One of the things I noticed during an early stay on the French farm was: the farm mistress didn’t look up at the sound of every approaching car.
The farm is on a ridge parallel to, and north of, the Pyrénées, with a stunning view of the mountain range when the atmospheric pressure is right. They are hidden from sight most of the time, so that you can’t even tell they are there. If they are fully visible in their snow-topped glory, then it’ll rain the next day (or so).
The nearest neighbours are: a couple 1km away down by the A21, the main road leading to the Pyrénées; and also 1km away but in the other direction, the village idiot [as he’s called by the locals] and his brother and sister-in-law further inland. Only the postman would drive up to the house. Or the neighbours, or friends and relatives, maybe a customer to buy wood from the little sawmill on the farm.
For a farm that is out on a limb, they get quite a few visitors, being so popular and hospitable. This means more cars driving up to the house than its secluded location would otherwise attract.
The dogs only bark at outsiders. So, if one can hear a car driving up to the house and the dogs (there were nine of them at one point) don’t bark, it is someone known to the family. It's absolutely amazing how they manage to remember which car sound is a new one (to them).
Even though I only went once a year, during the long summer school holidays, staying only three weeks each time, the dogs remembered me every subsequent visit.
On my very first visit during the Easter break in 1996, I’d arrived at midnight, having taken the Eurostar to Paris, then the TGV all the way to Agen, and then an hour-long bus journey to Auch, 6 kms from the farm, being met there by the farm mistress (my student's mother).
As I stepped out of the car, I found myself surrounded by six dogs who emerged suddenly out of the dark, even at that late hour.
One of them, Pastou* (pronounced “pa-tu”), stood up on his hind legs and put his front paws on my shoulders. I stepped back to try and make him drop his paws, but he simply walked forwards with me as I stepped back. That was my first reception.
After that day, I got to know the rest of the canine members of the family: Patoche (meaning “paw”), Fleurie…. All hunting dogs. All brown and short-haired. And short-legged.
On my visit in 2012, I was invited out by a British girl who’d married a local man down the road. We went into town: to the market, to the little museum, then for a coffee. After that, we went back to her place for dinner and a chat, before she drove me back to the farm around 11 pm.
The farm owners go to bed around 9 pm, so I asked her to drop me off at the bottom of the last stretch of the drive up, so that the dogs’ barking wouldn’t disturb the sleeping human occupants. I had a wind-up torch on me, but I didn’t need it as there was a full moon.
It wasn’t until I reached the front door of the farm house that I realised the dogs had not barked at all throughout the 100-metre walk up the drive.
It was dark, they only saw me once a year, yet they somehow knew it was me. They presumably had a mental record of my footsteps (from the daytime) over the three weeks of my stay, rather than the sound of a car engine. Amazing.
I felt so honoured — to have been accepted by the dogs as family!
(Gers, S.W. France, 1990s)
* Pastou, ironical name for a hunting dog! From googling: The term “pastou” [pronounced pa-tu] is derived from the word “pastre”, meaning shepherd in old French and designates a shepherd’s dog as it was understood in times past. Unlike a herd dog, the role of the guard dog is not to drive the sheep but rather to protect them from wild animals or feral dogs.
**This blog supplements the blog "Chinese sayings: 35 (吠非其主)"
https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2025/01/chinese-sayings-35_27.html
The village idiot: https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2012/05/village-idiot-france.html
Why the postman never calls twice: https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2011/07/why-postman-never-calls-twice.html
