A chat with Toby, the Spellbound Hound !

Toby, the Spellbound Hound is a character created by Jeannie Wycherley

What a delight! You all know how much I love doggies, and today we are going to interview a talking whippetty-Schnauzer-terrier-thingie named Toby. It's not every day that you get to talk to a talking dog! How are you, Toby? 

Hello Grandma Bertha *wags tail politely* I brought you some treats in case you’re hungry. They’re cheesy ones. Cheesy treats are my favourite favourite. It would be nice if we could share.

Oh, that's so sweet of you! Tell me, Toby, what was the first investigation you ever did? What was the

last? Do you expect to do more investigations in the future?

To be honest, as intrepid as I am, I’ve only been involved in one investigation. It was long and involved and incredibly complicated, and I had to draft in reinforcements in the shape of a human called Clarissa (she’s a witch but don’t let that put you off) and some squizzels. I think you might know them as squirrels, but they call themselves squizzels. Honest. I speak squizzel.

I also made friends with a Chaos Wizard. Clarissa calls him ‘an original’. I think she means he’s crazy, but that’s just impolite. I like him a lot!

You see what happened was that The Pointy Woman came to my little house in Devon in England and killed my owner. His name was Old Joe and I loved him so much. And before I could say ‘who’ll feed me my din-dins now?’ she had given me a voice. “Speak to none but me,” she said. And then, horror of horrors, she sent me to the kennels.

I had to escape, which is when I bumped into Clarissa. Together we started to track The Pointy Woman down and find out why she’d killed Old Joe.

I have a feeling there is another adventure in my future. I’ve been seeing someone hanging around my house. I have a feeling she needs my help.

That's very courageous of you, Toby. That's one of the things I love the most about doggies, you're always willing to do good. Now tell me, what’s your major weakness while investigating a murder?

I get side-tracked by snacks, or smells, or other dogs, or interesting people. Or itches.

What can you do that the police can't?

Besides having an amazing sense of smell and incredible hearing, I can scratch behind my ear with my back foot. I bet DC Plum can’t do that. I can also squish myself into a tiny ball and sleep anywhere. I’ve also been known to polish off more than one dinner.

It must be tough doing all that by yourself. Do you have anyone helping you in your investigations? Tell us more about them.

Clarissa is my new human. She’s actually Old Joe’s granddaughter and can you believe she had never been owned by a dog before? The first thing she did was give me a barf. Yuck! She’s a journalist and a witch, but to be honest my magick is better than hers. Don’t tell her I said that, but it is true.

She’s never got any money. I blame The Pointy Woman for that. But she is a good journalist. She’s good at research. I’ve been learning to read but I don’t really like screens so I leave all the google-goggling to her. Also, she can drive, and because I’m quite short, I struggle to reach the pedals. I like to stick my face out of the window and smell the cow manure and foxes when we’re driving down the lanes. I’m not sure Clarissa is that good a driver. I have to cover my ears sometimes because she gets a bit shouty about other road users.

What was the most difficult period in your investigation, and how did you deal with it?

There have been a few difficult periods in my investigations.  Being incarcerated in Sun Valley Pet Sanctuary and on death row, that wasn’t pleasant. Being hurt by The Pointy Woman made me very sad (but I was a brave soldier, Clarissa said). Through it all, I’ve been able to rely on my friends; Clarissa, Dom the Chaos Wizard and his dog, Star, and the dogs at the kennel. They kept me going.

Together we are stronger!

That's what friends are for, am I right? Tell me one thing about yourself you wouldn't want others to know.

I hide my borlies under the Abelia bush in the back garden, but if you tell anyone I will have to magick you into a bee. Okay?

I need to repopulate the bushes in my local vicinity because I nearly caused bee-mageddon when I practised a disappearing spell last summer. Oopsie.

I apologised but, regrettably, I don’t think I’m seen as a friend to bees.

This makes me sad because I love all creatures!

Do you have a favourite quote?

When referring to sandwich fillings, because I like them all: “That’s my favourite favourite.”

Thank you, Toby, this was a great pleasure. Who's a good boy? Who's a good boy? You're a good boy! See you all soon!

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Jeannie Wycherley has always been blessed with a wildly overactive imagination. Her formative years were spent inhabiting the glorious worlds that other writers had created, and even now she finds it a wrench to leave Narnia and Alderley Edge behind. As a child she loved history, and visited many sites of interest, with her family, in the UK and around Europe, and was a keen – and sorrowful – observer of the evil man perpetrates. No surprise therefore that she went on to study history at University, and left – or was eventually politely turfed out – with a PhD in modern and contemporary social history.

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