St Francis of Assisi, kilts and optimism

Another new month, that means another new job, how time flies. This week I was going to write about the changing of the seasons and the passage of time but events on Sunday have put paid to that. Maybe I'll write about Autumn next week.

I stayed at my Mums house on Saturday night, she lives about 20 minutes away from me. Sunday morning Mum and I met bleary eyed in the kitchen, at the kettle, both having been woken up by the desperate need for a cup of tea. Ah, the first cup of tea of the day, there can be no finer drink. The first sip, maybe still just a tad too hot, but delicious and reviving none the less. So we stood at the kitchen counter, mouths drooling in anticipation, as we waited for the tea leaves to perform their magic, and Billy dog sat expectantly on the back door mat, drooling too as he waited for his breakfast, when Mum remembered that the church she attends were holding  a pet service that morning. She wondered if Billy and I would like to attend.

I have not attended church for many years now except to go to weddings and funerals and I'm ashamed to admit that Billy has never been, but Mum attends religiously each week (pun intended). I suggested that Mum take Billy herself, but she wasn't keen on this idea, so with some trepidation I agreed to go with her. We both looked at Billy and realised that he wasn't looking his best, he was less West Highland White and rather more West Highland Beige, I wondered if we could pretend he was a Cairn terrier but decided that he would need to be spruced up a bit before he could make his premiere appearance in church. This meant the dreaded bath!

Billy loves water, he will happily splash around in muddy puddles, paddle in streams and loves to lie and cool his belly in the sea, but warm water when combined with shampoo is, in Billys mind, a particularly cruel forms of torture. Over the years of trial and error I have come up with a routine at bathtime, its not a good routine but it's the best I've been able to find. First I get undressed, normally I'll take my trousers off and just keep a T-shirt on, then I put Billy in the shower cubicle, close the screen doors slightly and the kneel in the door opening with the dog towel over my lap. This way I don't get too wet, although I am often wetter than Billy, and my body blocks him from escaping. Then its simply a matter of trying to get some water and shampoo onto him as he writhes, wriggles and piteously cries. Once rinsed and towel dried he runs around the house, growling and moaning whilst rubbing himself on accessible furniture and carpets. The final part of the ordeal is to dry him with a hairdryer, although he minds this less as he gets lots of treats during it. I didn't have time to dry him completely on Sunday as we were running late, but he certainly looked a lot cleaner.

Off to Church we went, desperately hoping that Mum hadn't got the date wrong. As we approached the Churchyard I could tell that this indeed was the right Sunday for the pet service as people with animals were all making their way towards the Church, the bells pealing out a welcome and adding to the cacophany as dogs barked, chickens clucked and children laughed and shrieked. I saw a tortoise in a cardboard box being taken in, Guinea pigs wrapped in towels and held in children's arms like babies, there were rabbits, rats and lots and lots of dogs. One little lad who I don't think had any pets brought an armful of soft toys.

Once inside the Church we found that preparations had been made and that at the base of the font were plenty of poo bags and baskets containing disinfectants and cleaning products. A sensible precaution I thought. The service started, the dogs joining in with singing the hymns and generally making their presence known through out the sermon and prayers, but overall the animals behaved very well. A couple of dogs went walk about during the service, no doubt keen brass rubbers or stained glass window fans, a few dogs sat up on the pews next to their owners probably so that they could get a better view of the flower arrangements, but Billy sat well behaved and quietly at my feet through out.

As we sat in the pew listening to the story of St Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals, whose Saints day it was, I was suddenly transported back to my school days. No we didn't have any animals at our school but my memory was stirred because of a particular smell, the girls at my primary school wore red and white gingham dresses in the summer and red kilts in the winter. Sitting in Church on Sunday as the aromour of wet dog rose up from Billy to meet me, it smelt exactly like wet kilts drying after a rainy break time. I can clearly remember the classroom after a wet playtime being filled with the fug of our kilts drying and it smelling rather more like an Australian sheep shearers convention than a primary school. Funny how such a horrid smell can bring back such a warm memory. Yes Billy was clean but he definitely wasn't dry and the smell of his wet fur would have out-ponged any incense, if it had been an incense burning type of Church.

Part way through the service, everyone who had brought an animal was invited to take their pet up to the altar rail for the animal to receive a blessing. What a motley procession we looked, all shape and size of dogs queueing alongside Guinea pigs, chickens, rats and rabbits. I had to keep Billy away from a certain Chihuaha, who I knew from previous encounters really hated Billy, and from the other Westie present who was beautifully groomed and would have shown Billy up, but other than that it all passed off without incident. Billy sat reverently at the altar rail, looking as innocent as any choir boy, and no one was to know that he wasn't actually showing respect as he was in gods house, but was actually hoping for one of the treats I had in my pocket. Put a dog collar on him (again pun intended) and I think he could look like he was a candidate for a papal election.

On the way out of the Church the dogs were given a dog biscuit, Billy did embarrass me a bit by insisting on sitting on the coir mat inside the door to eat his and then triple checking the mat and surrounding area to make sure he hadn't missed any crumbs. The trouble is now, I suspect, Billy won't want to walk past the Church as he will expect to go in and have a biscuit.

I'm not a very religious person, but you've got to admire the church for being such optimists to lay on such a service. It could have gone very differently, there could have been fights, wee and poo everywhere, animals escaping and a real hullabaloo. I do think that if you expect things to turn out well, they probably will do though. So maybe it was the churchs' optimism that made the service a success, maybe it was us all having well behaved pets, maybe it was because there were no c, a, t, s present and maybe there was intervention from a higher level. Billy doesn't care, he had a biscuit even if he did have to suffer the ignominy of a bath to earn his treat.