OK I admit it — yesterday’s post was a cop-out. Just whacking a photo up there with a lame joke attached was worse than just phoning it in. Or maybe it was just phoning it in. Let’s just say I was just really tuckered out from the killing frenzy the day before. Plus we had tradies in and out all day, installing reverse-cycle air conditioning, so no time for deep and meaningful thought.

So I thought I’d have a quick look at something which represents a huge part of the whole Corner Cottage vision, both in terms of us using this time to live the Good Life away from COVID-19, which also involves doing things we’ve always talked about but for numerous reasons haven’t had the chance.

There’s so much to write about this that today we’ll only be able to assay the very slightly-sloping foothills of the metaphorical mountain we have to climb. Which is that we’re looking at adopting a dog.

I’m what you may call a dog lover. One of those people who will squat down and make a fuss of your dog when I visit your house, or anywhere else you may be with your canine companion. It’s so fulfilling to scratch their ears, rub their belly, ruffle their head. Dogs have such a simple and — I think — admirable outlook on life. They’re not complicated like people: they want to belong, they want to please, and they want to have fun. Without exception, they want to eat stuff.

As I mentioned in connection with Morriss the one-eyed cat, most animals aren’t given to self-reflection, worrying about the future, or self-image. Dogs are especially like this — which this cartoon I lifted off the internet neatly summarises. (I can’t for the life of me find out whose work this is, for which I apologise — if it’s yours, let me know.)

Years ago, my friends and I used to go for long runs with our dogs. On the part of the run where they could go off-leash, they would race ahead, following their noses hither and thither, then come back again, then shoot off at a tangent. It dawned on me, in that meditative way running instils, that for the dogs there was no difference between thought and action. The body went where the nose directed — no processing required. What we were seeing, in effect, was a consciousness interacting with the landscape — or pure joy, I reckon.

Add to this rather abstract thought the fact that my family always had dogs (and cats, rabbits, a hamster and other more or less long-lived pets), so they bring with them powerful associations of home and community. And this is what dogs like too — a dog-whisperer will tell you that they enjoy having their place within a pack, where they belong to something greater than themselves.

I spent nearly 20 years in near inner-city East London, where a two-bedroom, fourth-floor flat was no place for a dog. Many neighbours did have them — some rather large breeds too — which they would walk late at night or early in the morning in the park outside my window. All I could think of was the many other hours of the day when the poor beast was cooped up away from the smells and sights of the outdoors. I just couldn’t do it.

So to enhance our new semi-rural life, a dog was definitely a much-welcomed possibility. And it seemed to me that a rescue would be a good idea: providing a new home for a pooch that had for some reason been ‘surrendered’. And there’s a better chance a rescue would be house-trained, I figured.

We’ve been checking the online resources for dogs to adopt, but it’s proving harder than I’d thought. For one thing, due to social distancing you can’t go along and visit the RSPCA and make your choice; plus, we’re not the only ones who’ve had this idea — the phenomenon of the COVID puppy is well-known. But hardest of all is that there’s no stand-out candidate to make deciding easy — or to put it another way, they’re all so appealing it’s hard to pick just one.

Just looking at row after row of doggo mug shots, every single one wearing their most appealing ‘love me’ expression, is a lesson in self-denial — I would happily take all of them, even the ones with behavioural ‘issues’, euphemistically outlined in the blurb. But we can only take one (or maybe two), and that makes the decision extra-significant and difficult.

For the moment our doggie longings are somewhat satisfied by our extended family’s dogs in Braidwood. There are three: Sheila, a huge, beautiful and very dumb Ridgeback; Cruise, an older, wise and independent Jack Russell; and Penelope, a tiny, hyperactive long-haired chihuahua pup who has no idea she is small. A good range of sizes, shapes and temperaments to keep us engaged. I’ll tell you more about them in future posts.

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Anyway, as soon as we’ve located our new family addition, they’ll be featured here. Wish us luck — and if you know of anyone with a well-behaved, toilet-trained, intelligent and friendly hound needing a home, you know where to find us.