Afloat with Maggie (Listeners' questions - 5)

JOURNAL ENTRY

 15^th December, Friday.

“All night,
The owls echoed
Along the valley
In the long tunnel
Of the night.

This morning,
A magpie scratched
Her jagged song
Across the metalled dome
Of first light.”

[MUSIC]

WELCOME

There are not many stars tonight. Heavy cloud covers most of the sky. Although towards the west it is clearer. A wind lifts the few remaining leaves on the trees, dry and husky whisperings. The bones of the old year. Earlier, a young, storybook crescent moon slid down below the western horizon. The water shimmers with darkness.

This is the narrowboat Erica narrowcasting into a mild and moonless December night to you wherever you are.

You made it! I am so glad that you could come, come inside and make yourself at home. There is always a space for you here. Welcome aboard.

[MUSIC]

NEWS FROM THE MOORINGS  

We are nearing the year's turning and the season's march continues along bankside and towpath. Milder air has swept in; humid and mid-Atlantic grey. Sometime last week, a neighbouring boater described the day as being “a flat day”. It was a good description. There was a flatness to it. But even flat days have their benefits. They bring out the colours - particularly the muted colours of a deepening winter - and the make them glow with life. The fawns and beiges, barley and corn, russet and port of hedgerow and water's edge for a while was transformed from winter die-back to life again.

Meanwhile, even the boats are not immune to the year's path and the shifts of darkness and light. More and more glitter and flash as we deck them out in Christmas lights. Inside and outside, they shimmer with light that flickers and dances on the water below. Each boat, a tiny spark of light in the dark. There's something primordial about that. The desire to fill the covering darkness with our lights. It has become the most important and profound things of the whole Christmas time. After all, isn't the whole message of advent about the breaking in of light into the Tenebrae darkness? Synthetic and artificial they may be, these cascading strings of lights, but also something potently natural and ancient too. 

[MUSIC]

CABIN CHAT

[MUSIC]

AFLOAT WITH MAGGIE

A few weeks ago, one of our long-time listeners, Lee Thomas, wrote to me and asked a very interesting – and for this time of year – highly relevant question.             

She wrote:

“I have a question for you […]. How do you cope with having a dog in winter, when from what I see from YouTube videos, the tow paths are pretty constantly a muddy mess. Do you have to wash her off every time she comes on the boat, and don't you then have her constantly damp paws to deal with? And having owned a couple of corgis, I bet your similarly low-slung dog also has a muddy belly to deal with.” 

That, Lee, is a really good question – and one that is worth answering in full as it speaks to a lot of the realities of living in a boat during the winter months. It also relates to another popular question about the feasibility of living with pets and particularly dogs on boats. 

First of all, if you are, like Lee, a follower of the canal narrowboat vlogs, then you will no doubt be aware of the number of boaters who share their boats with dogs.

There is of course, Vanessa (from Mindful Narrowboat) with beautiful Zephyr, and Paul and Anthony (Narrowboat Life Unlocked) with wonderful Dexter. There’s also narrowboat pirate, Heidi (The Rum Wench), with the lovely Bonnie, and Steve on the narrowboat Precious Jet with the utterly loveable rascal Charlie and then there’s Amy and Wes (Boat Time) who not only have the gorgeous Rufus, but also their cabin rabbit, Rupey. Caroline and Pete (One More Day Aboard) with their loveable Westies. Louise and Dave (Narrowboat Changing Pace) do the impossible by not only having two dogs Willow and Otto, but with one of those dogs, Willow, being a Great Dane. Then there is of course Dillon and then Otis who accompanied the Foxes Afloat on Narrowboat Silver Fox, and possibly out doing everyone in the boat-dog stakes is Emma (the Narrowboat Girl) who for a long while lived with her mum on a narrowboat with no less than FIVE dogs(!); Susie, Teddybear, Podge, Peaky, and Angel.

I know he’s not a vlogger, but if you are on social media you will no doubt have come across the wonderfully idiosyncratic and colourful Ben from Higgledy Garden (who, according to the strapline supplies the best seeds this side of the Alpha Centauri and “Sustainable growing to save the world and impress girls” who lives on board the narrowboat Casper with the even more wonderfully idiosyncratic and colourful Flash.

And more on the boat-dog theme, you might possibly have come across Maxine Brown’s lovely little series of books for younger children on Mexi the Boat Dog, that follow the adventures of Mexi, her Lakeland terrier cross as they live their lives on board the narrowboat Never Two Late. It offers you a glimpse of this kind of life from an imagined perspective of a dog.

I could go on, and apologies to anyone I have left out, but you get the idea – canals and narrowboats and dogs seem to go together. Being afloat, and canal and river-life in particular, are actually ideal environments for dogs and dogs, in their turn, make very good companions. I know, particularly in the past, that there was some concern about lack of secure spaces or gardens and the idea of a dog being cooped up in what seems to be a small space that once put some rehoming charities off rehousing rescue dogs with families who lived in a boat. Fortunately, that has, in the main, now changed. Out on the canals and other waterways, we live in one big garden and there is no end of opportunities to exercise a dog – moreover, often in a new area with plenty of new stimulation.

Having said that, some dogs do find it a stressful environment. Out and about, we have met boaters who have dogs that hate being on the boat – particularly when the engine is running. It was something that we were very aware of when we were thinking of getting a boat as Penny was so acutely noise-phobic. At one point, even an airliner flying overhead would send her into panic. However, fortunately, from the very beginning she was fine with the engine. One of the brokers we went to, very helpfully started one of the boat’s engines so that we could see what effect it had on her. We gently introduced her to locks – another stress-point for a lot of dogs – not just with the noise which can be loud, but also the enclosed feeling, especially if you are descending. She was okay-ish with that, but we tended to have her out on the towpath with us where she was a lot happier. She didn’t really like tunnels -again the sudden darkness and the loudness of the engine.

Another thing is that, although just now I described us living in one large garden, it is a very singular type of garden that, again, might not be suitable for all dogs. It is long, but, in places, very narrow. Not just that, it can be very busy with people and dogs constantly walking past. When we were looking for a dog, the probability of encountering a lot of dogs on the towpath – towpaths do attract dog-walkers – was something that rehoming charities, understandably, take very seriously. Not being able to guarantee that a dog was not reactive then made the range of dogs they felt suitable for a boater really narrow. Also, people constantly passing closely past your windows could be a problem for some dogs – and those that live with them!

That is not to detract from my initial comments. Boat life can be an absolutely ideal kind of life for a dog. It is just worth being aware that some dogs might find it hard, particularly if you are thinking of moving onto a boat with a dog or adopting a dog that hasn’t experienced this kind of life before. Boats make all sorts of unusual noises!

However, boats and dogs – and in fact a wide range of pets – generally work together really well.     

In fact, there has been a long tradition of carrying pets on canal boats. Writing about his experiences with working boat communities in the late 1930s, Tom Rolt writes in his book Narrow Boat …

[READING]

Rolt, wryly adds a little later, that as well as being effective as guard dogs and companions, they would often double up as a hunting accomplice in various poaching activities, being, as Rolt, put it “accomplished hunters and retrievers.”

Rolt’s point about boat cats is an important one and, locally, there seems to be almost as many boat cats as there are boat dogs. Narrowboat vloggers Ben and Emily show that it is more than possible to successfully continually cruise with their cat Alan (although Alan is a female!). And of course, when talking about boat cats, there were the inimitable Annamarie and Kath on their vlog The Narrowboat Experience, and I think, like David from Cruising the Cut and the Foxes, gently and with expertise took so many of us by our hands and guided us through the practical nuts and bolts of canalboat life and living; and they did it with their two cats right at the heart of things.

But, of course, it is one thing to watch beautiful videos in slow motion capturing happy dogs galloping down verdant towpaths bordered by towering walls of young summer’s colour, or the ubiquitous Instagram pictures of contented pooches curled up in front of cosy winter stoves. But, as Lee’s question implies, we all know that life is not usually like that!

So yes, Lee, let me say straight off the bat, mud can be a real pain, and because of their very nature and the geology of where they are generally located, towpaths that run alongside the canals are especially prone to being mud traps.

We are perhaps more fortunate than many in that where we winter is some high ground which, although even now, is saturated and very squelchy in places, at least standing water doesn’t remain too long. It is also a real blessing in that we can access it with only the minimal encountering of mud.

The other thing that makes us fortunate is that, like Penny before her, Maggie seems to have an inbuilt reluctance to get wet or dirty. This means when we do come across the inevitable quagmires, she will almost always carefully pick her way, with feline agility, along the least muddy route, even if that means she has to climb up (or down) the bankside. Being very short-haired, it also means that it tends not to wick water and mud, unlike, say spaniels who, even on fine dry days, seem to have the ability to draw water and mud up through their feet and then up their feathery legs with what can sometimes seem like a supernatural ability. Furthermore, being short-haired, means that Maggie dries quickly and dried mud just falls off her. And so, despite her having rather stubby legs and therefore, as Lee puts it, is “low-slung” in the body, it can be a problem, but it could also be a lot, LOT worse! 

Towpaths by and large normally, have plenty of footpaths, lanes and roadways leading off them that might offer less muddy or wet conditions. Even so, especially for those continuous cruising at this time, it must be a significant challenge and often there are no alternatives, but to simply plough through the mud and just find ways to cope the best you can with the consequences. 

During one of the really wet periods in the summer, we’d tied up – largely because we were expecting some severe rain storms – but it did mean that we had very little option for Maggie’s walks than to take her along the same stretch of really muddy towpath. Maggie needs four (sometimes five) walks a day. In just one day we got through our entire stock of towels in an attempt to dry her off and to contain at least some of the mud. For those few days, we ended up having one towel for us, and then rotating the rest for Maggie. It was a good job we have a washing machine onboard!

I love the rain, and I love being out in it and walking in it. It is much more my natural element. Maggie is not so keen, but once she is outside, all her other instincts seem to kick in and she seems oblivious to it – unless it becomes really heavy. And so, for me, it is no hardship taking Maggie out for a walk in it. But I do also freely admit, that it can make life much harder.  

Having the canopy over the stern deck has made such a difference and functions rather like a boot room, where you can remove wet outerwear and muddy boots as well as towel down Maggie’s tummy and legs. Whether you have a dog or not, mud is an inevitable and intrinsic part of life on the water. Accepting it, rather than fastidiously trying to avoid it (which you can’t – it is inescapable) is much the best way to approach it. If mud is a thing that worries you, then this type of environment might not be the most suitable for you. It is going to be a part of your life. If you accept that, it then makes it easier to think about ways to mitigate it and contain it as much as possible. As I mentioned, the stern canopy that effectively creates another room has been a real boon. It is that transition place. This means it is a lot easier to be much stricter about what actually then can come into the boat. Maggie, inevitably is still a little muddy, but that is manageable. Wet muddy clothes can then either be hung in the shower to dry or, if not too damp and dirty, hung up by the stern hatch above the stove.

Having a warm dry boat makes all the difference too. Okay, from time to time, not matter how fiercely we try to control things, mud will come in, but it soon brushes off – it would be different in a colder and wetter environment. There are things that also can help. In the past, we have experimented with those types of mats that are often advertised as being perfect for families with muddy pets and that catch or trap dirt from muddy paws. In our experience their effectiveness has been very limited and a towel is much the best option for us.

Saying all of this, in all honesty, it was just as much a problem when we lived in bricks and mortar. Some of our books still bear the muddy spottles that resulted in a wet and muddy Penny returning from her walk, being carefully dried and towelled down, only to enter the living room and vigorously shake - she always waited until she got into the living room! I can remember heaps of dirty towels, coaxing a recalcitrant dog into lifting a muddy paw for me to clean it, and hastily mopping off muddy splatterings from walls. And so, our experiences are no different to those living in a house or a flat. I suppose the difference with a boat, psychologically, is that the space is much smaller and so you are on top of it more. I know I am much more careful in trying to ensure that I leave the outside outside.          

When, a few months ago, I asked if anyone had any questions that you want to ask me, no one asked the one thing that I thought many would ask – what is the one thing I miss about living in a house? My answer would have been quick and simple a back door and a garden; and it is now that I miss them the most.

I recognise – and was aware at the time - that a garden is a luxury and living on land does not guarantee having a garden and so counted myself fortunate in having one when we had Penny. But, when the weather is bad or you’re tired and it’s late, there is nothing quite like being able to open the back door and let the dog out – either to toilet or to just have a sniff around. That is not an option for most dogs on a boat. I know some boaters do allow their dogs out, but even when Penny was getting older and less likely to roam, we would have never have been able to do that – plus, being on the canal-side it is more important that any dog waste is picked up straight away. This means that we do have to keep an eye on Maggie (or Penny when she was alive) to make sure that she doesn’t need to go out and, if she does, that one of us has to take her out and accompany her. We’ve got into a nice routine of four daily walks which Maggie seems happy with – sometimes there needs to be a quick fifth walk, but that happens rarely. Maggie is also good at telling us when she needs to go out – rather than she just fancies a nice bumble around the fields at two in the morning.

So, it could be worse, but I do have to say, there are times when I miss just opening the door and letting the dog out! Plus, I am conscious that she also needs time outside alone away from us, doing precisely the doggie things she wants to do. Therefore, we try to ensure that most of the walks are dog walks rather than human walks to euphemistically exercise their dogs.

However, that is a small compromise to pay, for the many benefits of this type of life and sharing it with Maggie.       

SIGNING OFF

This is the narrowboat Erica signing off for the night and wishing you a very restful and peaceful night. Good night.

WEATHER LOG