This is a story you won’t believe. Really. I know you won’t because I am having trouble believing it myself. However, I know it’s true. I was there.

Firstly, you should know that my wife runs a doggy hotel. Our home is licensed by our local council for us to look after other people’s dogs when they are away.  We usually have one or two canine friends staying for a sleepover – sometimes four or five. It’s a nice job, most of the time, though dogs are still dogs.  I have scars to prove it.

We have a dog ourselves.  He’s a German Shorthaired Pointer called Otto. He’s five and fabulous.  He’s a vital part of the team.  You see dogs are pack animals.  They need a leader.  Otto is the leader.  When a new dog joins the pack, big or small, he immediately gives it ‘the hairdryer treatment’ – a vicious-looking and sounding, five-second tirade which looks alarming but is just his way of explaining, in dog language, ‘this is my house and these are my rules – got it!’.  They get it.  There is never any trouble.  If the guests argue between themselves, Otto immediately jumps in as referee.  We rarely get involved.

Otto has never known anything else.  These interlopers have been coming to his house all his life.  So this ‘pack leader’ role has become highly advanced.  So much so that it has developed through the discipline stage to more pastoral care.  If a dog, for example, is nervous or ill, Otto won’t leave their side at night.  He stays with them until he is sure they are OK.  We don’t ask him to.  He just does it.  Extraordinary.     

We all know that dogs can do amazing things.  Their sense of smell is legendary, for example, allowing them to search out drugs, track villains, tell when people have cancer, predict epileptic seizures.  They can detect mood swings in their owners, and comfort them, and smell when they are about to wake up in the morning.  That’s why Otto always comes into my room at 6:30am every morning, summer and winter.  He doesn’t need a watch. 

I digress.  I was going to tell you an unbelievable tale (or is it tail).  Here we go.  Buckle up.

One of our regulars is a chap called Charlie.  He’s a five-year-old Cocker Spaniel.  He’s been coming to us since puppyhood.  Charlie is a great guy.  Full of fun.  Gentle.  Good around the house. Quiet at night. Never runs off when I take him to the park.  He’s a model guest.

His owner is a young, single woman who, last year, became pregnant.  The father was absent.  When she was getting close to her confinement she was worried about Charlie.  She didn’t want to go into labour in the nighttime and leave him behind.  She had no family to help her.  She asked if Charlie could come to stay with us for the last few weeks until she had delivered the baby.  Then she would be able to relax knowing Charlie was OK.

All was well.  Normal.  Until one night about 2:00am.  I heard a howling and scratching coming from the kitchen where the guest dogs sleep.  I assumed that somebody had a belly ache and needed to get out in a hurry.  I dashed down the stairs, opened the door to the garden and Charlie just sat there and cried.  He was not ill.  He didn’t need the toilet.  He wasn’t lonely – solitude had never bothered him before anyway.  He was terrified. 

You have guessed the punchline haven’t you.  His owner had the baby, at that moment, in a hospital 10 miles away.  Now I know there are many who will say it’s coincidence.  Of course they will.  But I know the truth.  I know the dog.  I had known him for years.  We have been looking after dogs like Charlie for almost 20 years.  I know how they work.  I know, that he knew, his mum was in trouble.  How extraordinary is that!

Even as I tell you this story now, I am incredulous that it could have happened.  But it did.  Dogs are incredible creatures, they know so much more than we do.  That said, I have so far been unable to teach Otto that I don’t need to get up at 6:30am on Sundays.  I’m working on it. 

Oh yes!  Mum and son were fine.