Alexandre Deshayes, Maurice & Helmut
ph. Jonathan LLense
story by Clara Bouteille
Alexandre is an interior designer, Maurice has been as gentle as a lamb since he was one year old, and there is Helmut, also known as Bijou, who, despite the rumours, has never destroyed the sofa. After having his first dog, Jack, Alexandre knew exactly what he wanted to do with Maurice, a whippet, who loves children, walks in the forest and sleeps.
As gentle as a lamb...
My name is Alexandre Deshaye. I don't know if I'm 42 or 43, probably 43! I am an interior designer. At one point in my life I changed careers completely, I had time to take care of a dog, so I decided to get one: Jack the Jack Russel. He followed me absolutely everywhere, rode with me on my scooter, and came to work meetings, construction sites, and restaurants. I once took him to a party where there was a chef who made burgers for the event, and everyone I passed said: "ah this is your dog the Jack Russel? So cute... I couldn't help but give him a piece of burger"... We left at 4 or 5 in the morning, and Jack couldn't walk anymore. He was too bloated!
Now, I have Maurice, who is bigger, so it's more complicated to do everything with him. As for Maurice, I took a breed that was more suitable for living in a flat. Whippets are very athletic but when they're not racing, they sleep. He is as gentle as a lamb. He is fortunate to have a dogsitter three times a week. He goes to the forest on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Otherwise, I take him out when he feels like it, he makes himself understood. About three times a day.
Helmut, my cat, came from a friend's family, who got fed up with the cat destroying the sofas after a year, so another family took him in. Eventually, as he was passing from one family to another, I decided to take him in. He never messed up the furniture! He is a very cool cat, who needs a lot of attention. Helmut is also called bijou because he is as precious as a jewel: when his previous owner acquired him (Devon rex are very expensive), he had not yet given him a name, and I suggested the name Bijou "because he is more expensive than a ring". When Helmut came home a year later, I gave him this nickname. Today, he answers to both, and we call him one or the other depending on the day or the situation. We joke that he is always angry because of his looks, but in reality, he is adorable. At the moment we are renovating our house in the country; we had put Helmut in daycare at Alpha Dogs’ House for a week. At our reunion, I realized he missed us a bit. Helmut followed us around the garden like a dog.
A choice...
After I lost my dog Jack, whom I dearly loved, I didn't want to get a dog again, I was a bit traumatised. It took me a year to get over it. I was looking for solutions, but a friend told me: "you are not able to be without a dog anyway". I had the idea of becoming a guide dog foster. Guide dogs, before they are given to someone who is blind, are in foster homes for a year. There are instructions to teach them to stop at a red light, you have to take them with you everywhere. When the dog is 6 months old, they go to the guide dog school every three weeks. After a year and a half, they are allocated to someone who is blind.
I felt capable of doing it, but I didn't want it to take up too much space in my work. That is to say, I took Jack everywhere, but people who didn't want to see him didn't see him, so he didn't disturb an appointment. But these dogs require a lot of energy, they have to be given non-stop orders, and they have to be trained. So, I decided a guide dog would be too much work. I did learn something at one of the meetings for future guide dog families: guide dogs learn to pee during their break time. They are castrated at a very young age so that they never lift their paws. So, Maurice, I taught him right away, "pipi, popo".
During a walk…
I wanted a dog who likes children, who are calm in the apartment, who doesn't bark, who doesn't smell too bad, who isn't too small (so that he doesn't go under the fence). And I found a whippet. This was exactly the kind of temperament I wanted in a dog.
I found out the hard way that whippets only become calm after a year. The first year, honestly, is horrible. The breeder had warned me... He would spin and run around, I would even give him pieces of cardboard just to keep him occupied… It was never-ending horror. Then, on his first birthday, as if by magic, he became calm. Maurice has exactly the character I had imagined, he adores children. When he hears children crying in the street, for example, he goes to the window and cries too, it's completely incredible.
One day we were in the Morvan. There is a park on top of a hill, with a small church, and this park is surrounded by a small wall which overlooks the valley. We went for a walk, I untied him and he started to run and ended up jumping the wall. There must have been 20 of us in the park who saw the scene. There was a kind of silence... I broke down, I thought: "ok I lost my second dog". Looking over the low wall, I see that he ended up on a small path down the valley. There was an old man, with a beret, mountain boots and a bundle, next to my dog; he told us that Maurice must have had several lives, something like that. It was completely mad.
