Staring to the sky, seemingly abandoned, the toddler had sobbed until she could sob no more. trapped by the restrainer on her buggy, fortunate to be too young to absorb the impact of the horrific situation she found herself in. Her parents lay dead in the empty park, slain by a volatile dog walker who had somewhat overreacted to a polite request to scoop.
Almost half an hour went by before her soon to be foster parents arrived on the scene. She never did find out what they thought,how they felt about the carnage they happened upon that spring day. The two blokes were just the first in a fairly long line of foster parents who would chaperone throughout her troubled early life.
Although somewhat cushioned by her young age, the toddler was aware that something very bad had happened and was struck mute until a few days short of her sixth birthday. It was a bad start in life, endowing her with a morbid fear of Public Parks.
Being a mute, she could not divulge her name to her rescuers. Her newly deceased mum had been unable to stitch name tags on her fluffy pink coat, having lost all of her fingers in a moment of sheer stupidity. A city girl, one day she visited the country, went for a swim in a local burn, fully clothed, then mistook a combine harvester for a clothes wringer. Luckily her husband loved her deeply and volunteered to pick her nose anytime she felt the need. She reciprocated by maintaining his toe nails. A labour of love for a fingerless wife, she would get down on all fours and chew the nails smooth. She imagined it must be like how a dog felt chewing a bone,particularly when she got to work on the club foot.
Having discovered the orphan, the blokes, skillfully sidestepped police questioning as to why they were in the park that day?
What to call her? Neville recalled the story of a baby abandoned in a basket on the doorstep of well stocked hardware store. Which had so many product lines it was am eternal source of fascination for impluse buyers. Locals would come from miles around, often by public transport, to look in wonder.
The baby boy was named Moses.
The guys had several days to contemplate names for the wee girl, as you don't just get instant custody of a child whose parents were murdered, simply because you were first on the scene. So, in an memorable moment, they revisited the park to seek inspiration. They finally settled on Dogshit, partly because there was lots of it in the park but also because it would remind the toddler of the reason for her parents demise. This turned out to a short lived plan, as Dogshit became a figure of fun, as soon as her nursery pals understood the significance. Fortunately there was a change of name around about age 5. But that's a story for another time.