It’s my birthday and I’ll bark if I want to!

Actually, strictly woofing, that’s not true. It was my birthday but it isn’t anymore. Apparently birthdays only last for one day and mine was on Thursday. Not that there was all that much different on Thursday to any other day. We got up, I had my breakfast, then we went for a walk – not one like the old walks but in our new way of walking … more about that later! When we got back they had their breakfast and then they started that work thing they claim to do. No special games for me or anything, just them doing that work thing which I reckon is just a ruse for them to ignore me. Auntie Sylvia popped around a bit later in the morning and she gave me a card and two presents – a bone filled with meat and a pig’s ear. I didn’t eat the pig’s ear straight away but I saved it for a special occasion. Auntie Jo sent me a card and a present too. It’s sort of like a badger but it’s got a green body and it squeaks. I’ve not let that out of my sight since I got it because you know what he is like, he’ll think it’s his to play with! Anyway, so here I am, I am now officially 5 years old. Apparently that makes me an adult. He told me off for leaving my toys everywhere and said that “Adult dogs know better”! I don’t know what he’s talking about, I need them to be accessible!

Actually, I’ve had a spot of bother with him for a week or so now. It all started with some dogs on the box with the moving pictures. They were watching some programme called ‘Dogs behaving very badly’ – clearly that has nothing to do with me! Anyway, there is this man on there called Graham something or other and he apparently ‘fixes’ their bad behaviour. I sneeked a peek without them knowing and I couldn’t see them behaving badly. OK, so one was pinching anything and everything edible around the house … it might have been a bit over the top when he pinched his human’s toast straight out of his hand but that’s hardly bad behaviour. Oh, and there was a dog that pinched the football that was being used in a game of football on the football pitch. Well, to be honest, I did that once whilst there was a football match going on on The Green. Fortunately, they had a spare ball. This dog’s human carries a bag full of spare balls around with her. Anyway, the point being, I didn’t see much wrong in their behaviour. So they watched this programme and nothing more was said.

A couple of days later it all came out though! He had looked Graham up on the Interweb. It turns out that Graham does home visits anywhere in the country and charges £850 for a visit. Apparently he’s never had to go back for a second visit. Well, not that I need ‘fixing’ but anyway Graham can’t do home visits at the moment because of Lockdown v3.0. Apparently he was considering it because of my pulling like a freight train. Personally I don’t see there is a problem but apparently he thinks that it isn’t much fun going out for a walk with me and, apart from the two slipped discs I gave him (allegedly!), he doesn’t much like having his arm almost ripped from its socket. In my opinion he should flamin’ well hurry up then! Anyway, as I say, Graham can’t do home visits at the moment so, for me, problem solved. Or that’s what I thought! It turns out that Graham (honestly, you’d think he was called ‘Saint Flamin’ Graham’ for the amount that he goes on about him) has started doing Podcasts. I had a quick look on Fidopedia to see what a Podcast is. It turns out it is a recording that you can download from the Interweb and listen to at your convenience.

I think you can see where this is going. He has been flamin’ listening to them hasn’t he?! It transpires that there are two on walking. He has listened to them both! It turns out that Graham is quite good at explaining how a dog thinks (he says!) and he explains why I might pull like a freight train, but worse … how to stop me from doing it! So … on the Saturday morning he decided to put into practice what he had heard. He keeps the lead quite short and I have to walk with my shoulders level with his legs. If I start to pull (I never stopped in the old days!) a quick flick of the lead (away from me, not to hurt me) gets me back in check. Now, I am not going to say this is good but apparently it was like an epiphany moment! We did the whole walk and I forgot to pull. Not even once did I pull. He said it was suddenly a pleasure to walk with me instead of being a tug of war! Now, I’m not going to admit this, and certainly not to him, but I actually quite like walking like that. The lead is nice and loose and it is very comfortable. So, ever since last Saturday I’ve been walking like that. Just by his side and with my shoulders level with his legs. OK, so I did slip back to my old ways on Thursday but it was my birthday!

So, there you have it, it seems that my towing days are over! I’ll admit that it seems to be much better for both of us at the moment but what really worries me is that there are more of these flamin’ Podcasts from Saint Flamin’ Graham. Apparently there is one on the car thingy. I know he’s listened to it but I haven’t been subjected to the indecency of going out in the car yet. Fortunately, Lockdown v3.0 prevents that because we’re not allowed to go out for a ride in the car thingy – only for essential purposes. I’m a bit worried about what might happen when Lockdown v3.0 is over though! There’s even one called ‘Puppy to Teenager’ which doesn’t sound like the consequences of that are going to be fun. I suppose there’s not much I can do about these flamin’ Podcasts but hopefully, at his age, he’ll forget about them soon! This Lockdown v3.0 is getting very boring. I mean … I know I don’t like the car thingy but it would be nice to get a change of scenery once in a while. Under the latest Lockdown rules we’re allowed to exercise but it has to be near to home. We can’t go out somewhere to exercise if we can do it near to home.

Although, apart from not being allowed to go out somewhere else for a change, Lockdown v3.0 doesn’t appear to have much impact on people. The amount of traffic going through the village hasn’t changed much. Bay Pond Path is packed at weekends with visitors carrying their cups of coffee and picnics. One has to wonder where, at 5 o’clock on a Sunday afternoon when even the supermarkets are shut, all these people are going in their car thingys. They can’t be visiting others people because that isn’t allowed. They are only allowed to go out for essential supplies like food and medicine, but all those shops are shut by 4 o’clock. They are allowed to go to work if they can’t work from home, but there can’t be that many going to work … or coming home from work … at 5 o’clock on a Sunday afternoon. They’re not allowed to go out for a drive, so it can’t be that either. I just can’t work it out. It’s a bit like I can’t work out where the lorries full of waste that come from the midlands are going at 4 o’clock in the morning. The two huge landfill sites near Redhill don’t open until 7.30am. Funny how we have to take all the rubbish from other parts of the country and use it as land fill here! You’d think they would be able to dump it nearer home but apparently not.

Humans are quite odd really. The local district council drafted a plan to concrete over a huge part of the Green Belt – allegedly to meet a housing need, although that has subsequently been found to be wrongly calculated. It went to an inspector who took a year to give his preliminary findings but, when he did, gave a very clear indication that although the council could continue to persue their flawed plan, he would be unlikely to be able to find it ‘sound’, or they could feed it to the shredding machine and start again with a more professionally thought out plan. They had a meeting to discuss his findings, decided that most of his issues with the report were about Junction 6 of the M25, so decided to waste another £70,000 of local tax payers money and try to get Surrey County Council and Highways England to change their minds and support their plans. They decided that they couldn’t make a decision about what to do with the plan until they had wasted this further money! The inspector was pretty clear in his report – rip it up and start again using current planning law, and forget all about the Garden Community because it is undeliverable. How much clearer to they want it to be?!

So, there you have it. Rather than take an obvious and sensible decision, the council decided to waste even more money still trying to make their flawed plan sound. Why are they not just accepting that their Garden Community is undeliverable and that the entire plan is flawed? Money! It is now, and always has been, about money. They are desperate to get their plan through using the 2012 planning law and not the revised June 2019 version, because that would afford the Green Belt much better protection and would also result in far fewer houses needed which would, in turn, mean less New Homes Bonus, less Community Infastructure Levy, less Section 106 agreements with developers (and thus less money from them) and less money overall. The council is notoriously bad at managing its budgets, has sold off some valuable assets for peanuts, made some unbelievably bad property investments and needs every penny it can get so that it can fritter it away on more unsound, unthought out and totally unnecessary projects. It’s already blown over £2 million on its flawed plan and still people have their jobs! I’m a dog and if I can work this out it should be child’s play to a human!! Anyway, all this thinking has made my brain tired, I’m going to need to push out a few 💤s, so, for now, must paws … 🐾