At the time I was second deputy spring tester for the Sleepytime Mattress Company and as jobs go it was how can I put it, it was a job. If there is one thing I can really say is that there was not much I did not know about springs, in fact there is not much to know about springs, they are curly things that go boiiiiiingg when you press them down and let go.

The thing is when you've tested one spring you've tested them all and it was my job to test them all. Some people would say this was a really boring job but I speak from experience and yes it is a boring job.

However two deputy spring testers left alone in a large laboratory with an unlimited supply of springs can do many things to liven life up a bit. Springs tied to the shoes means you can bounce all round the lab all day. The coat of many springs, no matter which way you fall you bounce up again. The Springlaphone eighty two spring all different sizes and played with little hammers. Who says springs are boring.

In those days I had a wife called Etherline, she was a librarian and specialised in sub index cross referencing. She would tell me all about the problems she was having with her sub index cross referencing on the long winter evenings while we sat by the open fire watching Coronation Street on the television. Fortunately for me I never understood anything she was talking about so was not too troubled about the problems she was having indexing indefinite verbs.

We had two children Monomer and Polyester although you would not have noticed them much had you visited because they were not very exciting. One collected stamps and the other collected pictures out of magazines of anyone wearing anything red. They were so unbelievably average at school that some of their teachers had failed to notice that they were even attending. On parents evenings got into the habet of taking along photos of them to remind the teachers who they were.

I drove the car that all the car magazines had voted as the best family car. I was so exciting to drive that the little nodding dog in the back window had died of boredom.

We lived in an average semi-detached house in a semi-detached street in a semi- detached suburb of a totally semi-detached town. Life was back the extremely simple,, contented, predictable, happy, that's the word happy.

This was of course was all a very long time ago, perhaps it was a million years ago or at least it seems like a million years ago. It was in fact ten zillion gaga trillion years ago. It was that time we often refer to as the good old days. Marked in the sands of time, no more hacked out on the granite of eternity as BD. The time Before Digger.

Often during the many occasions while laying hospital on a trolley waiting for a second opinion after another of those little mishaps, I have tried figure out why, why us, why me. I cast my mind back to the point when Digger entered our lives.

How did it happen, what went wrong, what did I do to deserve Digger, I can never quite put my finger on it. Was it Digger who found us or was it us that found digger, I am never quite sure. It was Tuesday or was it Sunday it seems so long ago now.

There was at one of out little family meeting, we often had family meetings in those days happy joyful occasions where everybody had their say on equal terms. We were that sort of very dull orderly boring family who had very meaningful family discussions. There would be democratic votes on holidays, television, even the food we ate. It was all very nice, very wholesome.

We were a nice family, boring but nice. In those days when we all sat down together we did not end up throwing things and screaming at each other. Its funny how these little thoughts flutter across your mind while you're laying on the x-ray machine waiting to find out how many places you leg is broken.

It was at the February family meeting, the excitement of Christmas had been and gone and we were planning holidays. Looking back now there did seem to be an unusually tense atmosphere as this particular meeting started. Nothing you could put your finger on, just something.

The minutes of the previous meeting were approved and all the general items gone through with an unusual speed. It was private members motion number twenty five, item six on the agenda. A motion was proposed by the youngest member of the family, Monomer.

I drove the car that all the car magazines had voted as the best family car. I was so exciting to drive that the little nodding dog in the back window had died of boredom.

"As we were an average family." she said. " We ought to have pet. Everyone else at school has got a pet." It as innocent as that. A pet, a simple nice fluffy pet for the youngest member of the family. How nice.

We could have had a tortoise, a rabbet, a mouse, several mice. A cat was suggested, cats are nice I like cats. Someone actually said that cats were boring. I ask you boring, we all agreed we could not have a boring animal.

We did the logical family thing at this stage, the sort of thing any good committee would do. We made an annotated list of all the unusual pets and animals that we could possibly think of. Against each animal we listed all the good points and then all the bad points.

The list started simply enough with green parrots then went through various snakes, chipmunks, alpacas, pigs. Things then started getting rather out of hand as baby water buffalo and walrus were added to the list.

My memory at this point starts to get a little misty as the list extended into the hundreds, it must have around this point that I must have made the fatal mistake, I said. " This is getting ridiculous, we ought to have a dog like every one else."

I was rather surprised with the speed at which the motion was seconded, voted upon, passed and entered into the minutes. Suddenly the meeting was over and I was being hugged by Monomer.

I had always objected to owing a dog because I knew who it would be who would end up having to take it for walks. Yet suddenly here we were having a dog, it was official it was in the minutes seconded and approved.

We decided, naturally, to do the good thing a give an orphan dog a home rather than have a new puppy form a shop. We were getting a dog. I was still trying to work out how this had happened as the children were telephoning the local stray dogs home, they did not even have to look up the number.

I was still trying to work out how I had been tricked into agreeing to have this dog when next Sunday morning I was turning my very clean car into the muddy lane leading to the local stray dogs home.

If I had known then about Digger I would have driven straight on to the airport, bought a one way ticket to Peru and become a Trappist monk on the top of some remote mountain. Even then, deep down in my heart, I have the feeling that even if I had done that, eventually Digger would have found me.

Choosing a pet dog from the dogs home was a better idea in the comfort of our own living room than it was here in the dogs home, confronted as we were with hundreds of stray dogs. They came in all shapes and sizes. There were big dogs that would look down on you and snort through their noses. There were hairy ones that did not seem to have any legs. There were little noisy ones that ran around their cages at a hundred miles an hour.

There was one that looked like a floor mop. The dog warden told me it was a floor mop, he had been cleaning out the cage when we arrived. That was a pity really I quite liked that one.

We had a complete tour around the exercise yard looking in all the cages one by one. As we passed each cage and looked in the dog in there would hurl itself at the wire door barking at us. Eventually after the complete round trip we arrived back at the wardens office from where we had started. We all stood in silence somewhat stunned by the sight of all those dogs. I came to the conclusion that there was not a single dog that I wanted the same side of the wire as me let alone take home with us.

At this point we should have taken all the dogs names, written to all their parents for references and got a physiological profile of each dog. Then we could have made up our minds, discussed things with knowledge and confidence which dog would suite us best. I suggested it. It was the first time I had been shouted down out of hand without a proper discussion. The family were determined to have a dog and knew if they left there without a dog they might never get one. What really upset me most was that they were right.

We started to walk around the pens again. We crossed off all the big snarly dogs with ten foot teeth that looked as if they ate crocodiles for breakfast. We also rejected all the little ones on the basis that socially they were no better than owning a cat. This reduced the number to choose from by about half. We started another lap around the dog pound.

Why is it that the oddity always stands out from the crowd. They do not have to be flamboyant, noisy, bigger, just different. Common sense and reasoning tells you to leave the oddity alone, but curiosity makes you look closer and what was it that killed the cat.

We were walking from pen to pen looking at the remaining dogs on our list. Each dog we visited barked at us, hurled himself at the wire door, tried to jump out over fence to us or ran around wagging its tail excitedly. All except one.

I thought the cage was empty because there was no noise coming from it. There was a dog in there however, sitting quietly in the centre of the pen smiling and looking up at the sky. I looked up at the sky, there was nothing there. I looked back at the dog, he was looking at me, as soon as I looked back at him he looked at the sky again. The rest of the family joined me at the gate and looked at the dog.

" Who have you got in here." said Polyester.

The dog looked at us all and stopped smiling. He then held up his front paw shivered and gave a very pathetic whimper.

" Arr pore thing he's got a poorly front paw." said Monomer.

The dog looked at me, I looked at the dog. I knew the dog had not hurt his front paw and what's more the dog knew I knew he had not hurt his front paw. He just looked at me as if to say, 'what do you want me to do juggle'.

I found my self standing in the cage with my wife and two daughters petting and cuddling the dog. The dog was enjoying all the fuss and licking Etherline. It took a moment off from licking Etherline and the children to turned his head towards me, as our eyes met he said, " Now try going home with out me."

" Pardon." I said out loud.

" I didn't say anything." said Etherline

I looked at the dog, it looked at me. It was smiling again. It can't have said anything. I'm just going out of my head looking at all these dogs I thought.

To this day I can not remember saying that we would have the dog or even a family discussion about it. The next thing I remember was the Dog Warden handing me the end of a peace of string and being told we would be very happy with him. I was then walking to the car holding this string, on the other end of the string was this dog who seemed to have a rather peculiar walk.

The dog sat in the back seat of the car directly behind me. I felt something wet hit me across the back of the neck. It was the dog licking me.

" You can cut that out." I shouted in what I hoped sounded like a vary masterful voice.

" What's his name daddy." said Polyester.

" I don't know." I said. "They never told us."

" It's on that form he gave you. " said Polyester.

I took the small yellow paper from my pocket and unfolded it. In very scribbled handwriting it gave the very few details the dogs home knew about the dog.

" He appears to answer to the name of Digger." I said. " He's a stray found abandoned on the moors and sleeps alot. Breed unknown it says."

" He's lovely. " said Monomer giving the dog a hug.

" Are you sure we've done the right thing." I said looking at the large number of blank areas on the form.

" Of course we have. " said Etherline.

The dog gave me another large lick at the back of my neck completely soaking my shirt collar. This did not seem to be a very good start to the responsibilities of dog ownership. I started the car and we drove home.

For better or worse we now owned a dog.