, still jiggling Ben on her hip.

There was a pause before she spoke again. ‘We’ll be right over, and again I’m so sorry.’

I watched with interest as she hung up the phone and turned to Simon.

‘You’ll never guess what’s happened.’

‘I dread to think looking at the expression on your face.’ Simon grimaced, glancing up from his computer.

‘Hugo has just turned up at Mum and Dad’s,’ Gail explained with a sigh.

Simon raised an eyebrow. ‘On his own?’

‘On his own,’ Gail confirmed.

The family fell into silence as they contemplated this news leaving me to consider what I had just heard. On the one paw, I felt a huge wave of relief crash over me as I realised my little boy was now safe. But on the other what was Hugo thinking of? Fury ate away at me as I realised how little he had learnt since being under my charge. I had told him repeatedly never to go anywhere alone, but here he was not only disappearing before my very eyes but bothering poor Gail’s parents just as they had moved in.

‘But how did he get there?’ Jenny asked eventually, putting her phone down for the first time that morning.

Gail looked pointedly at Simon. ‘I guess through that cat flap we’ve never got around to fixing.’

‘Ah.’ Simon winced. ‘Sorry, I’ve been meaning to mend that for ages. I will get on to it, I promise.’

‘It doesn’t matter now. All that matters is Hugo is safe,’ she sighed. ‘I said I’d go and get him, but I’ve got to get Ben down for his nap and then I said I’d take Jenny into town, to buy her some new shoes.’

‘That’s OK, why don’t I just go on my own?’ Jenny suggested.

‘Because you’re fourteen, young lady, and I’m not letting you run amok with my money!’ Gail admonished.

Simon stood up and shut the lid of his laptop. ‘I’ll go then. Me and Perce can pick up the whippersnapper and while I’m there I’ll see if your parents need anything doing.’

The relief on Gail’s face was palpable. ‘Would you? Oh thanks, Si, that’s such a help.’

Simon grinned, as he walked across to his wife and kissed her on the cheek. ‘My pleasure,’ he told her, before turning to me. ‘Come on then, mate, let’s rescue Hugo before he destroys Doreen and Eric’s place like he does here.’

*

Simon had barely finished knocking on the door before Eric flung it open wearing a big grin, Hugo in his arms. I glanced in astonishment at them both, never before having seen one or the other quite so content.

‘Hi, Eric,’ Simon said evenly, stepping into the hallway. ‘We’re here on a rescue mission, heard Hugo had been bothering you.’

Eric chuckled and clutched Hugo tightly to his chest. ‘Nonsense, it was a very pleasant surprise to see this one in the kitchen earlier. Little so-and-so must have got through the conservatory door.’

‘I’m very sorry, Eric,’ I barked seriously as I followed Simon inside. ‘It won’t happen again, will it, Hugo?’

As Eric set Hugo on the floor, my son hid behind the older man’s trousers. ‘Sorry, Dad, didn’t mean to make you worry.’

‘So why did you?’ I barked grumpily, as we followed Eric down the long hallway and into the kitchen. There was still mess everywhere with half-unpacked boxes all over the place.

‘Sorry the house is a bit of a tip,’ Eric apologised, filling the kettle. ‘We’re still up to our eyeballs and Doreen’s had enough so she’s popped to the shops for a coffee and a break.’

Simon settled himself on one of the high chairs at Doreen’s island while Hugo stood next to Eric, almost as if he was waiting for him to issue his next instruction. ‘That’s the other reason I thought I’d pop by, see if there’s anything I can do.’

Eric smiled at his son-in-law as he reached for a pair of mugs, tripping over Hugo in the process. ‘Oh sorry, Hugo, didn’t see you there.’

‘That’s OK, Eric,’ my son barked, wagging his tail.

Turning back to face Simon, Eric scratched his head. ‘Sorry, Simon, what were we saying? Honestly, I feel as if I can barely remember anything at the minute with this move.’

Simon chuckled, the frown lines on his face crinkling around his eyes. ‘I can’t say I’m surprised. Moving gets the best of all of us. No, I was just offering to lend a hand.’

‘That’s very good of you, Simon, but Hugo here has just been helping me sort through a load of boxes and we’ve got a lot done, haven’t we?’ Eric grinned, bending down and pulling a tomato from his pocket to give to Hugo.

I watched in amazement as Hugo ate the fruit greedily from Eric’s palm.

‘I didn’t know you liked tomatoes,’ I barked in astonishment from my position by the doorway.

‘Oh yes!’ Hugo yapped, licking his lips and looking up at Eric, clearly hoping for more. ‘Eric gave me one from the greenhouse yesterday and it was delicious. Today, he found another handful had grown overnight and fed them to me.’

I was barkless and at a loss to know what to do. ‘Just come over here,’ I ordered, as Eric pushed a mug of tea in front of Simon.

‘What is it, Dad?’ Hugo asked, nearing my side.

‘I want to know what possessed you to go running off like that,’ I yapped quietly.

‘I wanted to check on Eric and Doreen, Dad,’ Hugo barked. ‘I heard you bark you were worried about Gail’s parents. I thought I could come and help them for you.’

A rush of love surged through me, at my son’s thoughtfulness. With each passing day, I was beginning to see glimpses of the dog I knew he could become. But, as always, he hadn’t got it quite right. My mission to help him was far from over.

‘You can’t just dash off without barking something,’ I told him gently. ‘It was a lovely idea to help Gail’s parents but you’re too young to do these things on your own.’

Hugo hung his head in sorrow. ‘Sorry, Dad. I was only trying to help. But listen, I’ve got to tell you something. I think you were right about something being wrong with Eric and Doreen. He keeps forgetting things, Dad. Earlier on he kept saying to Doreen that he was going to go bowling and she kept telling him that he couldn’t do that any more as they didn’t live in Barnstaple any longer. He got so cross, Dad, he went out into the garden for a walk around the tomatoes and then he gave me some and then he seemed OK again.’

I shook my head impatiently. I realised Hugo meant well but the fact was that running off, causing people to worry, was not what a forever family would be looking for in a dog.

‘Hugo, I know that you acted with the best of intentions today so I don’t want to go on at you too much. But dog obedience is so important and it’s vital I start to see some from you. Do you understand?’

Hugo nodded. ‘But didn’t you hear what I said about Eric and how he forgot where he lived? It was a good job I came, Dad. I made him remember I’m sure of it.’

I let out a sigh. ‘Let’s just drop it, OK. Now not another bark, do you hear me?’

‘Yes, Dad,’ Hugo yapped forlornly.

‘Good, now let’s get ready to get you home. You need to rest after all that rubbish you ate yesterday.’

‘Yes, Dad.’ Hugo sighed again.

I rubbed my nose against his to show he was forgiven and then watched him settle at Eric’s feet. Surprise ebbed away at me that they had forged such a close bond already. Watching Eric reach down and fondle Hugo’s ears I felt a pang of regret. The duo seemed so close. What a shame he couldn’t do that with someone able to offer him a more permanent solution.

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