Ben Fogle - Labrador: The Story of the Worlds Favourite Dog

William Collins
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

WilliamCollinsBooks.com

This eBook edition published by William Collins in 2015

Text Ben Fogle, 2015

Excerpt from The Shipping News
by Annie Proulx Dead Line Ltd, 1993
Excerpt from Marley & Me John Grogan, 2005

Photographs Individual copyright holders

Cover photograph Leah McDaniel / Alamy

Ben Fogle asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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Source ISBN: 9780007549016

Ebook Edition October 2015 ISBN: 9780007549030

Version: 2015-09-28

To all the Labradors who have loved
and been loved.

CONTENTS

Labrador noun \\ any of a breed of medium-sized strongly built retrievers largely developed in England from stock originating in Newfoundland and having a short, dense, black, yellow or chocolate coat and a thick rounded tailcalled also Lab.

Dont cry because it ended,

smile because it happened.

Dr Seuss

I called Dad.

What do you think? he asked.

There was a pause. Not because I was thinking, but because I knew. I knew the answer but I couldnt bring myself to say it.

Then we know the answer, he replied.

I burst into uncontrollable tears.

The twenty-four hours following that phone call were some of the most painful of my life.

The knowing. The feeling of betrayal.

Inca, my beloved Inca.

We took Maggi and Inca to the beach one final time. I carried Inca from the car to the shore so she could lie with her paws in the water. Here we were on a beach again, just as we had been on Taransay when her life was just beginning.

I watched as her ears flapped in the wind and she lifted her nose to smell the sea air. Then, her belly covered in sand and seawater, I carried her back to the car and we began that torturous journey back to London. I couldnt look anyone in the eye. In the rear-view mirror I could see Incas snout on Maggis back.

Dad was waiting when we arrived home. I lay on the floor and sobbed uncontrollably into Incas fur.

One more night.

I carried her up to our bedroom, put her bed next to mine and lay there listening to her deep snoring. I didnt sleep. I felt sick with panic and in the morning my pillow was stained with tears.

At 6am I carried her downstairs and fed her, then picked her up and took her into the garden.

Give Inca a big hug, I said to Ludo, who threw his arms around her.

Wheres she going, Daddy?

Up into the sky, I said, turning away to hide the tears falling down my cheeks.

I carried Inca to the car, taking Maggi with us, too, and drove 10 minutes up the road to my parents house. I dont remember much about that journey except that I cried uncontrollably all the way.

Thank you, Inca, I sobbed as we drove through the empty streets of Notting Hill. Thank you for being my best friend. I owe everything to you.

I carried her from the car into the house, burying my face into her fur, and laid her on the kitchen floor. Mum, Dad and my sister were all there.

Canine blood flows through the Fogle blood. Dogs are family.

I lay on the floor, hugging Inca while Dad injected her. Her breathing became heavy. I could feel her heart pounding and the warm blood beneath her skin. I breathed the familiar scent of her fur as I nuzzled into her thick coat. I have never sobbed like that in my life. It was a primal, uncontrollable, guttural sob as I felt her heart stop beating.

I lay there on the kitchen floor clutching my best friend, unable to move. Wishing, hoping it was a dream, I held her lifeless body.

Maggi came and sniffed Inca. I wanted her to sense that her friend had gone.

Wheres Inca? asked Ludo, as I returned home with Maggi.

Shes gone up into the sky.

Hello, Inca, he said, waving to the sky.

I had lost my best friend. It felt like losing a limb. My shadow was gone. A flame had been extinguished.

I had loved and been loved. Now I had lost and I was lost. I needed to find a way back. Thirteen years is a long time.

Its been quite a trip, Inca and me.

The tiny boat yawed and bucked in the mighty ocean. Huge Atlantic rollers crashed against the vertiginous cliffs as seagulls wheeled above. A lone lighthouse stood sentry, ready to warn shipping of the hazardous coastline.

My salt-encrusted hands gripped tightly to the oars as we, too, heaved into the surf. A rogue wave caught the front of the tiny boat, sending green water spilling in.

We were a pinprick on a tiny ocean.

I had come to Newfoundland and Labrador on the easternmost point of Canada often described as Atlantic Canada. This is frontier country; a tough, rugged coastline where the people are as hardy as the geography. It holds a lot of similarities with its counterpart on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, the Western Isles of Scotland. The flora and fauna reminded me of Scotland, only larger.

I was with local rower Pete on one of the original fishing skiffs, a tiny two-man wooden boat that looked like it would be better suited to a pond than an angry ocean. These were the craft with which the fishermen had, in better times, caught the cod that were once so prolific in these waters.

Like a detective following a trail, I had come here in search of the Labrador. It seemed wrong, coming to a place that was also named after a different breed altogether, but all the evidence seemed to conclude that Newfoundland did play a role in the evolution of the Labrador Retriever.

Despite a lifetime of travels to Canada, this was my first visit to this part of the country. A Canadian father had ensured plenty of summers on the lakes of Ontario, where I spent my time canoeing, swimming and fishing. Of course, there was also a dog. A mutt called Bejo that had somehow been rescued from the streets of Marrakech, in Morocco, by a family friend and had been flown to the Canadian lakes.

I had long wanted an excuse to visit this remote corner of one of the least-populated countries on Earth, and now here it was

My journey to Atlantic Canada began in the rather inauspicious surroundings of Dublin, in Ireland, from where I caught my transatlantic flight to St Johns, which must surely be the shortest hop across the Atlantic Ocean. We had barely taken off when we were landing again, just four hours later.

St Johns is a rugged working port. Im sure it had once been a very beautiful harbour, but the heavy industry and the presence of dozens of offshore supply ships servicing the oil industry give it a gritty industrial feel. The supply ships tower above the small buildings of the city.