Pepi and I: Do we look after our dogs, or do they actually look after us?

By Jitka Schieff

Does freshly deceased rat taste better than frozen steak?
Can dogs weed a flowerbed?
Does the Universe provide free birthday cakes in a park?
As soon as Jitka and her fiancé buy a house, it’s time for Jitka to fulfil her long-time dream: to have a faithful, cute, furry friend, capable of true, unconditional love.
The new addition to their family is strong-willed, with a clear focus on his own wants. He displays daily his obvious love of all the things the world so generously provides for him, especially if it tastes good, or at least is not completely inedible.
Not aware yet that a dramatic turn of events is just around the corner, Jitka and her fiancé are enjoying life with the many surprising and frequently comical situations that Pepi drags them into. As life, so often unpredictable, can change laughter into tears, joy into fear and vice-versa, Jitka’s secure world is turned upside down and she is hurtling down the roller coaster with Pepi by her side. Will they make it?
These are life lessons – powerful, maybe, but always entertaining.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: May 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781398420366

Jitka Schieff

Jitka Schieff was raised in pre-Velvet-Revolution Czechoslovakia. With her family, she emigrated to Australia, which became her new home. Spending most of her adult life in Sydney and loving travel, she also spent several years in London and Rome. In more recent years Jitka moved to France and later back to her native Czech Republic, where she now lives in Prague. Her friends, highly entertained and greatly moved by her stories, persuaded her to put them down on paper. Pepi and I is her first book.

Book preview

Chapter I

I want a big dog. So big that it knocks me down when I get home. Right there, at the door, said my fiancé Pete and looked at me, waiting for my reaction.

Pete was not a big man; actually, he was shorter than me. But not much, just about couple of centimetres, which only meant I was saving my high heels for an occasion when the look I was trying to go for had a priority to saving Pete’s feelings. He was not skinny, he was not fat, he was what someone could describe almost cuddly, and definitely not a ‘muscle man’. To knock him down would not be an extremely hard job.

But still, I was rather surprised. Pete’s request was very specific, though after two years living together, I’ve learned to expect the unexpected. Nevertheless, I had to stay focused on my objective of getting a dog.

You don’t mean a Great Dane, do you? I said.

The blank look on Pete’s face told me he knew very little about dog breeds. Not to mention the diversity in their sizes. In fact, he never had a dog in his life, neither was he—till now—interested in having one. Therefore, he could be hardly expected to know the difference between Chihuahua and Rottweiler. So, it was not his fault; it was just the circumstance of his life. Now, luckily for him, he had me to explain things and hopefully get him to agree with my vision of our future dog.

I understood Pete was clearly expecting a dog which would be very excited by his return home, much more than I could ever be, even if I’d try to overdo my ‘welcome-home-Pete’ in an effort to make him happy. That was all OK, I was wishing for a dog too, much more than I have actually let him know.

My desire to have a dog in Australia must have run—by then—for at least the last fifteen years. And finally, it was going to happen! But I was trying not to show too much excitement, I wanted to play it safe.

Naturally, I had my own vision of my future pet. I expected him or her to be faithfully by my side for many years to come, sometimes even to share a couch with me. But the image was very different in size to the one Pete had.

In my own family, ever since I could remember, the ownership of dogs was limited to one breed only—the cute, cuddly Cocker Spaniel. Only once sneaked in this lineage the ‘street gene’. It had happened in a moment of not paying enough attention to a female Cocker Spaniel in heat, which belonged to our auntie. After auntie gifted us with one of the offspring, she swore that the result of this doggy-union (a puppy with pointy, sticking upward ears) was a pure and thorough Cocker Spaniel, only missing official papers. ‘The ears will definitely grow longer later’, she promised. When the result of this street hook-up grew to its full size, it became a black, cute, fluffy and very smart creature, still missing the long Cocker Spaniel ears. However, by that time, we did not care anymore about his looks and loved him just the same.

Pepi contemplating the use of garden pond with its gold fish population

As I said, these cute happy dogs with sad-looking eyes were at all times fully respected family members since I was four years old. And that did not change even after I had left Europe. Back there, in the midst of my family in the heart of the old continent, it was still happening, only now without me. I missed some canine companion terribly, but my living conditions did not allow me to even think about having a dog. For a long time, that had been for me only a dream. But now, things were finally on a way to change. So I had to explain it all to Pete, I had to make him see the advantage of my own canine vision.

But Pete, I always wanted a Cocker Spaniel… I said leisurely.

As I said, not having had a dog before, Pete also didn’t have much of an idea what being knocked down by a dog actually entitled. Plus, on a practical side, he was gone to the office most of the time every weekday. It was going to be mostly up to me to take care of this creature, this new member of our small family.

A Cocker Spaniel?

Pete looked almost confused. I could see he was trying to imagine how a Cocker Spaniel looked, but his brain was not providing the image. Thoughtfully, he was looking at me and waited. I waited too. I didn’t want him to think I doubted his wisdom. Only when the silence started to feel awkward, he spoke, I am not sure…

That was no problem, I was ready to explain the matter further, I had to do it gently and diplomatically. Too much depended on it. The choice of dog breed had to be done right. I disregarded Pete’s lack of knowledge of visual characteristics of dogs.

So, how about a compromise? A dog which looks like a Cocker Spaniel but is actually bigger? That should work. He may even be able to knock you down too.

Sure, I inflated a little the last information, but little I knew at the time that it was going to be possible, and in fact, it will happen more than once.

Let’s get a Springer Spaniel then, shall we? I pushed further and added my most alluring (so I believed) smile.

This breed, the Springer Spaniel, was actually the one I wanted the most of all, even more than the Cocker Spaniel. That was truly my ‘dream dog’. I still could see in Pete’s eyes a slightly blank look, he had no idea what I was talking about, but as he did love me and trusted me, and also I suspect he didn’t want to look totally ignorant, he agreed.

OK, then. Let’s. Can you take care of it?

I could feel my pulse quickening, a mini heat wave washed over my entire body. Trying to keep cool, not smile too broadly; YES, YES, I am—(we are, it is real and official now)—going to have a dog!

How I had longed for this moment…

I immediately sprang into action; I checked all the local newspapers for ads announcing arrivals of new puppy litters. There wasn’t much available at that time; puppies (and especially Springer Spaniels) were obviously out of season. There were some German Shepherds or Poodles, a few Australian Cattle Dogs, but that was just about all. I asked everybody I could think of, who may have some interest in dogs, if they’d heard of any breeder of Springer Spaniels. But my effort was without any encouraging result.

For several years at that time, I worked for a major international cosmetic house in Sydney as a promotional consultant and make-up artist. I had travelled and worked around the city to give a boost to the brand, to beautify clients by giving them a makeover here and there or to conduct exclusive and very relaxing Japanese facial massages. Occasionally even, with a microphone in my hand, I had to entice customers of large department stores to come closer and try the services on offer. But sometimes, I would just fill in if the counter staff was on holiday or sick. I liked this way of working; I was often meeting new people, I was in lovely surroundings and yet, I did not have to deal with a tedious nuisance of gossips so often going around some of these places. But in a way, there was always something new to look forward to.

One day, my work brought me to Chatswood, a very popular and large shopping centre in one of the inner-city suburbs. This centre had a well-known and quite busy pet shop. Often, I used to go there on my lunch or coffee break, just to stare longingly in the window, where usually a fresh litter of puppies was on display. I loved the lovely fuzzy feeling this ignited inside me, the sweet daydreaming of holding one of them in my arms.

That particular day as usual, I stopped in front of the window. But this time I aimed for the window not just to get my usual ‘doggy-fix’, this time I had a purpose—I was seriously looking for a dog to buy. And the very next moment, my heart literally skipped a beat; there on the upper display level inside the shop, I saw them. A sweet whirl of brown and white creatures, all with long, hanging-down ears and those sad English Springer Spaniel eyes!

After the skip, my heart started to make up for the lost time and was racing; I could feel sudden drops of perspiration all over my body. I could feel my face burning red, worrying that people around me would think there was something wrong with me. But then something else took completely over my whole body as if an invisible, powerful magnet pulled me still closer to the window and I stopped seeing people around me. There were only the puppies and me; I counted five of them, all absolutely adorable.

One of the puppies drew my attention even more. That one had on its white face and body, the most brown spots and looked the cutest—like a mischievous little boy. The ‘freckled’ puppy stood up on its back legs, stretched up and leaned against the glass separating us. It looked straight at me. Then started frantically moving its front paws and wiggling its whole small body. I could swear it was telepathically calling to me: Me, me, me…

Excuse me, could I please get to hold this one? I asked the salesgirl, pointing to the wiggling puppy.

Sure, just a minute. I’ll get the window key.

The girl reached under the counter and pulled out a bunch of keys. Then she opened the glass door and the puppy so determinedly trying to make a hole through the glass with its front paws, almost fell out. The girl stopped the puppy from falling and lifted it from the display window. She passed me the furry, squirming thing.

This was a big moment! I finally held in my arms the warm, soft, freckled little body, I was breathing in its delicious puppy skin scent. If it was at all possible, I could feel my heart racing even faster than before. I also noticed that the little dog was a boy. Exactly what I wanted! The doggie started to lick my face and tried to pull my hair as it was hanging down, while I was looking at him. Then I remembered something somebody once told me; to find out a level of intelligence in a dog, you should put the puppy down, step back and use your bunch of keys to make a ringing sound. The puppy that won’t be scared by the sound, but comes closer to investigate the source of the noise, is the smart one.

Not that it would make any difference in my decision, this puppy was mine, never mind what, but I’d put the puppy down anyway and reached for the keys in my handbag. The very moment the dog’s little paws touched the floor, he started to explore the shop space. Before I could start to conduct my ‘intelligence test’, the puppy’s nose led him straight and unmistakably to the stored bags of dog-food.

When the ringing sound of my bunch of keys reached his ears, the dog turned, looked in the direction from where the sound was coming and then simply continued in his investigative journey, which turned into his clumsy attempt to get inside the bag. His attention was primarily focused on those stored bags lying on the floor, and a bunch of noisy keys was not going to divert him from it.

He definitely was not scared, he was curious! He had his preferences sorted out. No doubt a great sign of an exceptional intelligence. This was my dog!

Excuse me, would you please put this one on hold for me? I definitely want to buy him. I have to go back to work now, but I will return after I finish work with my husband. (Pete use to call himself ‘my husband’ from the moment he asked me to marry him, and I agreed.) We definitely want this one. Definitely.

OK, I will mark its ear, said the salesgirl and made a cross inside the puppy’s ear with a pen. Will not sell it to anybody else, she smiled.

I could not wait for the end of my shift. The hours were deliberately stretching into days, I was sure of it. When the end of my shift finally arrived, I met Pete outside the store’s staff entrance. He was not sharing my level of excitement, but my own level was so high, I do not think anything or anybody would be able to match it, or even pull me down from my height. Not even Pete’s lack of elation was affecting me. However, there certainly was some curiosity on his face.

In the pet shop, he turned straight away to the practical side of acquiring a dog. We also learned that this was the only male puppy in the litter, and its mother was a young, 1-year-old beautiful female specimen of English Springer Spaniel called Fern. Fern was not just an ordinary dog. Already at her young age, she seemed to hold her own CV. We were presented, from a folder titled ‘Fern’, with a few photographs of a good-looking female dog with and also without her human family.

After finishing all the formalities, exchanging money and the paperwork, we left the shop. All I wanted was to cuddle our new doggy, admire every inch of his spotty, warm and constantly moving little body and let him lick my hands as a way of our first bonding. But that evening after work, I had to stick to my planned schedule by going that evening to my regular weekly acupuncture appointment, organised many weeks ago. Therefore, it was solely up to Pete to get the new puppy home. But to say I was looking forward coming back home that, would be a gross understatement.

Unbeknown to me at that time, in the booth of Pete’s car was a container prepared for the task; a carton box roughly the size of 50 x 50 cm. After all, in Pete’s mind, it was a perfect tool for transporting a newly purchased baby animal to its new home. He had no idea…

Honey, I am home! Two hours later, I called from the door and slammed it behind me. Where are you?

As I entered the living room, right away the huge distress-vibes hit me. The space was filled with them to the brim. Pete’s face looked as if on the edge of collapse. There was an odour of puppy urine emanating from something that used to be a towel, now thrown into a corner. Before I had a chance at last to scoop the brown and white ‘fur-ball’ running excitedly towards me, a whole multitude of grievances from Pete landed on my head.

Bloody hell, I could have been killed many times over.

Pete always had a tendency to exaggerate. He continued.

That bloody dog! He would not stay in the box! I am driving and the dog is climbing on my head! And he was also crying the whole time I was driving. I could have been killed! You had taken off to your…something, and it was only up to me to get that dog home.

For a few seconds, I was looking at Pete, not knowing what to say. I also did not yet know the full facts that Pete had actually prepared the carton box, barely bigger than a shoebox, for the transport and above all, that he was expecting this dog to stay inside. And I obviously had no idea what a humongous task I was expecting from a grownup man to transport a small domestic animal on a ten-minute car journey. But Pete was inconsolable.

You just took off to your acupuncture and it was all up to me!

He genuinely looked shaken. When I suppressed my urge to laugh, I started to feel sorry for Pete. I remembered that it was not his fault, he had never had a dog before, so he could not have any idea…

I know, honey, I am sorry, and I am glad you’ve survived.

Then I focused back on the essential. After all, what really mattered now was—we had a dog!

What are we going to call him?

However strange it may be, and it may even have a subconscious connection to some mysterious inner source inside of us, most people have a tendency to call pets in their lives the same name over and over. Perhaps only with slight variations. Thus, the family pet names usually run in multi-generational layers of almost identical names. Our family was no different. I do not think of it as a sign of lack of imagination, I think of it more as a matter of the heart. Once the animal enters the love-chamber of our heart under a certain name, it just stays there. And after a sad departure of this animal, the love still stays in the heart. That particular pet will be loved forever, and its name is perhaps always a reminder of this love. The ‘New Animal’ then, by sharing the name, ignites your love-bond with it even faster and makes it stronger.

But I thought, with a new continent, perhaps some change in tradition may be a good idea. Shortly after my arrival ‘Down-under’, I had found an abandoned, or maybe lost, dog in a bush-land, and this scruffily cute and very smart boy dog with definite criminal tendencies (stealing anything arousing his fancy from a neighbourhood, from teddy bears, jumpers or frozen chickens put outside in the sun to defrost), became my first Pepi. Pepi; a nickname from the ‘old continent’ in many languages for Joseph, was in my mind synonymous for a mischievous, young male creature. And mischievous he definitely was, many times over. So to be faithful to the fresh naming tradition, the new puppy with his ‘freckled’ face became—Pepi.

Chapter II

I had met Pete after my last and several months-long stay in Italy. My time there was actually more than just a stay; I lived in Rome for several wonderful and memorable months. With my Italian boyfriend, I travelled around his homeland a bit, meeting many interesting people and lovely members of his family. I missed my Italian life; I missed my Italian friends. I was trying to get used to the different climate again, to the reversed seasons of the Southern Hemisphere and the way of Australian lifestyle generally.

After a while, when deciding with my boyfriend how to deal with our long-distance relationship better, how to avoid the constant heartache, he made the decision for both of us; he was not ready to settle down (meaning: get married). It was not what I wanted to hear, but it was the reality.

For some time, I felt rather misplaced, ungrounded and a bit shaken. Pete’s freshly-found attention and admiration was perfectly timed— ‘just what the doctor ordered’ for my confused emotions, and very welcomed. I soon fell for his natural charm, quick wit and his desire to please me, and of course, I loved wining and dining me in style too. It was greatly appreciated by me, and soothing my aching heart. Huge bouquets of deliciously fragrant flowers, French champagne, ballet shows at the beautiful Sydney Opera House and much more. And much later came those delightful ‘Weekend Breaks’! It was not surprising I gradually, even though slowly, fell in love with him.

On one of our long-weekend breaks, this time in tropical Vanuatu, amid the most romantic surroundings (a restaurant set up right on a beach), Pete had asked me to marry him. It did come only few months in our relationship, but it was not a surprise. By then, I did feel very much in love with him, I felt loved and admired back. The world seemed to me as it should be. We both returned to Sydney on a pink cloud of happiness, and we started our search for a suitable house to live in together.

After a few weeks of viewing many unsatisfactory dwellings, we found a satisfactory one. This house was in a quiet street, with hardly any traffic, in a leafy and affluent Northern suburb, not far from the centre of the city. It stood on a corner block with tall palm trees, fish pond on the bottom, flat part of the garden and a rather unkempt lawn (which I actually liked specifically for that look). The view of bush-land across the street and neighbouring gardens was also lovely. The house itself was not great, but liveable, and had great potential for some extension and improvement. With use of a bit of foresight, this was my dream house. The papers were exchanged and signed, the legalities finalised. Soon, we were the proud owners of Our Home, and the time was right to get a dog. And that we did, we got the absolutely best and perfect one.

The five months old Papi after victorious battle with a broomstick

Pepi took to his new home with great enthusiasm; there were so many things to chew on, so many things to at least taste and lick, if not devour them completely. The initial furnishings of our house were the remains and combination of equipment from my and Pete’s previous lives. It was a mingle of bits and pieces from my old, small flat, and marginally better furniture from Pete’s old house, sold in the auction before we purchased the new one. Especially the folding chairs from Ikea, which came from my place, were Pepi’s favourites. It must have been the wood they used. The soft Swedish pine bore the most marks of sharp puppy teeth. The chair legs were in some places almost chewed off.

Pepi’s major woodwork on the furniture was naturally done without our presence. Getting home from work was always full of unexpected discoveries. Which of the household pieces will be the one changing its appearance today? Sometimes, for a change, the awaiting surprise was the discovery of total disappearance of a particular object.

For example, for quite a few days, Pete could not find his left slip-on sandal. Wherever we looked, the whereabouts of the missing footwear remained a mystery. Until one day, when vacuuming under the sofa, I found a strange object stuck to the head of the vacuum cleaner. After closer inspection, I recognised the dismal remnant of the sole of the missing sandal, just a small piece of thicker plastic approximately 5 x 5 centimetres. That night, after showing Pete what happened to his left sandal, Pete decided to throw what was left of it back to Pepi. I guess the intention was for Pepi to keep playing with it; however, a few days later the remaining piece disappeared from this world completely. It was not hard to imagine where to.

Our house was close to several beautiful nature reserves of different sizes, with creeks running through them, flowing into the beautiful Sydney Harbour. To walk in these leafy, but still relatively wild spaces was extremely pleasurable. These are not manicured parklands; these are truly bush-land pockets placed so conveniently to the Sydney city centre. I used to love walking through them and loved to feel the powerful yet calm peace of nature around me. Now, I even had a furry companion to join me and share my pleasure. Occasionally, I even managed to convince Pete to come and walk with us.

On one of these Sunday afternoon walks, with the weather as perfect as it could possibly be, all three of us set out on a bush exploration along one of those creeks. Pepi was showing off his curiosity and bravery in the face of all those new and strange things of the world around him. Sniffing and deeply contemplating each stone, each fallen twig in his path, totally absorbed in his research, he did not pay much attention to objects outside of his study field. To our right-hand side, there was a two-and-a-half metre-deep man-made stone corridor, functioning as an end part of the creek, leading its waters into the harbour. All this was just one and half metre away from the trail where we were walking. The walls of the corridor were steep, rectangular to the water level.

Then I had a vision.

He is going to fall in, first I had a thought, then I said it aloud.

No, he’s not, replied Pete.

Virtually at the same time