I clearly remember being around 10 years old and sitting in the car as my mum drove me up South Lane.
I asked 'can I have a guinea pig for my birthday?'
She replied 'would you rather have a dog?'.
This memory has obviously stuck with me because it was one of the most exciting surprises of my entire childhood. Offering a small child the option of a dog over a guinea pig is a bit like serving up a lobster dish when a visitor asks for a digestive biscuit to dunk in their tea.
Obviously at the time I didn't realise that this was a con job. My parents were planning on replacing the family dog 'Abby' anyway, regardless of my annual birthday plea. It didn't really matter either way to me.
So, off we went to the dog pound in Huddersfield one weekend around my birthday. I remember this being a little traumatic - looking at all of the dogs lined up in cages looking folorn.
Most distressing of all were the little pieces of paper attached to the cages with the termination dates of the poor creatures.
One dog in particular, was very energetic. We were allowed in to see him and he immediately jumped up at us and ran in circles around my legs. He was a little black mongrel with quite a pretty face, but the most unfortunate body you have ever seen!
His head was about a foot off the ground and connected to these awkward looking bowed front legs. He had a long body and a bug bushy (frantically wagging) tail which arched almost in a full circle so that it rested on his back. They told me he was six months old.
To this day I have no real clue what breeds were in him, but whatever he was - it didn't look natural.
I think this was pretty much the first dog that we saw, and as we were leaving his cage thing, I turned and looked at his little piece of paper. It said he only had until the Monday after the weekend before he was to be terminated.
'I want that one' I exclaimed stubbornly. My mum knew what I was up to.
'Are you sure you really want that one, and are not just saying you do because of what it says on the label?'
'No I definitely want that one' I protested.
And thats the one that we got. Of course, I did choose him because of the imminent date of his 'elimination', but thats all water under the bridge now. I named him 'Lucky' (oh how I rued that name in later years) in light of his lucky escape.
I don't really know whether he was lucky or unfortunate throughout his life, but he certainly was energetic and had some eventful times. Within one week of getting him I contributed to him breaking his hind leg at the tennis club by pulling his lead too hard and sending him into a river where he landed on a rock. I can clearly remember his sad little face now. He licked by hand while my friends ran for help. He was a good friend for a boy to have.
He bore a metal pin in his leg which gave him a limp to the end of his days. Not that it really slowed him down. In fact the limp was probably exacerbated by the number of near misses (and hits!) he took from cars in the street...
....for Lucky was pretty much un-trainable...
...or to be more precise, he was untrained. I was never sure whether it was possible to train him, as to be honest as a 10 year old boy - I couldn't be bothered anyway.
He would escape out of the door (and even out of the cat flap before my dad blocked it up) as soon as there was any hint of it opening. And he would roam the streets of Holmfirth for hours looking for adventure before returning covered in mud or some other foul substance (I remember him falling in a pit full of slurry once).
We would get calls from people we knew around the surrounding areas telling us that they had sighted him, and off my dad would go to pick him up. He used to go to The Artist's house all the time when he found out where he lived.
I am pretty sure that he had a network of friends across the town who he would go and play with (probably within about a 1 mile radius), but who would be just as unsuccessful at catching him as we were.
He was also hated by a fair few people in the area. One time he ran into a garden which happened to be inhabited by one of our classmates and picked up their family rabbit. I am not sure he meant to kill it - rather just play with it.
But kill it he did. And my classmate declared a blood feud on the poor little bugger. But he never caught little Lucky. He was too fast, his little metal enhanced leg going like the clappers as he played the 'keep away from people' game.
Another time he followed my sister onto a bus and she had to pretend that he didn't belong to us to save embarrassment as the driver shooed him off. These events happened regularly. It got pretty bad, and I do remember disowning him in the street myself a few times.
Particularly when asked 'is that your dog? I see it around all the time?' I didn't like walking him on a lead, purely in case he was recognised and some piece of damage could be traced back to me.
I loved that dog though. In his older year he became less excitable and went to live with my dad as I left for university. He would sit on my dad's workshop floor and wouldn't stray more than 20 metres away from his side. He was probably a bit more adorable then, and certainly easier to get along with. I was quite upset when he died 4 or so years ago.
He still did have the odd little adventure in his teen years. Every once in a while he would disappear off for a few hours and my dad would find him at one of his old haunts near our old house (3 miles away)....
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