A few thoughts about dogs byWyn Evans
My first dog was a smooth-haired Jack Russell terrier, Carlo; named by my mother in honour of Charles Prince of Wales. Alternatively, he was named by my father in honour of Dafydd Iwan, who wrote the song ‘Carlo’, a cheeky little riff pointing out that “at last, we have a true prince, a truly Welsh prince of Wales”. This was in 1969 at the time of Charles’s investiture as Prince of Wales. As an aside, the soccer fans amongst you who watched Wales beat Austria last week will have noticed that the pre-match singalong was led by Dafydd Iwan, singing another of his own compositions, “Yma o Hyd” (“We’re still here”), a paean of praise not only to Welsh footballers, but to the Welsh in general. Now, where was I? Ah yes, Carlo. The dog, not the prince. Dad, with a yen to be a farmer, uprooted us from Cardiff’s beautiful Lakeside for a smallholding in even more beautiful Sir Benfro – a village in the
6 CARDIFF TIMES
Preseli hills called Mynachlogddu. Finding ourselves almost overnight ersatz sheep farmers and turkey rustlers, my younger sister and I told my parents that if we were going to live the life of farmers we needed to get a farm dog. Quite how we ended up with a Jack Russell rather than, say, a sheepdog, continues to escape me. Still, Carlo was adept at having to be dug out of rabbit holes and playing Tonto to our tabby cat, Jaco’s, Lone Ranger When we moved away from the farm some five years later (we weren’t very good sheep-shearers or turkey-pluckers!) I performed my final service to Carlo: burying him in the back garden of our new home in Kidwelly. He had run out into the main road and discovered he wasn’t as robust as the hourly Kidwelly to Llanelli bus. And therefore he died. The years passed. I got a couple of degrees and married Not The Boss. Not The Boss and I ended up
