Crinklybee: The Curious Incident Of The Deaf Dog In The Night-time

'I can't hold on any more- I'm going to have to drop the dog!'

'Just drop him! Drop the fucking dog!'

'I'm dropping him!'

'Drop him!'

'I've dropped him! I've fucking dropped him!'

An hour or so earlier, my plans for the evening had been relatively straightforward. They involved nothing more trying than a couple of pints of Guinness in the Fiddlers Green, in front of a big screen showing live transmission of the Newcastle-West Bromwich game. So what exactly was I doing dangling head-first and half-naked down my own chimney debating with a couple of likely lads from Salford (one of whom was clinging for dear life to each of my ankles) the merits of allowing the next door neighbour's dog to plunge into the soot-filled abyss below?

It's probably best to start at the start. I had my coat on and was checking my pockets to make sure there was enough change in them for those couple of pints of Guinness. Then there was a knock on the door. It was the two blokes who sometimes look after next door's dog. They both looked a bit worried.

'It's Polly- we think she might be upstairs in your loft'.

Polly is one of two boisterous medium-sized dogs belonging to the bloke next door, who works away a fair bit on account of being a slightly famous TV actor who has recently taken the leading part in a BBC2 comedy drama. She's a bit tricky to control at the best of times, what with being stone deaf, so when she took advantage of a door left open by the bloke next door's builders (he's having a loft conversion done) to slip through a gap in the brickwork , there was already cause for concern. Most of the lofts in our row of terraces have no wall between them at all, so in the two hours since her dissappearance Polly could conceivably have roamed into any of them. A faint whimpering from the pitch-dark hollow at our end of the terrace was the only clue that Polly was somewhere in the space directly above our bedroom.

By the time Gary and Darren (as the two likely lads were called) had filled me in with this background, we were peering through the dog-sized gap in the brickwork trying to catch a glimpse of the errant terrier. Even with the help of a torch, this was proving a thankless task. And then we spotted it- in the corner of the room there was a small, square hole- the opening to a chimney shaft. Polly must be down there somewhere.

One tiptoe across the fragile roofbeams later we were pointing the torch downwards. Sure enough the beam was met by a plaintive upward canine stare. Somehow the stone-deaf hound had contrived to plunge arse-first down the ten-foot shaft, where she had come to rest on a pile of rubble. She appeared in no particular discomfort, and indeed, now that she had some interesting-looking company, in no particular hurry to be rescued. Me, Gary and Darren, however, had different ideas. We hadn't come this far for nothing. This dog was coming out, and tonight.

.....

'You know what this means, don't you? Someone is going to have to go in head-first'.

I can't remember now who said it, but on the face of things they were dead right. Our first rescue attempt, which involved Gary levering himself down feet-first into the hollow, had proved a non-starter; the shaft was simply too narrow for anyone to bend over in, never mind reach down to their ankles and haul out a medium-sized terrier (least of all one who was showing no particular inclination of wishing to resurface). The only way out was for one of us to be lowered in head first with the arms oustretched, so that the free hands could be used to grab the dog by the neck. The two on the outside would then use brute force to haul their unlikely man-and-beast cargo up and out, like an oversized, living, breathing turnip.

We all looked at each other, slightly sheepishly. Gary and Darren were a burly pair of lads and I didn't fancy my chances of holding on to their ankles for very long, never mind hauling the whole of either of them out of a chimney with a medium-sized dog attached.

'OK, I sighed, after a pause. 'I think it's going to have to be me'.

And so, with Gary (or was it Darren) holding tight onto the left ankle, and Darren (I never did quite work out which was which) holding the right one, I was lowered gingerly downwards into the pitchdark sootiness. At first all went to plan; my free hands grabbed onto Polly's neck, and with the canine's eyes now staring point-blank into my determined face, I felt myself being tugged back to the surface. A couple more minutes of this and I'll be in the Fiddlers for the second half, I remember thinking.

It was then that matters took an ugly turn. What we had failed to reckon with was the low, angled roof, which meant that neither Gary or Darren could stand up straight to get the leverage needed to haul twelve stones of increasingly desperate weight plumb upwards. There was also the matter of the exposed beams underfoot, which meant that the slightest slip could mean either of my would-be rescuers (for there was no doubt, now, that I was just as much in need of rescuing as my new canine friend) plunging for their own part straight through the ceiling plaster and into our second-floor bedroom. The evening- let's not put too fine a point on it- was becoming rather fraught.

It was at this point that I volunteered the opinion that uncoupling myself from this unorthodox man/beast embrace might be the best course of action for all concerned. Twenty minutes, and a lot more grunting and swearing later (At one point I remember yelling: 'Don't drop me- just don't fucking drop me!') I was out of there. My shirt was torn and somewhere along the way I seemed to have lost not only my trousers but my pants. I honestly couldn't have cared less. Another minute in there and I felt I might have either suffocated or expired from sheer claustrophobic panic.

Of course, there was still the problem of the dog. It was at this point that Gary (or was it Darren; despite our newly-forged intimacy I could never be 100% certain) piped up:

'You know lads, maybe we should have tried that thing I said at the start'.

And so we did. And two minutes later, thanks to a length of copper wire bent at the end to resemble a shepherd's crook, we had fished Polly out of there by her collar. We were altogether very pleased with ourselves at the ease of the operation. 'Ah look, we're pissing her out here' was how Gary (or Da- oh you get the point) put it in his unmistakeable Salford twang.

Which, of course, was all right for Gary and Darren. They weren't the ones who had to go back next door and explain to Charlotte why for the last hour and a half an unholy racket had emanated from the loftspace, followed by a loud crack and a goodly proportion of the bedroom ceiling falling in, accompanied by a century's worth of soot. We will draw a discreet veil over that last bit, but you can rest assured that there were moments during the following week when I looked back with fond nostalgia at the time when being dangled half-naked down my own chimney with just a deaf dog for company was all I had to worry about.

We've come through it, you will be pleased to know. After all, the bedroom will look lovely once the decorating is finished and the new carpet is down. You know what though? Next time I plan to take in a couple of pints of Guinness and a West Brom game, I'll probably stick with the plan. That's the best bet, as I'm sure you will agree.

Comments

proof that some things are worth waiting for!!

(did you put all that on the insurance claim?)

Posted by: beth | December 04, 2008 at 10:56 AM

The game was great for the first half and incredibly fraught and nervy in the second. Still, a far more enjoyable evening's entertainment than being dangled down your own chimney in pursuit of a deaf dog...

Posted by: Ben | December 07, 2008 at 05:05 PM

Wow - one of your best for a long time, JB! All the funniest things happen to you... who's the neighbour, by the way, and have you mentioned the costs you incurred on his behalf?

Posted by: MQ | December 08, 2008 at 02:25 PM

Eeee, I heard that the incident did wonders for your bad back -- could it be true that you have taken the terrier cure after all that money wasted on acupuncture?

Posted by: abby | December 08, 2008 at 02:26 PM

Well, at least not a case of drop the dead dog-(Ga)ry!

Posted by: Tim | December 14, 2008 at 10:35 PM

Posted by: Tim | December 14, 2008 at 10:38 PM

Northern lads don't change I see.
Z sent me - nice one!

Posted by: Pat | December 15, 2008 at 09:36 AM

Z sent me, too.

Fantastic! Had a Great laugh!!

Posted by: Penny | December 16, 2008 at 04:48 AM

There were probably easier ways for Charlotte to get that bedroom reno, but few more effective.

(Here via Z.)

Posted by: Ilona | December 16, 2008 at 02:22 PM

Hello and welcome friends of Z.. come in and make yourselves at home, there's a tray of mince pies somewhere and a couple of cans of Polish lager.

I know you're all dying to know who the almost-famous actor is but I'm going to stay tight-lipped about that (at least until he's a properly famous Hollywood superstar and I can really dine out on the story). In the meantime you can type in 'nearly famous actor who lives in Levenshulme with deaf dog' into google and see how you get on. If you end up back here mind then don't say I didn't warn you...

What I will say is that the thespian in question has proved to be a stand-up guy and the matter has been resolved without recourse to insurance firms, a shame in a way as I was looking forward to starring in one of those 'We won't make a drama out of a crisis' TV ads...

Posted by: Jonathan | December 16, 2008 at 10:57 PM