I have a shadow.
He’s 13 years old, an English working Cocker Spaniel, and Chief Happiness Officer with The GOOD Method. He sleeps for a significant proportion of the working day, has no respect for deadlines or personal space and considers chasing birds a perfectly legitimate use of company time.
But he’s extremely good at his job.
I got Dixi when he was three. His previous owner had given him up and my ex, who already had three dogs, was asked if she would take him.
It didn’t work out.
Dixi had never been properly trained and didn’t take well to being part of a pack. He was wilful, disobedient and reactive towards other dogs. So she asked if I would give him a home.
I was more of a cat person. In fact, at the time I deliberately had no pets because I was working long and unsocial hours. Taking on a difficult dog wasn’t exactly part of the plan.
But I didn’t want to be another person who gave up on him.
So Dixi came to live with me.
The beginning wasn’t easy. He was difficult and stubborn, although in fairness to him he must have been completely disoriented by everything that had happened to him.
Gradually, we got used to each other.
Then I had to go away with work for a couple of days and left him with my ex. When I came back, she told me he’d been crying after me.
I’d been missing him too.
That was probably the moment I realised we were meant for each other.
Every night, at around half eight or nine, Dixi and I go for a walk.
We do roughly three kilometres around the block. Whatever else has happened that day, it’s something I can pretty much rely on.
Since being diagnosed with prostate cancer, I’ve inevitably spent time thinking about my health and what the future might hold. Add work, money and all the other things human beings find to worry about, and there’s plenty to occupy my mind.
Dixi doesn’t care.
It’s walk time.
And for the next half an hour or so, life becomes considerably simpler.
Alongside me is a dog who is completely unconcerned about tomorrow because something apparently fascinating happened to that gate-post.
Without him, would I go for a three-kilometre walk around the block every single night?
Probably not, but he needs it. I do too.
He gets me outside when I’d rather stay inside.
He interrupts the endless human tendency to think about what happened yesterday and what might happen tomorrow, and he reminds me that not everything worthwhile needs to achieve something.
Dixi doesn’t know whether I’ve had a productive day, what my bank balance is or how many people have read something I’ve written.
He certainly doesn’t understand algorithms, mortgages, pensions or career plans.
His assessment of whether we’re having a successful evening is considerably simpler.
Did we go for a walk?
Did he find something interesting to sniff?
Was there enough food? There never is.
Did he get to spend some time with me?
All of the above? Excellent. Successful day.
There might actually be something in that outlook.
I’ve spent a lot of the last few years thinking and writing about the idea of creating more choice and control over our lives.
But there’s a danger even in that.
You can become so preoccupied with creating a better life that you forget to actually live the one you’ve got.
Dixi doesn’t have that problem.
I’ve made decisions about work with Dixi in mind. There have been jobs and working patterns that would have paid me more, but would also have meant leaving him alone for too long. So I discounted them without further thought.
Somebody looking purely at income might think that’s irrational.
I don’t.
What’s the point of trying to create more choice and control over my life if I then make decisions that leave no room for something that matters to me? Dixi is part of the calculation. He always has been.
I used to take him running with me. He’d come along while I got my miles in, perfectly capable of keeping pace.
We don’t do that anymore.
When he was younger, he ran at my pace. These days, I walk at his.
It’s not just on the walks that I notice the passage of time.
Dixi sleeps on my bed. When he was younger, he’d dash upstairs with a toy in his mouth and jump straight onto it, go round and round a few times and curl up.
He still heads upstairs with the toy in his mouth. The enthusiasm hasn’t changed, but these days the run upstairs has become a walk, and when he gets to the bed he waits for me to lift him onto it.
So I do. It doesn’t occur to me to not.
Sometimes, if he stands up too quickly after he’s been lying down for a while, his legs give way beneath him. Occasionally it happens when he jumps down from the bed at whatever ungodly hour he has decided it’s time for me to arise.
That breaks my heart.
I think I’ve changed as much as he has.
When he stops to sniff something for what seems like an absurd amount of time, I wait. When he wants to walk slowly, we walk slowly.
Perhaps when he was younger I’d have been more inclined to hurry him along. There were miles to cover. Training to be done. Somewhere to get to. Time targets to hit.
Now I’m much less bothered.
It’s his walk as much as mine, if not more. If he wants to spend a minute investigating a particularly interesting lamppost, he’s earned the right to do it. Who am I to hurry him up? Not every walk needs to be completed as quickly as possible.
Not every moment needs to be efficient.
Sometimes you can just stop and sniff. Metaphorically, since I don’t want to end up in the dock.
At 13, he’s an old boy now. I don’t particularly like thinking about that.
I know there won’t always be another three-kilometre walk tomorrow. Perhaps knowing that makes the walks we have now matter a little more.
The stops. The sniffing. The bird chasing. The occasional refusal to go in the direction I’d quite like us to go. Or to come back as soon as I call.
None of it is productive. None of it earns any money. None of it advances a career or builds an audience.
But it does quieten my mind. I take pleasure in his pleasure.
That’s exactly why it’s so valuable.
For the past ten years, I’ve thought I was looking after Dixi.
Feeding him. Walking him. Taking care of him.
But every evening at around nine o’clock, my Chief Happiness Officer clocks in for his most important shift, and we walk together.
Now, at the back end of our journey together, I’m increasingly aware that he’s been looking after me too.
I dread the day I will lose him, and treasure every day he remains.
I love my dog.
He’s a good boy.