The Slide Dog

Sometimes in life, a best friend appears that isn’t human, but nevertheless, a friend that fills your heart so completely that a human couldn’t even compete with that amount of loyalty and love.

Every night as a twelve-year-old girl, I wrote in my diary about how much I wanted a dog. I wanted a furry friend so much that somehow, all the stray dogs around my primary school would be magnetized to me. I had a whole pack of hounds waiting for me when I arrived each morning that the principal told me to kindly stop collecting dogs.

One bitza dog loved me so much that it searched through all the classrooms until he found me, and then when he found the scent that he was satisfied with, he sat next to my desk with a very pleased look on his doggie face. The teacher, however, did not share this dog’s joy. She was not so impressed that the dog had pushed the door open and made itself at home next to my chair, thumping its tail on the floor.

Nothing beat the day puppy Cedar arrived. Having my own dog was a million times better than having lots of stray dogs around the school, following me. My mum surprised me with a ruby-coloured Cavalier King Charles Spaniel to greet me at the airport when I came home from holidays. His wood-tinted fur was what inspired my mum to name him, ‘Cedar.’

All my dreams had come true the second I got to hold that little bundle of joy, and from that day onwards, every day was filled with light and sunshine, even on a rainy day, because with Cedar by my side, I had sun shining in my heart and I felt invincible for the first time. Everything had become exciting, and brighter and refreshed, like my world had been grey before and now had been dipped in a bucket of rainbow colours.

The way his little brown eyes looked up at me was always like he understood everything I was saying. We went on adventures together all the time. One day we could be heroes, the next, pirates on a ship or castaways on a deserted island. Cedar was always ready to be part of any game, even if I made him be Toto from A Wizard of Oz and I was Dorothy.

The memory that stands out the most, and to this day, I hold dearly in my mind, is our walks to the local park after school. This memory sits in my heart like a rare jewel as it can never be erased, and it can never be changed or lost. It is as though it is frozen in time and with its sweet reminisce, a smile of course, is inevitable.

As a young girl, I had this dream to make my dog Cedar, ‘the magic dog’ that could be the smartest dog in town, and with that wish, a plan was hatched to make it so. I realised, to make Cedar be the smartest dog in town would mean he needs an education, so special training would have to take place.

Once I decided that I needed to train Cedar to make him the greatest, I didn’t tell anybody about my plan, not even my best friend who sat next to me in class, and who also happened to live on the same street as me. This was a secret between my dog and me. I decided I would share the secret once he was trained.

I had never really taught a dog any tricks before, except how to shake hands. I knew I was going to have to be committed and consistent to get the result I was after. Even as a primary school girl, I knew, to succeed would mean not giving up on my Cedar and trust that he would be able to learn what I wanted him to learn.

To begin our training, I knew I would need some kind of treat to entice my dog to repeat the trick once he had completed it once. It was for this reason that I had a handful of dog chocs in my school uniform pocket that I had kindly asked my mum to buy at the shops for me, but I didn’t say why I needed them. We were ready to start day one.

I took Cedar to the park that he was so familiar with and at first, I let him run around to have fun, because little did he know, his class was about to start. In the park, not many people ever came to it, so most times, Cedar and I had the park to ourselves.

In the middle of this park there was a slide. It actually was the main attraction of this rather bare park that lacked play equipment. It was here that I planned to focus on my doggie school. The steps up to this slide were chunky so I thought it would be perfect for Cedar to climb.

At first, Cedar didn’t take much notice of the slide, but I wanted to get him used to me being up higher than him, so I climbed up and sat at the top of the slide, and called down, ‘Cedar’. He just cocked his head to one side, and looked up at me, and continued to play at the bottom.

I knew something that had the potential to spark an interest in climbing, and that thing was the special treat I had hidden in my pocket, so I broke one of them into tiny pieces, and put a little bit on each step, up until halfway. I knew teaching him slowly would be the key.

The love of dog chocolates was all it took to make him climb up step by step, gobbling up each little piece like a mini vacuum, and taking the next step up and gobbling that one and then the next step up and gobbling that one, until he reached halfway where the dog chocs stopped. He just looked at me as if to say, ‘Any more of those?’ and sat down on that step. That was a successful first day. I praised him for being so smart and gave him a hug and a pat.

The next day, after school, Cedar and I returned to the park and again, we had the park to ourselves, so we repeated the same thing as the day before, going just up until halfway, using the dog chocs as a facilitator to climb. Cedar was getting used to the slide and felt safe going on the steps. It was a successful second day of training. I was just as proud as the first day, but I still kept my secret to myself.

After a few days, I decided it was time to only start putting tiny pieces from halfway up until the top. He no longer needed help to get to halfway because he was used to that now. So, the next stage of training began. We repeated that stage for a few days until he got used to going to the top easily. He always just ran back down the steps once he reached the top until…

The next stage changed everything. I now no longer needed any chocs on any of the steps. He could run up those with ease. It was now the challenging part of the training, but I knew Cedar was smart enough to do it. I now broke off little pieces and put them spaced apart down the actual silver slide part. The most brilliant part of all was that Cedar was more than happy to go down, scooping up chocs as he went. He was now on the way to getting his diploma as far as I was concerned.

The next week, I concentrated only on putting chocs on the slide itself and now Cedar was running up the steps at record speed and going down the slide like a happy little furry kid. It was so rewarding as his owner to see that my training had worked.

In no time at all, now when we arrived at the park, as soon as I took the lead off, he would race to the slide and go down, but now, without the need of chocolates. He actually wanted to do it. He very quickly became known as, ‘The Slide Dog.’ As we would still go there every day, word got around of his trick, and the park was becoming busier, just so kids could witness ‘The Slide Dog’ in action. I showed my family and friends, but I didn’t need accolades and attention from my dog. It was for him. I didn’t really mind if people saw it or not.

Cedar really was the smartest dog in town, and my heart filled with pride. It gave me so much joy to see his joy as he raced to the top every day and slide down as though he was smiling, until one day…

Cedar was hit by a car on the way to the park. In that moment, my world was balancing on the brink of darkness, even though it was a bright, sunny day. It felt like a thunderstorm inside me. I was screaming inside louder than anyone could hear.

I remember the moment when the vet said, ‘Cedar needs to sleep forever.’ I never before had cried so many tears but, ‘The Slide Dog’ lives on in my heart forever.