A friend of mine has just acquired a dog.  It requires to be taken on long walks twice a day and, judging from the photos I have seen of it, looks as though it has a prodigious appetite.  I feel as though I have my own dog-equivalent in the shape of my shopping trolley bag, and it has the advantage of being less needy and more economical.  It only requires walking once a week––to the supermarket and back––and any food that goes into it is purely for my own consumption.  It answers to the name of Highbury.

I always enjoy my walks with Highbury.  Outbound, unladen, he is full of energy; skips along at a healthy canter; is obedient pausing at roads; leaps up the curbs almost skittishly.  Returning home, though, I become more conscious of his age.  He’s not as young as he once was.  The weight of many similar shopping trips has begun to take its toll.  He becomes sluggish; more unresponsive to my commands; less able to take obstacles in his stride.  I can feel him dragging on his handle; tugging at the leash.

I fear the day when, all of a sudden, one of his wheels will buckle beneath him and he will no longer be able to carry the weight of his burden.  Like a thoroughbred racehorse, which breaks a leg at a jump, there will be nothing left for Highbury other than to be sympathetically put down.  It has happened to a predecessor; it would be to ignore brutal reality to think that Highbury can escape the big discarded trolley park in the sky.

But, until then, I will enjoy Highbury for being a loyal and faithful friend.  Man’s best friend?  I would suggest a definite contender.  He is never going to turn on me like an XL Bully; never going to sniff an inappropriate bottom; never going to require me to follow closely behind him with a small, black refuse bag to pick up his shit.

© Simon Turner-Tree

Simon Turner-Tree is not a natural pet-lover.