Remembering Lola

After losing Lola earlier this year Alice wanted to share some of her favourite memories of her with you all.
From the moment Lola moved into our house she was full of personality, she was always a small Labrador who stayed slim all her life – this was not from lack of trying however as she was also a terrible scavenger right from the get-go. I remember my trainer was impressed when we walked through our local town centre after the fruit and veg market had been on and Lola didn’t steal a trampled potato that was lying on the floor. This would probably be the one and only time Lola didn’t try to snaffle something gross from off the floor as we walked past.

As well as being food obsessed Lola also lived absolutely in fear of missing out on the fun, for the first few years I couldn’t go anywhere without Lola following me, just in case I did something interesting; if you shut the bathroom door you’d hear her snuffling on the other side, and if you didn’t shut the door properly she’d barge her way in and rest her chin on your knees and stare up at you while you peed. Here is a photo of her “checking on me” while I was in the bath.

But let’s be clear, she was not being cute and coming to see if her precious owner needed anything. As soon as she established that I wasn’t eating or going to play with her she would bugger off to see what everyone else was doing.

Lola absolutely loved her toys, she would decide something was hers and that was it, there was no way anyone would be allowed to take it from her. For about six months I worked in this huge shared office in a converted barn where some of the other workers would play football or rugby during their lunch breaks in the field out the back. One day Lola got her paws on their rugby ball, and eventually, they had to buy a new one because the second we arrived in the office each day she’d trot off to find where ‘her ball2’ had been left then spend all day sitting with it and barking at anyone who tried to take it from her. In fact, this barking was so predictable that when it came time to record her little “woof” at the start of the podcast intro we just sat her next to my microphone and held her favourite toy just out of her reach!

And when Dora arrived the rules were no different! The two dogs always got on really well, Lola was almost 11 when Dora joined the family and so she didn’t have the energy and bounce she used to, but she did her best to keep up with Dora, and when she’d had enough and was quite happy to steal all the toys and bark at anyone who tried to take them back from her!

Even into her little old lady years, Lola knew how to make her presence known – whereas Dora is so quiet I sometimes shut her in rooms when I leave because I didn’t notice her sneak in behind me –Lola wriggled and waggled and bounced and snuffled and sneezed constantly.

She loved being in the car and if she wasn’t fidgeting about on the back seat switching from looking out one window to the other, she was fast asleep, snoring like an asthmatic donkey!
Right up until the last few months of her life Lola would do a little jump and bark excitedly at the door whenever she heard a van (she thought it was her dog walker). And when she was younger she used to bounce with all four feet off the ground when she was excited. Which was most of the time!

Video Visual/Audio description:
Lola, a black Labrador, is standing in an open plan living space and looking at the camera, in the background is a sofa, armchair and dark grey rug. Off camera Alice asks Lola “What’s this? Is it your frisbee?” She then makes noises as if she is eating the toy. Lola backs away from the camera, her tail wagging and ears pricked up, bending forward and jumping into the air as Alice speaks to her. Alice throws the toy, making a whoosh sound as she does so. Lola trots quickly to the rug and picks it up and returns it to Alice; her claws make clicking and clacking sounds on the wooden floor. Alice throws the frisbee for Lola again and Lola slips and skids on the floor in her excitement to fetch and return the toy, she jumps repeatedly, edging further away from the camera as she does so and returning the toy each time. Alice eventually asks Lola to sit, but Lola does not do it straight away so Alice asks her again and repeats Lola’s name. Lola sits, looking up at her toy in Alice’s hand and Alice calls her a good girl.

Calm was not a word Lola knew, she had bags of confidence and was never really phased by
anything, loud noises, new places, or unfamiliar journeys, Lola took it all on without an almost
belligerent determination. We traveled all over London and up to Manchester and back, she
accompanied me to hideous, failed job interviews and countless theatre shows and performances.
She even got a shout-out at a live recording of the Guilty Feminist podcast after making her presence so apparent that even the people on stage couldn’t ignore her!

For my first Guide Dog Lola was exactly what I needed, exactly when I needed her; that confidence and the joy and enthusiasm that she brought to absolutely everything she did was contagious, and although her breath was so bad you could smell her coming before she entered a room, when she got there it didn’t matter because her personality was beautiful, chaotic and so full of affection.

I can’t tell you how much I miss this girl, she was a mediocre guide dog but a shining star in some of my darkest moments and I could not be more grateful for the time we had together.