Boodie and the lads

Last week, as I was browsing in a friend’s second-hand bookshop, I spotted a bookmark pinned on the wall.  The image took me aback, it was the absolute likeness of Boodie, Harry Husband’s old dog.  I was immediately reminded of this little story.

One evening, many moons ago, Harry Husband and I were out walking with Boodie, (short for Boudicca).  She was a French mongrel; I always thought of her as rather like a seventeenth-century French dairymaid, there was a modesty about her, she was never demanding, yet quietly strong.  She’d brought up Ben and Liam, two teenage boys, my step sons.  Boodie was a no-nonsense kind of dog, old school in her looks and her ways.

That evening she was off the lead and running ahead of us, walking towards us was a rowdy bunch of teenage boys.  I could see by their body language that they were angry, had I been alone, I would have crossed the road to give them space.  They were using foul language and jostling amongst themselves, I sensed they were on the verge of kicking off.

Boodie crossed the road, she was perhaps one minute ahead of us.  She trotted up to the lads, and stopped in the middle of the group.

She just stood there and did nothing. 

One of the lads stroked her head, she stood solid, the lads then stopped and stood around her.  For a few moments their attention was on her.  As we walked closer, the boys’ body language completely changed, then their spoken language changed too.  

By the time we’d caught up with her, which was only seconds later, the whole atmosphere had changed.  I can’t really say what she’d done.  I just saw the results, clear as day in front of us.

The lads were calmed.

Boodie then re-joined us for the rest of the walk. 

Job done.

Image:          Beloved Boodie just standing doing nothing.