Solly the Pup
Some years back I spent a happy couple of months training to be an outdoor survival instructor on a tiny island off the west coast of Ireland. The arrival of our group triggered the longest spell of fair weather anyone could remember, and the superstitious locals were somewhat reluctant to let us go. It was a beautiful spot, the Guinness was symphonic (and three quid a pint, even then) and the natives had eccentricity to spare. We were led, in a loose sense, by a dynamic but somewhat idiosyncratic former SAS guy. He had the right idea in wanting to make money by teaching survival skills to businessmen, but the wrong one about pretty well everything else. Still, he knew his onions when it came to living off the land, and under his errratic leadership an exciting time was had by all.
Among our brave band we counted Solly, without doubt the thickest dog in all natural history. Solly was an Alsatian, more or less, and about six months old. To say Solly was good natured would be a triumph of understatement. He lived solely to serve humanity, though unfortunately in the role of jester rather than anything useful. He was built like an overweight giraffe, and whenever he got excited control over his legs seemed to pass to an alien consciousness that hadn’t quite got the hang of working them. I got my first demonstration of his faithful, undying devotion to anyone at all while we were waiting at the ferry pier. “Watch this,” grinned our boss, and set off down the wooden jetty at a sprint. Game for any lark, Solly bounded along beside him, barking like a lunatic. A foot from the end, the callous human stopped dead. Solly’s spaghetti legs weren’t up to sudden halts, however, and he sailed in a graceful arc sixteen feet down into the frigid Irish Sea. Yells of encouragement brought him paddling frantically ashore, where he cowered shivering and whining on the beach. “Come on Solly!” yelled the boss, and ran off down the jetty once more. Sure enough, with a joyful yelp, the hapless mutt charged off after his beloved master – and straight into the drink again. “You’re a GOOD BOY!” chortled his tormentor, as the pathetic animal dragged himself back out of the sea, “Thick as a short plank, but a good boy!” Solly’s sodden tail wagged with delight.
For a survival training ground, the island was notably short on wild sources of nutrition. The sheep were off limits, for eating at least (they make great sleeping companions – quiet at the back), and there wasn’t a lot in the way of leafy vegetation to be found on a seven-mile rock whose summit was encrusted in salt from massive Atlantic gales that drove sea spray clean over it. Rabbits, however, abounded, and when we inexplicably tired of eating raw limpets (hint: swallow early, as the more you chew, the bigger they get), we’d try to secure one of our floppy-eared chums for the pot. If you have a dog, of course, rabbit hunting is a piece of cake. Unless it was Solly. Often as we came down off the hill in the evening dusk, we could see rabbits dotting the turf below us like little dinner nuggets. Solly was dog enough that his ears would prick up at the sight, his tail would stick out like a lance and off he’d go, bounding downhill like an avenging Fury. The bunnies would watch him from the corners of their soft, doe-like eyes, poised at the critical moment to simultaneously scatter in random directions. Solly’s brain was an early 4-bit job, slightly brighter than a door chime but not as complex as, say, a programmable toaster. Too much input would freeze it, automatically applying the brakes to any moving limbs. Multiple vectors were more than this primitive device could handle, and faced with ten fleeing rabbits it simply shut down. Solly was no better at stopping on a hillside than on a pier, however, and it could take thirty feet for him to bring all his underpinnings under control, by which time the rabbits were safely in the hedges, blowing raspberries and sticking fingers up at their gormless nemesis.
One fateful evening, Solly made a major evolutionary leap. The rabbits exploded in all directions as usual, but in one of those monkey-with-a-typewriter moments, Solly actually latched onto one and kept after it. His quarry streaked down hill like a brick down a well, but for once Solly’s legs were on speaking terms with each other and he gained steadily like a heat-seeking missile. Astounded, we cheered him on.
Had there been any data-retention device between Solly’s ears, two pieces of information might have popped onto the screen and prevented what happened next. The first is the difference in mass between a small, cuddly rabbit and a dog who never refused anything from a can (even lapping up some unguarded brown paint on one memorable occasion). Brer Rabbit is built for speed and agility, and his svelte chassis permits lightning-fast turns. Solly, on the other hand, was a thing of berserk energy and momentum, both of which were now present in far greater amounts than he could handle. Botany not being his long suit either, he had no inkling why canny Irish farmers since days of yore have planted gorse hedges at the edge of their fields. Sheep, as anyone who has had one (oh stop it) knows, will eat most things found in nature, but gorse hedges are off the menu due to their batteries of lethal thorns.
Hurtling after his prey like a furry comet, Solly clearly had the scent of victory in his nostrils. The rabbit, however, had other ideas. A foot from the hedge, it hung a left as sharply as if demonstrating a geometry problem. Solly barely had time to register this unsportsmanlike ploy before he was engulfed in a green hell. It took us a good ten minutes to extract him, perforated and whimpering, while every rabbit from there to Dublin wet itself laughing.
I’ve met some memorably odd dogs in my life (Clive was another; I’ll tell you about him anon) but Solly holds a special place in my heart. His intellect-to-mass ratio was no better than that of some corals, but for sheer devotion he took the ribbon. I often wonder what became of him.
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