Sometimes I wonder if I haven't invented a personality for Flash that he never really had.
As the funeral day approached, I found myself thinking more and more about all things miitary and that Flash had been like a soldier. We used to play this game where I would bawl "A -nimal! Sit!" like a sergeant-major and the dog would sit and stay, perfectly still, until I told him to move. All up and down the park you could see dog-owners killing themselves laughing as they passed us and heard me going "A- nimal! Down stay!" like the commander of a unit yelling "Compan-y! Halt!"
On the day of the funeral I found myself calling him "my soldier" because he had been so brave and never moaned about the pain he must have been in from the prostate cancer. Also because he was so very easy to train and loved obedience work.
But last night I had a dream. I found a dog wandering about that looked just like him and walked beautifully to heel. But it wasn't Flash. It was quiet and majestic and did things without being asked. It was a black and white Border Collie. But it was different from Flash. It had a brown streak along its flank and Flash was pure black and white with no other colour. A real border collie will look to its owner all the time for commands and for a game. This one didn't. It just walked quietly by my side and sat at my left ankle like a king.
I just wondered if in the dream it represented the persona I had invented for Flash, that sort of brave military persona that came into my mind's eye when I wrote the poem for him.
In real life, Flash was the joker in the pack, as am I. The breeder said we were a good match. Flash was always mock-fighting with me, playing pranks and having a laugh. He was always crazy about a ball and was always ready for a game. Life was a comedy to him. Once a toddler came up to him, rather unsteady on its legs, trying to have a closer look at him, then it fell over and Flash thought this was the funniest thing he had seen, looked at me and laughed.
The dream collie was almost like the spirit of a dog, maybe the essence of what dogs can often be: brave, dignified, stoic in the face of pain or difficulty, loyal. Maybe the other side of Dog to what we usually see. I never cease to marvel at the wonder of animals and how lucky we are to know them.
