Do(d)ggy Business

By W Abrie

Synopsis

I am Doggy, a trained guide dog. Together with Scruffy, we are responsible for this book. It is not so much about us, more about the adventures we have shared with our owners.

 

My owner is a partially blind lady lawyer. Her boss used her name to facilitate his illegal weapons trading activities without her knowledge. In the end she got involved in a legal battle she was forced into and where the unauthorised bank account came to her notice. Her husband did not want to let matters rest and that motivated the Hidden Men to move against her and her family. They were people in influential government positions, making her fight for survival unequal.

My mate Scruffy could only be described as a pavement special. A soldier, fighting a nasty Dictator, adopted him. The Dictator was the main beneficiary of the Hidden Men's weapons business.

 

Events brought our owners together, allowing them to join forces, fighting the Hidden Men and the Dictator. Our enemies were too strong for us and forced us into hiding. It was not possible to fight them from below. We had to get on top of them. The only way to do that was to go into politics. That was where my owner's crazy sister came into play. By the way, when I say the sister was crazy, I meant it.

 

The result of it all was that my owner nominated herself to stand for President of our Federation. It resulted in an election fight that was on a knife edge, most of the time. The Hidden Men did not take the challenge lying down. The outcome would determine the future of our owners, the Hidden Men and the Dictator.

I am not at liberty to say how it all turned out - to find out you will have to read the book. I can say I am sorry about it, but I am not.

 

Finally, the narrative can be described as multi-layered; the plotting fascinating and realistic; and the atmosphere intriguing. A few people might find it unrealistic, a dog telling the story, but that is only just because they do not really understand dogs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Willem Abrie
• Release date: Dec 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393427292

W Abrie

One would not usually associate a person with a Doctorate in Accounting; retired Professor teaching accounting and tax; and who is currently working as an auditor, to be involved with fiction. For the record, I have also written many text books for students and professional people in the legal and accounting sphere. I have even wrote a book on numbers in the bible. There were all based on research and very different from the style one would use for fiction. My aim with writing Do(d)ggy Business was to provide readers with a few hour of relaxation and to encourage them to use their imagination. That was apart from me enjoy writing it.

Book preview

Chapter 1 – Prologue

The evaluation

The President of the guide dog association was discussing my future with my trainer. They decided I was unsuitable to act as a guide dog. I thought their procedures and evaluation methods stank and they were wrong about me. I had to admit, from their perspective they might have a point.

I was bred to be a guide dog. A good guide-dog must be emotionally balanced; docile; smart; obedient; and affectionate. Aggressive or fearful dogs are not acceptable. I passed all tests and training with flying colours, being an ideal young dog to be allocated to a blind person.

That was until they introduced me to the blind person, the one they have selected to be my owner. He was a bad person. Dogs can sense when a person is really bad, like that person. There was no way I was going to look after him, because he would not care for me either. I therefore bared my teeth when he tried to touch me. Normally a good guide dog would just move away from a bad person, but in that case, I stood my ground.

They kept on discussing my situation in my presence, not caring how I felt about it:

Trainer: "It is such a shame to let this young dog go. He has shown such promise, only to ruin it at the last moment. Labradors are known for their lack of aggression; I am wondering what has gone wrong."

President: "Perhaps we can still use him. Remember that female lawyer. She aggressively insisted we gave her a dog, even though she was not blind enough to qualify. I am thinking, we can give this dog to her and get rid of the dog and her at the same time. It will be fitting, because neither of them really makes the cut."

Trainer: "A good idea, but still a waste of time and effort training the dog."

President: "I disagree, I think the cost of training this dog is far less than the legal cost we will otherwise need to fight the lady. In the end we may even be forced to give her an approved dog. After all, our guidelines on who qualifies are not all that clear. This way the dog is not totally wasted."

Sara

That was then how it happened that I was allocated to my new owner, Sara Sharpe. She is a nice person and talks to me as if I am human, even though she insists on calling me Doggy. I must admit, she does have an aggressive side, I suppose making us a good fit. However, like me, she reserves her aggression for situations where it is absolutely needed.

She told me she had normal eyesight once, until a party in a crowded restaurant. They were celebrating the engagement of one of her friends when a bearded fellow entered the establishment. She did not see him but was told afterwards he tried to throw acid in the face of the girl at a table close to the one she was sitting. The girl ducked in time, avoiding injury.

Sara, who was sitting with her back to the girl, turned around to see what the commotion was about. Unfortunately, some of the liquid was travelling in her direction at that moment and some of it landed in her eyes. She lost about 70% of her sight in her right eye and 20% in her left eye.

The bearded fellow was arrested and charged. He claimed the targeted girl ended their relationship the previous day, causing him to become depressed. He tried to deal with his sorrow and took some prohibited drugs to assist him in that regard. He then decided the girl treated him badly and revenge was in order. He could not remember what he did next and pleaded temporary insanity.

The Judge ruled the accused was indeed incapacitated because of the drugs he took. Therefore, he lacked sufficient understanding and could not have made rational decisions. The verdict: a suspended sentence. The only condition that he enrol for treatment at a drug rehabilitation centre.

Sara approached the Judge afterwards and vigorously objected to the light sentence. She pointed to her partial blindness, caused by the actions of the accused. He got a suspended sentence, while she was going to have to deal with a life-long sentence of being partially blind. She would be unable to see any danger, especially when it was coming from her right. Negotiating traffic would, for example be a constant hazard. That was apart from handing in her driver’s licence - good sight being a requirement to be able to drive a vehicle.

The Judge, feeling guilty, gave her a letter in which he recommended a guide dog.

I could understand her frustration when the Guide Dog Association told her she was not blind enough to qualify for a dog, despite the letter from the Judge. She first tried manipulation, explaining we lived in a state to which we all refer to as the Lucky State, one of the states making up our Federation. How could they make her unlucky as to not allocating a dog to her? When it did not work, she threatened to sue them. When that did not work either, she went over into action and made good on her promise to sue them. She withdrew her action when they offered me to her.

We quickly established a good rapport, so much so that she decided I did not need a harness. She let me wear a jacket with the words guide dog on it, allowing me to accompany her everywhere. I became more of a companion than a guide dog.

I nevertheless did not neglect my duties and would step in front of her when I wanted her to stop, usually because she missed something coming from her right. She tended to withdraw into herself and did not always concentrate on where she was walking. In other words, while one could argue I was not really needed as a guide dog, in fact I did assist her in that capacity.

I must explain something most humans know, but not fully comprehend. Dogs are essentially domesticated wolves. A wolf belongs to a pack and will do anything to protect his pack. Through selected breeding dogs now associate themselves with their owners in the place of the wolf pack. In essence a dog still belongs to a pack, it only now consists of them and their human owners. Therefore, when Scruffy or I use the word us, it means us and the pack to which we belong – we as dogs and our human owners.

Chapter 2 – Civil war

Scruffy taking up the narrative:

Scruffy

I have curly hair, varying in length and colour. Although the dominant colour is brown, it is by no means the only colour. I naturally pick up dirt on my coat quickly and then I look even scruffier. The best one can say about my pedigree is that it is uncertain. I do have strong jaws and do look compact and tough.

I lived in a country we all referred to as the No-Kay Country. The name originated from our previously corrupt leader who referred to everything as going to be Okay. It always turned out to be not Okay. That was before an Army General launched a coup, becoming a Dictator. The old government resisted, and a civil war was the result.

Meeting Finger

They bombed our city without mercy. One of the bombs hit our house, killing my owners, a family of five. I was hiding under a table and was unhurt.

I hid myself in the bombed house for a few days while the bombing of the city continued. It was obvious, the attackers wanted to wipe out all resistance before they entered the city. It was raining constantly and getting water to drink was not a problem. However, food was, and I got extremely hungry. I left the house and wandered around but did not find anything eatable. I returned to my previous home, wondering what to do next.

Eventually the attacking forces decided all resistance was bombed out of the citizens of our city and entered it. Soldiers went from house to house, most of it in ruins. What they were doing to the poor people they still found alive was too horrible to describe with words only.

I was surprised to see two people entering our bombed-out house, the one with a camera and the other obviously his local guide. Some part of the roof was still intact, allowing them to take of their raincoats. The cameraman started to take a video through a window hole of what was happening in front of a neighbouring house. The window was blown out by the bombing.

The atrocities he was filming were awful. One of the soldiers was raping a woman in the middle of the street while the other ones forced her husband and kids to watch. The husband could not stand it any longer and attacked the soldier closest to him with his bare hands. He was shot in cold blood.

While this was still ongoing the cameraman said: "Finger, please get me something to drink. It is in my backpack which we left in the room where we came in."

I was wondering how a person got a name like that, but then humans were not very logical. I sensed him to be a good person and followed him into the next room.

He rubbed my neck and said: "You must be lonely and hungry. I feel sorry for you. Here, you can have this sandwich"

I really appreciated it.

At that moment another bomb hit the house, killing the cameraman in the next room and levelling the wall between us and the street. The result, the soldiers in the street saw us. They just left the poor raped woman, her kids and dead husband, reverting all their attention to us.

When Finger realized we were discovered, he quickly went to the fallen camera man’s camera. He extracted the disk with film recordings on it and put it into a pocket of my jacket. Normally dog-jackets do not have pockets, but the lady of our house, then deceased, converted a jersey into a jacket for me and did not see the reason why she should remove the pocket which was part of the old jersey.

The soldiers did see Finger extracting the disk but were too far away to see what he was doing with it. They surrounded us, making escape impossible, while the poor woman and her kids fled the area. They ignored me, obviously regarding me as of no consequence. I backed away and when they still ignored me, I went into the ruins of a neighbouring house. Part of its second floor was still intact and I went there. From there I had a good view of what was happening with Finger and could even hear what was said.

They ordered him to give the disk to them. He talked back to them in a foreign language, pretending not to be familiar with the one they were speaking. His accent was awful, and I could hear the unmistakable influence of the local language. However, they believed his pretence and tried to communicate with signs. When he pulled up his shoulders again, indicating he still did not know what they want, one of them hit him over the head with a heavy object. It knocked him out.

They frisked him thoroughly, obviously looking for the disk. When they could not find it on him, they handcuffed his unconscious body and put him in the boot of a car they were using. They left the boot open and returned to the area where Finger could have hidden the disk. They knew he never left the destroyed room where the camera man died. It did not have any good hiding places, apart from perhaps below some fallen brickwork. They literary did not leave any stone or brick unturned, but still could not find anything.

I did not want to be left alone again at the place where my home was and when the soldiers were not looking, I jumped into the boot with Finger. I hid myself behind his back. The soldier who eventually closed the boot when they wanted to leave, did not see me.

I saw the fog slowly clearing from Finger’s mind. He was unconscious for a long time. From the expression on his face I gathered he had a headache which felt like splitting open his skull. He tried to touch his head, but his wrists were handcuffed, and he couldn’t move his arms much.

In the meantime, the floor under us bumped up and down. It was dark and stuffy inside the boot. The car was obviously negotiating a road with many potholes in it.

The rebellion

Finger told me later he joined our country’s Air Force before the coup, about six months ago. The No-Kay Country itself was poor with not many opportunities for a person who had just finished school and was looking for a career, like him. He considered himself lucky to be accepted as a trainee pilot. That was before he discovered there were no aircraft available. He was not going to get any training, apart for parade-ground drilling.

Our country got a break when a huge oil field was discovered. Compared to other oil fields it was easy to extract the oil, making it hugely cost effective. Oil companies all over the world competed for the right to tap the oil. They paid bribes to politicians who eagerly accepted it. In the end most of the rights landed in the hands of the most corrupt companies, operating from countries with autocratic regimes. Our President and his close allies wallowed in wealth, while the rest of the people stayed as poor as before.

Some companies, with their head offices in a country called the Federation, were excluded from our newly obtained source of wealth. The Federation was the wealthiest country in the world and their companies were used to get preferential treatment, having the backing of their government. They did not like our government excluding them, just because they were outbribed. They therefore recruited a General in our armed forces to launch a coup, also off course, after receiving huge bribes.

The Infantry was by far the biggest military component in our armed forces. The old government thought it a good idea to remove the human rubble from the streets and forced them to join the Infantry. They put a General in charge of them and ordered him to turn them into model citizens. To his credit, he was able to knock some military discipline into his recruits. On the other hand, he failed completely in changing their lack of moral values.

It was this General who launched the coup by ordering his troops to occupy the Government House and the main television station. He notified our citizens he was their new ruler. The President he replaced, and his government were thoroughly corrupt, but they were freely elected, and most of the population therefore opposed the coup. It included most of the armed forces, except for the Infantry, who supported their General. Civil war broke out and the General was forced to retreat to a mountainous corner of our country. The legitimate government forces surrounded him there and expected him to surrender soon.

However, he had a surprise for his enemies. From somewhere he acquired superior weapons and was able to turn the tables. He quickly got control of the oil fields, allowing him to finance his government. His gain was obviously the old government’s loss and they ran out of resources.

The newly anointed Dictator feared a comeback from his opponents and wanted to obliterate them while he had the chance. The result, he bombed without mercy the cities and associated squatter camps which might accommodate a fight back. However, it was when his undisciplined troops entered the conquered cities that their lack of moral values showed. No words could describe what they did to the population.

At first, the General was unable to stop news crews from abroad filming his troop’s atrocities. Scenes about it appeared on television screens all over the world. It was also heartbreaking and disturbing: seeing people fleeing, some with awful wounds and some carrying crying toddlers. The fleeing population presented no threat to the Dictator or his troops anymore, but he nevertheless bombarded their escape routes. The calls for intervention fell on death ears.

Finger knew the source of the Dictator’s superior weapons was the Federation, whose oil companies replaced the previous one’s when he took over. The people in control of the Federation’s government therefore refused to assist the old legitimate government in the No-Kay Country. They ignored requests to intervene, claiming the world could not expect them to act as the policeman for everyone. In the past, when they did help, it was not appreciated. In that case, they were blamed for every bad event. No-one called them out about the weaponry the Dictator received from them, because they succeeded in keeping it secret.

Despite the overwhelming advantage the new weaponry provided, the forces of the old government put up a stiff fight, but eventually they were comprehensively defeated and fled with the rest of the population. The advancing Infantry was pushing most of the foreign journalists out and the plight of our country got less and less exposure.

Finger did not want to give up the fight himself and decided the best he could do was to make sure the world knew what was going on. He assisted an adventurous foreign journalist to get access to the places where the most horrific atrocities were committed. He hoped to accumulate the evidence a war crimes court could use to sentence the Dictator - sometime in the future.

Finger took the journalist to one of the last cities which had not surrender yet, the city I was living in. In that instance, the sacking was exceptionally bad. It exceeded the worse that happened in barbarian times. In one case a solder grabbed a screaming toddler at his feet and swinging crushed his head against a wall. The journalist Finger was supporting video-taped most of it. They then moved to my bombed-out house to continue the filming. The bomb, killing the journalist, meant no more filming was possible. Nevertheless, the video recordings on the disk already represented more than enough evidence about what happened.

Escaping the boot of the car

While bumping around in the boot of the car, Finger told me he was born without a middle finger on his left hand. The result, everyone called him Finger. His surname was Middle, causing many people to jokingly refer to him as Middle Finger. The deformity did not worry him too much. He could do what any normal person could do with their hands, except the left hand was not able to do heavy work.

He told me this to explain how he got his left hand out of the handcuffs. Because of his deformity, his left hand was smaller than his left wrist. When he folded his left-hand fingers together, he was able to move the left cuff on his left wrist over his left hand, freeing himself.

Luckily for us, the soldiers were overconfident, because they did not tie Finger’s feet, only using the handcuffs on his wrists. His hands were free, although the handcuffs still dangled on his right wrist. With his hands free he was able to open the boot slightly. He waited until the car slowed down, almost to a stop, navigating an unusually big pothole. He slipped out of the boot, waited for me to do likewise, before closing the boot behind us. The soldiers did not notice a thing, all concentrating on the road. It was only the driver’s job to focus on the road, but the passengers also watched the road when the going was tough – just human nature.

Finger, joining the elite guards

When we left the boot of the car, it was going through a deserted village. It was in the middle of a gorge with steep walls on both sides. Between the North wall and the road there were two deserted buildings, the only ones in the village. Both were damaged by an earlier bombing raid. To the south side of the road, there was a single railway line; a thin strip of vacant land further left; and then the South wall. The only way out of the gorge was to follow the road or rail tract, either going west or east.

The road was full of potholes, but the one in front of one building was exceptionally big, slowing the car we were travelling in sufficiently to allow us to escape.

We approached that building, hoping to find a tool Finger could use to free himself completely from the handcuffs, still dangling from his right arm. We were lucky, he did find a cutter. We also found a dead Infantry soldier. I assumed he was killed by the people who defended the building, before they were driven off.

Finger said to me: "I am going to exchange my clothes for his uniform. After all, he is not able to object. I hate to join the forces of my enemies. However, my side is thoroughly beaten, and I must survive. The Dictator can’t order me to fight against my own people, because they have all fled. Perhaps it will provide me with an opportunity to help my side from the bosom of my enemy."

The dead soldier belonged to an elite unit, used mainly to guard what the dictator regarded as important. What he did at the place where he was killed, I did not know. However, it was unlikely anyone would notice a new face in any of the units, because there was a rapid turnover in its ranks. The civil war was fierce, and many lives were lost on both sides.

Finger then said to me: "I suppose you and I am now a team. I do not know what your name is, therefore, I shall have to give you a new one. How about Scruffy.

While saying this, he dressed the deceased soldier in his old clothes, except for his old pants. For one or other reason he wanted to keep it as a spare. He was still putting it in the backpack he took from the deceased guard, planning to take it along, when the car with the soldiers returned.

Escaping the soldiers

What we did not know, the driver of the car looked in his rear mirror and saw us standing in the middle of the road just after we left the boot of the car. He did not link Finger with their prisoner, because the person he saw had a dog with him. Just outside the village the road started to go uphill. The road only levelled out after the gorge. It was on this level part the driver mentioned his observation in the rear mirror. He thought it was strange, because the village was supposed to be deserted.

There were five soldiers in the car and the one in charge was naturally a cautious person. He remembered they almost stopped in the middle of the village, because of the big pothole. He ordered the driver to stop the car so he could check the boot. He wanted the prisoner to be available for interrogation when he could find an interpreter. When they discovered the boot to be empty, he ordered his squad back.

At the top, just before entering the gorge, he instructed one of his soldiers to get out of the car and stop anyone from leaving the gorge. He told the driver of the car to continue down through the village and onwards for another ten minutes to the beginning of the gorge. He knew he boxed us in, because on foot we would not have been able to leave the gorge before he had closed both ends of it. He ordered his squad out of the car and started to walk them up the gorge towards the village. It was a good tactic, because the only way we could go was up or down the gorge, the walls of it too steep to escape that way. All they needed to do was to push us upwards to where the soldier at the top was waiting for us.