Statement Dog

They tumbled out of the Armley Nisa carrying three bottles of breakfast cider between them.

He had matching cheek tattoos and a t-shirt with an Indian Chief and a soaring eagle on the chest. She was dragging a Rottweiler the size of a small steam roller.

I’d seen them before. They’d suddenly appeared a couple of weeks ago crossing the road outside my office window on their way down the back street to the playing field. I noticed the dog first.

You couldn’t really miss a beast like that. There are lots of big dogs around here, mainly Akitas and Malamutes, which seem to be the favoured breeds of a certain demographic these days. They always have that lean and hungry look. Dangerous. And they don’t play nice. They pull and they growl and they pee on your fence, and their owners are too busy on their iPhones to give a damn. But this dog was something else.

I could hear him coming by the yells, shrieks and grunts coming from his two human mishandlers. They were holding onto a thick chain attached to something that looked like an exhibit from the Royal Armouries which was clamped around the dogs vast neck. They walked at an angle of 45%. Their heels scraped the tarmac. They gripped the lead as if it was attached to a caravan containing all their personal belongings and it was about to slip off the end of a cliff.

The dog merrily bounded along, crashing into cars, headbutting garden walls, and testing the construction of several locked gates. He looked unstoppable.

And he didn’t stop. He towed the couple into the tea-time traffic as if he was flying a pair of kites.

They swore as the number 16 bus narrowly avoided knocking them down, and they howled as the dog got himself entangled around a bollard, and they shouted commands that were blithely ignored, and they screamed as he spotted a cat and tore off for some playful knockabout with a terrified tabby.

Ten minutes later they did the same thing in reverse.

I’ve watched them a few times since. Listened to them too, and it’s not a happy noise.

But this was the first time I’d come across them face to face. The path outside the shop is narrow and there is no way three humans and a Tasmanian Devil can pass each other by gracefully.

The dog was the first to work this out.

He pulled away into the road, yanking the arm of the woman and causing her to drop the cider. She bent to retrieve the bottle which was in danger of rolling under a van, swearing and lashing out at the dog as she scrabbled to save the alcohol. The dog cunningly ducked and reversed, somehow managing to slip his lead. Then he was in the road.

Traffic screeched to a stop. More, I think, to avoid a complicated insurance claim than for any concern for the dog. He could have done some damage.

The tattooed man was swearing. His companion was laughing and pointing. Neither seemed in any hurry to make any actual effort to remove the dog from the road.

“Here boy”, I shouted, patting my thigh, instantly wondering why the hell I was getting involved, “come on, fella.”

The dog cocked his head and did a quick reconnaissance of his situation. He must have calculated his best bet was to get out of oncoming traffic, dogs being quick to spot when they are best going along with a human with a plan, and he ambled over plonking his considerable bulk on my foot.

He looked up and I swear he smiled at me.

Maybe it’s just the shape of a Rottweiler’s face but the dog seemed to have a cheeky grin.

He was two hundred pounds of pure muscle, a fighting machine, a hard man’s hard dog. But it’s hard to be scared of something that smirked like Benny Hill.

I took hold of his collar and he seemed happy enough to walk with me to the side street where I could hand him back.

“What’s his name?”

“Chopper”.

“He’s, erm… he’s quite a big lad, isn’t he.”

“Statement dog. He’s a statement dog…”

I wasn’t quite sure what statement a dog this enormous would make, unless it was “I’ve just crapped in your herbaceous border, you got a problem with that, sunshine!”

But I said, “he’s … lovely.”

“He’s not ours. We don’t own him. It’s a friends… he’s away for a bit.”

Ah, I thought… away, yes, that makes sense.

The owner was “away”.

What chance has poor Chopper got?

I tried to hand the dog over, releasing my grip on his medieval collar. But the dog had other ideas and instead of being grateful to be reunited with his temporary custodians shot off down the cul de sac and smashed through a gap in a hedge.

I realised I liked this dog.

Mr. Tattoo cheeks screamed abuse.

It’s a principle of mine never to challenge a man who is slurring his words before the end of morning rush hour.

As Carole King once sang,

You can’t talk to a man,

With a Strongbow in his hands…

(Chorus) Strongbow…

I thought it best to leave them at this point and think about calling the RSPCA, Social Services, Interpol, Alcoholics Anonymous and Alltogether Armley for advice…

Then I thought, no.

This is culture too. Dogs are semiotic signals, as my neighbour rightly pointed out though in less pretentious words. A Rottweiler is as much a cultural statement as is a hipster beard, a flat white, a ticket for the opera, or spoken word poetry.

I’m not sure how a Rottweiler fits into the cultural strategy for Leeds though.

Perhaps we could get Leeds Inspired to commission a play or contemporary dance or even a mural?

Statement Dogs?

I’d like to see them try and get Chopper a part.

Art is for everyone, is it not?