SCALING NEW HEIGHTS OF LOVE

Mountain guide Cédric Sapin-Defour was struggling with grief when Ubac the Bernese dog bounded into his life. Their unique bond inspired an extraordinary book that has taken France by storm

- By Jane Warren

AFTER losing his beloved Labrador to cancer, 37-year-old PE teacher and mountain guide Cédric SapinDefour stood quietly before a litter of twelve Bernese Mountain Dog puppies he had seen advertised in a local newspaper.

Most of the puppies bounded toward him with wagging tails and hopeful eyes. But one didn’t. The sweet one with the blue collar stayed where he was, casting only a shy glance. “He didn’t seem the least bit interested I was there — unlike his brothers and sisters,” says Cédric. “And, as with every relationship, indifference is magnetic.”

That puppy would become Ubac - named after the shaded, often mist-covered north side of a mountain - and the steadfast companion of a man who found in the blackand-tan dog an unconditional friendship that asked for nothing and gave everything.

He had spent months looking in rescue centres, preferring to adopt rather than buy, but had no success. Then along came the advert.

“I'd been seriously looking for another dog and was keen to adopt a Bernese. I love all dogs but I see this breed as the dog for the mountains, and having been raised on Alpine myths, I wanted that breed above all others.”

He had lost Iko, nine, to cancer after seven years together. “It was violent, quick, cruel,” he recalls of Iko's death. “I wasn’t ready.”

But as grief turned to acceptance, he found himself feeling open to the possibility of new life. And the bond he formed with Ubac was destined to be so intense that Cédric wrote a bestselling first book about what happened next.

His glorious ode to the dog, Son Odeur Après La Pluie (His Smell After the Rain, in French), became a literary sensation in his native France and is about to be published in translation in the UK.