Madame Froment

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

     This morning at 11:00 a.m., Beau and I met Madame Froment, the woman Dr. Mougin recommended as a dog boarder.  She lives on a tiny street, rue de Rosiers, in La Redorte, about twenty minutes away from Caunes, towards Narbonne.

     Over the phone, Madame Froment sounded like an elderly French grandmother.  She is actually a 57-year old woman, dressed like everybody else, but with an unusual devotion to animals.  She is the mother of 22-year old twins and lives alone in a large house she moved to from Montauban, in the Midi-Pyrenées region.  She worked as a bank teller for many years, but after being diagnosed with une longue maladie-- the French euphemism for cancer-- she left her job, and cushioned by disability payments, was able to move to La Redorte.

     She began caring for dogs six years ago, expanding on an interest she always had in them.  Dr. Mougins told me that she would ask me everything about Beau and indeed, she took notes on everything I told her.  There were two other dogs present today, because an elderly couple whose two dogs she regularly cares for had a medical emergency that delayed their return.  It was, however, an opportunity for her to see how Beau interacted with other dogs --and for Beau, an opportunity to play with one of them, a feisty and domineering Cairn terrier.  I booked her for all of August next year, and two weeks in September, a request which phased her not at all, as the elderly couple --who showed up during our "interview"-- booked her for Christmas and next June.

     Madame Froment's rates are average for l'Aude --10 Euros for each 24 hour period-- but she is so in demand because she takes her job of caring for canines as seriously as a handler at Westminster.   She is a keen photographer, so she showed me photos of dogs she's boarded strolling on all the paths on which she takes the dogs, including one alongside a vineyard near her house.

     I take them on two long walks twice a day, aside from the quick trip outside first thing in the morning and short walks during the day.  Does he like water?  I also take them near a stream where they can cool their feet when its hot.  When they come in, of course I hose them down.

     Why does Madame Froment do so much for so little, you might be asking yourself.

     This life, with the dogs, it's good for me.  I'm always calm --not like what my life was like in Montauban.  At night, I watch television programs about animals, as well as other educational programs.  They're always on late at night, so I don't usually go to bed until about 1:00 a.m.  So I take the dogs for a walk around midnight.  When my neighbors realized what I was doing, they thought me very strange -- here everyone closes their shutters at 8:00 p.m.--  but now they're used to it.  And then I go to sleep and wake up around 8:00 a.m., and start the day with the dogs.

     When she spoke of the interesting television programs she watched in the evening, I asked her about which channels she was referring to, as I found the twenty-five channels I am limited to as a seasonal user quite limited.  I added that, next year, I would bring over a universal DVD player, as this year I had nothing to fall back on when there was nothing worth watching.  Which prompted her to tell me,

     --But I have two DVD players.  Now that I'm hooked up with Freebox, I don't need the old player.  Take it and use it until you leave.

       I refused Madame Froment's offer twice, then asked her whether she was sure she wanted to lend her player to me.  Whereupon she unplugged the player and showed me how to plug it into a television,  then pulled out a DVD to play, just to show me how to work the controls.  Persuaded she really wanted me to be able to use her DVD player, I left with it.

      Madame Froment clearly has a vocation to care for dogs.  She was also very kind to this homo sapiens, and I am thrilled that Beau will be staying with her.