Silver Arrow and Other Tales

By Beryl H Leake

This is the story of a lady and her love of animals, both domestic and wild. Her love of her garden and her intimate knowledge of it's season by season life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 10, 2014
• ISBN: 9781291979855

Book preview

Silver Arrow and Other Tales

Silver Arrow and Other Tales

Albion House Publishing

Cover design, interior design and all illustration work by John W Henson unless otherwise stated. Final preparation for press by Albion House

[e-mail]

© 2014 by Albion House

All rights reserved.  No part of this book may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form

by any means without the prior permission of the publishers,

except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review

to be printed in newspaper, magazine or journal

ISBN: 978-1-291-97985-5

To the memory of  Madame Katy. Who crossed the Rainbow Bridge in February 2014.  A perfect lady to the very end

Introduction

I am here today because of a little dog named Rufus. As a 6 year old child I was very ill and was given a Dachshund puppy in the hope that he would give me the will to live. It worked and I recovered.

That was the beginning of my love of dogs. They have been with me though the good times and the bad. The collies and the wolfhound helped to bring up my children, protecting them when they played in the forests and fields, they have made me laugh at their funny ways and sometimes they made me cry. The Greyhounds helped me through cancer never leaving me when I was feeling bad.

I have always told stories about dogs and now that I have retired I thought I would write about some of the many four legged friends that have shared my life.

Beryl Hazel Leake

Foreword

This is the first book by Beryl Hazel Leake.

Beryl is a lover of animals especially dogs.

Having currently four of her own and many

happy memories of friends who are sadly no

longer with her. She has a deep knowledge and

understanding of dogs and their needs and

personalities as shows in this current work.

Primarily aimed at children and young adults

this slim volume is the story of Silver Arrow

a greyhound who is brought up in and trained

for the racing circuit. His story follows him

from puppyhood, at his beloved mothers breast

through his training as a racing dog, and his

experience with other dogs, and also humans.

Through friendships and tragedies into his old

age reflecting upon all that his life has been

The other tales in this volume reflect Beryl’s

Relationship with her pets and her love of her

Garden and the intimate relationship she shares

with it’s inhabitants and their ways.

John W Henson.  October 2013

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank first and foremost the many canine friends

that throughout my life have helped and comforted me.

I loved them one and all, and without their inspiration this

little story would never have been written.

Thank you!

I would also like to thank John Henson for the time and effort

He has put in, to edit and format the manuscript design the

cover and illustrate my book for me

Thank you!

Last but not least, I would like to thank Albion House Publishing for publishing my book and making an old ladies dream come true

Thank you!

Silver Arrow

Chapter 1

Family

As I lay in my basket by the fire watching the storm raging outside I think back to the days of my puppyhood. I am very old now, and like to remember. I've had a long life some good and some not so good.

I was the first of my brothers and sisters to open my eyes I used to chew their tails and ears. Soon they could see and we had some wonderful games climbing on Mother and jumping on each other. Sometimes Molly our kennel maid would take mother away, she said it was to give her a rest. When we got a little older mother told us that our father was a famous champion and had won many races.

There were six of us, I was silver grey with white feet, and a small white blaze on my face, one of my brothers was brindle and the other one was nearly all black. Two of my sisters were a light sandy colour like Mother the last sister was white. She was much smaller than the rest of us.

One day a man came with Molly to look at us, mother was very worried. A little later Molly came back and took little Whitey away she told mother she was going to the dogs pound. Mother was very sad and we never saw Whitey again.

After Whitey had gone Mother changed, she did not play with us and would give a soft growl sometimes if we became too boisterous. About a week later Molly came with Jane, the other kennel maid, and took all of us out. It was the first time we had been out of our kennel enclosure. I wanted to look around. All the others were scared and just huddled in the girl’s arms.

We were taken into a room and put on the floor, it was very slippery, one of my sisters wet herself she was so frightened, The Man was there, and also a woman in a white coat. We heard later that she was a vet. I was picked up and put on a high table The Man said "Ah let me see this is