“We can’t possibly get a dog, I’m far too busy,” was my initial short and terse response, but of course I was wrong.
With my wife Christina and son Zachary taking my recalcitrance as their cue to act like dogs with a bone, it was only a matter of time before the pack forced me to cave in to their demands.
Once I finally relented, the choice of breed was relatively painless. With my own father always claiming an allergy to cat and dog fur, I’d had a ‘dog-less’ childhood, which contrasted with Christina’s upbringing, during which a Border Collie called Tess had been an ever-present feature.
Happy for her to take the lead, my only canine stipulations were that the dog should hail from a “proper-sized” breed and crucially did not possess the “hectoring wildlife” genes. Once assured by my spouse that Border Collies were, firstly, on the big size of medium and, secondly, preferred rounding things up to chasing them, then it was all systems go.
Bramble originated from a litter in the Yorkshire Dales and seamlessly settled down to life in his new home like a duck to water. He grew at a prodigious rate in those first few months.
My first revelation about owning a Border Collie came when the penny dropped as to how much exercise he would require, which, in a nutshell, is a lot. Certainly one huge advantage to living in Chew Valley in the heart of the rural West Country means that the countryside commences just beyond our doorstep, so the walks were there – but how would I find the time to use them?
Only after a simple audit of my time did I realise I was nowhere near as busy as I thought. By marginally cutting down on some of my ‘phone-faffing’ and TV viewing, for example, I was suddenly able to perform the magic trick of clawing back an hour seemingly out of nowhere.
Additionally, while my job as a TV presenter does frequently take me away, being self-employed means I’m at home more often than not, with the result that I have become Bramble’s de facto ‘canine companion’. Eighteen months down the line, I can state with confidence that this is absolutely fine by me.
Quite possibly our favourite walk starts in our home village of Chew Stoke in Somerset, before taking in the bigger village of Chew Magna via a long and circuitous 5km route. This wonderful walk, which I had completed on just a couple of occasions in the six years prior to owning Bramble, takes us through fields and woods, around badger setts and over streams.
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By walking this route on at least a bi-weekly basis, in all seasons and in all weathers, I’ve come to know its twists and turns with a level of intimacy I’d only ever previously achieved with the back of my own hand.
Many of the distinctive trees along the walk have become waymarkers and even old friends, but it wasn’t until last spring when Bramble cocked his leg to relieve himself against one such specimen that I suddenly realised I was unsure as to its identity.
Returning with my tree identification book the following day, I was thrilled to discover that Bramble had urinated over a rare mature wych elm. A common species 50 years ago, virtually all our elms have since been wiped out by the scourge of Dutch elm disease, so good-sized trees are now considered to be as rare as hen’s teeth.
Bramble has also added a different dimension to our walks in a way I would never have imagined before: through the power of his nose. His sense of smell is so finely tuned that any fresh activity at our local badger sett, for example, be it through a spring clean or a fresh deposit in one of the latrines, will immediately be picked up by the sniffing machine by my side. These ‘updates’ from the badgers would simply have passed me by without Bramble’s olfactory diligence, and have helped me to gain both a better insight and deeper understanding into the day-to-day business of surely one of the most clandestine and misunderstood of all our mammals.
I do hope my family won’t be offended when I say that taking the dog out can often be the highlight of my day. In my biased opinion, Bramble gets an A+ for temperament, and our rambles together represent a time for quiet companionship, giving me the opportunity to strategise, to dream, or even to switch off.
However, as we don’t have exclusive use of the Chew Valley, not all our walks are executed in such splendid isolation, so these Zen moments are frequently interspersed with short bursts of intense social interaction, as Bramble bounds over to greet Cookie, Jack, Puff, Shelby, Jessie, Kiba, Mabel or Hugo with the gleeful enthusiasm of a grown-up puppy.
I always enjoy these impromptu and yet crazed canine conventions, as the game of chase that invariably follows not only provides Bramble with effectively two walks for the price of one, but also gives me a brief opportunity to engage in my new favourite topic of conversation: that of talking about dogs with people who also own dogs.
In the interests of balance, I should also say that even the best trained dogs will invariably end up flushing most of the wildlife they blunder across, meaning my trips out with Bramble have morphed into being dog walks first and nature rambles second.
This is exactly the opposite manner to which I had previously enjoyed the countryside, which, as a naturalist, invariably meant adopting the somewhat tunnel-vision approach of standing back (to cause minimal disturbance) while using binoculars or a camera to get close. However, it is only through my rambles with Bramble that I’m gaining an even greater appreciation of the wider countryside in a simple, yet equally effective way.
Instead of constantly zooming in, why not try zooming out, too? You won’t regret it.
Love dogs? Check out our pets section for advice on dog care from how to get rid of fleas to why dogs eat grass and how to house train your puppy You can also find dog walking inspiration and expert advice to help your dog behave beautifully on walks in our dog guides
We have also rounded up a selection of dog whistles for recall, dog water bottles and even dog jackets for your four-legged friend.
