Back to the Trenches

Back to the Trenches

Monday mornings in January have a particular flavour: cold, damp, and a hint of “why did I ever think being a professional dog walker would be relaxing?”

Coffee in hand, I start the day with the usual ritual: emails, texts, and frantic scheduling. It’s the first proper working week of the year, so the inbox has transformed overnight into a battlefield of messages. Bookings for the week, client questions, last-minute requests—priorities first, the rest can wait.

Andy is working for Wickes at the moment, fitting kitchens. Just before Christmas, a client cancelled a four-month job he was due to start. Being December, it was impossible to find another job to fill the gap, so he jumped straight into kitchens, working alongside his friend Drew. He seems to be enjoying it—at least as much as anyone can enjoy lifting cabinets, measuring endlessly, and dealing with the occasional misbehaving hinge.

Today I am back in the field with the usual suspects:

• Alice – black mongrel extraordinaire, testing gravity in puddles.

• Nicolas – small cavalier, panicking at every movement of every leaf.

• Shiva – calm German Shepherd, calculating, supervising, and occasionally rescuing.

• Client dogs – unpredictable, large, and completely convinced that controlled walking is a human conspiracy.

Leads on. Gates open. Dogs scatter. Alice immediately discovers a puddle and dives in like a furry Olympic diver. Nicolas barks at the puddle as though it has personally insulted him. Shiva calmly navigates us through the chaos, ensuring we avoid major collisions and potential injuries.

One client dog spots a squirrel. Another spots a leaf. Alice spots a twig, which she must chew immediately, and one of the client dogs decides my boot is a perfect chew toy. Gabe attempts to assist, quickly realising that calling dogs in unison is less effective than an orchestral percussion section gone wrong.

Eventually, after mud, bark, tangled leads, and minor interpretive dancing from Alice, we reach the field. Off-lead chaos ensues. Dogs run, spin, wrestle, leap vertically, and redefine physics. I chase. Ben chases. Gabe chases. Shiva herds. And somewhere in the distance, a client dog decides gravity is optional and launches off a slight incline.

After twenty minutes of field theatrics, everyone is muddy, exhausted, and slightly traumatised—but alive. Leads back on. Dogs returned. Vehicles loaded.

Back home, the house smells faintly of damp coats and leftover breakfast. Coffee is mandatory. Alice shakes water everywhere. Nicolas trembles slightly. Shiva sits like a dignified general. Ursie and Mortimer are unimpressed.

I finally collapse with a strong coffee, surveying the battlefield. Andy will be measuring cabinets with Drew, blissfully unaware of muddy chaos in the village fields.