Introducing Jasper

Sleeping in the car with his seatbelt on, when he first arrived.

Jasper is a Springer Spaniel, in December 2021 at 8 weeks old he plodded into our house, looked around and wagged his tail. Little did I know that this adorable looking puppy was going to turn my life upside down and inside out.

I’m an oil painter, I love to sketch and paint what I see from life and Jasper was in front of me, full of energy, wagging his tail and shouting. What did he want? To eat, to pee, to poop, to play…those were the most likely possibilities and I realised that the only way to have any idea of knowing, was to observe very closely what Jasper did.  Of course the motive behind this was to make sure the puppy was alright, healthy and happy but at the same time, I had a model.

As a professional oil painter, I trained in classical drawing and in one of the top schools of realist painting where we learnt to paint what was still, the model was obliged to stand or sit for hours in one position. Next door to one of the classes, was a dance school and one day I knocked on the door and asked if I could come in and sketch, which they kindly agreed to. Moving models, what a challenge and so different to the training next door. This pursuit of capturing movement continued when I started painting outside and tried to catch the likeness of birds.

Oil sketch of avocets at Slimbridge WWT.

Now here I was with Jasper who couldn’t keep still for more than a few seconds unless he was asleep. Why not just use photographs? They are sometimes useful for reference and I have copied photographs before but it doesn’t excite me. I love the intimacy of being near something or someone and watching the changes both from light and movement, it has something to do with trying to catch their energy and Jasper has tons. So my model is set up but then comes another big challenge, Jasper himself.

If you’ve never lived in the same house as a puppy before, then nothing is really going to prepare you for the craziness of the first few months. Howling in the night, little sleep, lots of poop and the logistics of managing it all, especially if he hates the crate and you have an elderly Mother who often looses her balance. The crate or cage became a nightmare and probably I never really understood how to make it a nice place for him to stay but the day I stopped putting Jasper in there, things changed. Every night before going to bed had become a mega stressful moment meaning Jasper and I went to bed completely wound up, exhausted and frustrated. Before bed he would go crazy, biting and performing what is called the zoomies (scientifically known as Frenetic Random Activity Periods or tearing around the place at high speed seemingly out of control). At times it was a bit scary and I tried very hard to stay calm, even when his very sharp milk teeth were puncturing my hands and feet, while coaxing him to go into his crate. He never really wanted to go in there and only entered either because he was too exhausted or because I pushed him in. When the door closed he would sleep. I had seen that the crate was the place that most training programs advise to be the best place for dogs to sleep at night and in the day as it gives them a sense of security but me and Jasper just never got on with the idea of a cage. One evening Jasper just lay down on something else and looked at me as if to say leave me here instead and so I did and from that day our relationship changed for the better. Evenings became much more manageable and now it’s the time when we all relax after the day’s work and play has ended. 

Disclaimer: My observations are not intended to help train a puppy, what is right and wrong should be left to the experts and there is a lot of advice out there. I also know I have made mistakes, all dog owners know that it is impossible not to and that in the end the most important thing is the relationship you have with your dog, anything that goes wrong, as in human relationships, is down to not being able to communicate properly and the consequence is frustration. The way to make this right, is to observe with an open mind and heart. The tricky thing between humans and animals is that we speak very different languages and that is why an open mind is fundamental.  For example if a dog is barking, it’s not trying to be annoying, it’s communicating something. If we could really understand what it is they want to say and not interpret it as we feel or think, then maybe the dog wouldn’t have to shout to make itself heard.

I hadn’t imagined that when Jasper arrived he would become my model, the idea was that my partner and I needed to get out and exercise as we both work from home and that having a Springer Spaniel would be the ideal solution. Dogs are not a solution they are part of the family ‘to have and to hold…, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part…” and believe me there have been days when I wanted a divorce because I thought that Jasper would be better off in a different environment and with more capable humans. 

In the first few days of Jasper’s arrival I sat with him, played with him, fed him and went outside with him to do his business, was I doing much else? Not really, as I was concerned that the puppy was alright and getting what he needed, I guess this is the syndrome of a first timer. As I couldn’t paint, I picked up a notebook and pen and started a journal (now a bit tattered from puppy teeth marks), sketching and taking notes.

I started off trying to sketch him while he slept and puppies sleep, thankfully. Watching him dreaming, snuffling and snoring was heart warming and gave me a moment to figure out what I was looking at.

Asleep after watching the rain for the first time.

Puppies have bigger heads and paws in proportion to their bodies compared to an adult dog and their little bodies are quite podgy. I started with his head, thinking of simple shapes, such as circles, triangles and cylinders to help focus on the main shapes before getting carried away with detail. 

Then I moved onto the whole of Jasper and even as he sleeps he moves or changes position so that just as I’m getting the idea of one form, it’s gone. Here memory has to kick in just as when I was painting birds. Birds have a tendency to repeat the same movements over and over again. The idea is to catch one movement and at the same time try to keep the proportions more or less as they should be. Tricky and of course there was no way I can tell Jasper to keep still, no academic rules here, Jasper is free to be himself and I just have to patiently observe and trust that I can get something on paper.

Taking it easy on New Year’s day.

I like the lines I can make with bic biros although sometimes the ink can bubble out of them and they can be a little unpredictable. Using biros means that I have no time to think about erasing anything, I just have to keep going. Things can get messy and look pretty rubbish but sometimes just by letting go a line or shape appears out of the blue that begins to convey a likeness. Of course the more I do it the more probability there is that something will happen.

Jasper likes bic biros too. He likes anything he can steal, I can see the fun in that because from his point of view we start to chase him making strange noises and funny faces and most importantly he’s got all our attention. When he was little I could prize the stolen object out of his mouth, now he’s quicker than me and has his adult teeth powerfully in place. The best thing to do is either ignore him or find something he wants more to make him drop the object and of course, training in progress, to finally get him to choose not to even pick the things up, that will be a day to remember!. The thing I can’t get my head around, being human, is the desire to eat plastic, kitchen foil, bags, dirty tissues and fox poo which if Jasper can’t get hold of the poop because I’ve got him on a lead, does the next best thing and rolls in it. This means that he can happily smell fox poo scent for as long it takes me to find the right shampoo. Then when he has swallowed something which I consider undigestible I spend the next couple of days anxiously watching what comes out the other end, this anxiety however is slowly subsiding as I see that Jasper appears happy and healthy, he is after all a scavenger.

I learnt that when dogs do their business and stare at you, they’re communicating, “hey watch out for me as I’m in a vulnerable position”. Little does Jasper know that I do watch him but then make sketches, would he approve? The shapes his body makes while doing his thing, are very distinctive and I couldn’t help having a go at it. The more I observe Jasper the more beautiful shapes I can find in his bones and muscles, he’s quite a slim gangly young dog and because he has short hair his structure is quite evident.

Watch out for me!

When trying to catch a moment there is no time for thinking and the sketch is franticly done, especially as I’m also going to have to pick the poop up and be careful that nobody steps in it or I  drop my pen so that Jasper then engages me in a game of chase. I’m sure all puppy owners have had moments when they’ve found themselves hopping around because the puppy has taken one of their slippers at 5 a.m in the morning, while cleaning up and trying to prevent the puppy from paw printing poop around the house. There is a huge learning curve in the first few months of puppy life which can leave you in floods of tears either from laughter or from frustration but it’s important to remember that it’s a traumatic time for the puppy too. Kindness is the best way ahead even in the height of chaos and if possible seeing the funny side because laughter cures most tense situations. This is easier said than done and I’m looking at my journal and writing with hindsight, there have been good and bad times but one thing that slowly and surely has been growing out of the craziness, is the bond between Jasper and us, his people.