Memory Mixtape #21: Lost Pets

Snow & Lad

When I was a teenager, one of our dogs got scared by fireworks and ran away from home. The dog was a Border Collie called Lad. My dad chose the name. “When I call him, I’m just going to say ‘Come here, Lad’, so we might as well just call him Lad.” 

Lad was the son of Snow, an all-white sheepdog who had the sweetest temperament of any animal I’ve ever met, but was also easily scared as he’d been beaten as a pup by the farmer my dad rescued him from. Neither of them would have been any good at actually rounding up sheep, but that was OK because my dad only had cows. Lad’s mum was my sister’s dog, Bess. She was a bit of a bimbo too, as dog's go, but also very affectionate. Really, Lad had no chance when it came to brains.

Lad was missing for what felt like weeks, and we’d pretty much given up on ever seeing him again, when one night my brother was driving home through Marsden and saw what appeared to be a very familiar dog running around in a farmer’s field. He stopped and knocked on the farmer’s door, asking him if he’d found any stray dogs recently. The farmer denied having done so, and my brother couldn’t see Lad anywhere around on the farm, so he had to abandon his quest. He asked the farmer to get in touch if he saw Lad anywhere around. The farmer grunted and told him not to come back.

The following morning, a little after 5am, I woke up to hear a tractor stopping outside our house. A door slammed and then the tractor drove away. I didn’t think much of it, but when we all got up… Lad was back! Waiting outside the back door as if he’d never been away.

There are loads of songs about pets dying. Seven years ago, I compiled A Top Ten Dead Pet Songs. The Number One would be unchanged even if I did it again today. However, there aren’t half as many songs about pets going missing. Here are a handful, starting with the most appropriate band I could find…

The Lost Dog Street Band – September Doves

And we were never made for love
Our souls are far too old
But loneliness needs company
And a lost dog needs a home

Despite the fact that it begins, “Lost cast in Arthur Street, black and white…” I suspect this isn’t really about a lost cat at all.

Catatonia – Lost Cat

Of course, Half Man Half Biscuit have a song featuring a lost dog. Although it has since been found, and you should do something about that…

Half Man Half Biscuit – Rogation Sunday's Here Again

Your dog got lost, you got distraught
You plastered posters all round town
The dog was found and it was fine
High time… you took those posters down

For me, that lyric sums up everything that is wonderful about Nigel Blackwell in just four lines. But then comes the real kicker…

Ruth Gould’s been out every evening
Ruth Gould has got pneumonia

We end with not a lost cat or a lost dog… but a lost tortoise. 

I wasn’t sure about Dry Cleaning at first, but they’ve really captured my attention with their latest album, Stumpwork. Undertones drummer Mickey Bradley does a very entertaining show on BBC Radio Ulster (which you can catch on the Sounds app if you have any sense). He recently summed Dry Cleaning perfectly by saying that the band were doing their thing in the background while lead singer Florence Shaw rings her mate and has a random conversation about the dull minutiae of her life, oblivious to the fact she’s in a band. Gary Ashby is the perfect example of that. You see, Gary is Florence’s tortoise. Only he went missing during lockdown. And this is the result…

Gary Ashby
Have you seen Gary?
Family tortoise

Are you stuck on your back without me?
Dogs running free
Dad’s got blood on his head

Have you seen Gary?
With his tinfoil ball
He used to love to kick it with his stumpy legs