One bag, two bags, three bags full!

Ok, so three bags is quite a lot even for me, but when a dog’s gotta go, a dog’s gotta go. Needless to say, he was moaning about it. He actually suggested that I cost a fortune in poo bags! Anyway, enough of that. What about me? Ah yes, there have been a few minor occurrences. When we got back from me holidays they noticed a small sore on my neck. Why it has taken them that long I have no idea! It has been there for ages. You see, when I pull on the lead my collar rubs on my neck and that’s what caused the sore. When we got back I was in a bit of a rush to get around and see what messages had been left and to pick up my pMail so I pulled quite a bit. Actually quite a lot! That made the sore even worse so they decided that I would have to go and see my personal Vetinary surgeon, Michael. They made an appointment and we all got in the car thingy and went off to see my personal Vetinary surgeon. It turned out that he wasn’t there so I saw someone else. I didn’t catch his name. He blamed me and said it was because I pull like a freight train but I went off with the man so that he cold have a look. Anyway, he was a very nice man and he shaved off a bit of my hair so that he could see it better and then had a look. Sure enough it was a bit sore and a bit smelly. When I dragged him back out of the surgery to go and meet them, the man appeared white in the face and said “Ah yes, I can see what you mean about pulling!”.

The nice man prescribed some cream for me to be applied twice a day for 10 days and that was that. He did confirm that I had lost 3 kilos in weight so that seemed to please everyone except me. I think that’s all the carrots that they keep hiding under my dinner and think I don’t notice! So, £90 lighter for less than 10 minutes, we all got back in the car thingy and left. We didn’t got home though, we went into Redhill where he had to see a client. I got bored, so I took Daddy Richard for a walk into the town whilst he did whatever it is he does. Just as we arrived in the town centre, he appeared from a car park. I’m not quite sure how he did that but it was quite handy because we then all went for a walk to the Asian shop where they wanted some bits for dinner (why they couldn’t just eat what I do is beyond me!) and then we had a walk around the market before getting back into the car thingy in the car park and heading home. I have to admit that I’ve become quite used to the car thingy since we were on holiday and I have also discovered that I quite like going out with them. Although it isn’t always a long walk, it does mean that I get to sniff new things and I usually get to spend some quality time with Daddy Richard whilst he does the shopping stuff.

Apparently you have to wear gloves to apply the cream for me. Daddy Richard procured some from this website named after some river in South America … I can’t remember what it’s called. Typically, it was him who applied the cream each time. It was quite amusing watching him try and pull on these rubber gloves before getting the top off the tube of cream and then trying to get me to stand still whilst he applied the cream. After a few days though, I realised that it was getting much better, so I let him do it. The other thing that the nice man said who was standing in for my personal Vetinary surgeon, Michael, was that I should take the collar off and wear a harness for a couple of weeks. When we got home from Redhill, he took my collar off straight away. Honestly, sometimes there is no dignity and certainly no chance of any modesty in our house. There I was, standing in the hallway, with not a stitch on, not even a collar – stark flamin’ naked! I’ve had to get used to that over the last few weeks. I haven’t had a collar on for quite a while and when we get home from a walk they take the harness off and there I am, naked again! It’s not as if I have any choice … anyone would think I was living in a nudest camp!!!

So now when I go out for a walk I have a harness on. There are two things one should note about harnesses. Firstly, I am not over keen on them because it is all a bit of a kerfuffle getting into the harness before a walk and generally I am in a hurry to get there, even if I don’t know where there is. Secondly, harnesses are designed for pulling! This second point is worth noting. Huskies pull humans around in sledges by pulling on a harness. So, they have effectively given me an excuse for pulling. They can’t complain now!!! I didn’t ask for the flamin’ harness, they imposed it on me. So if I pull, it is their fault, not mine! Anyway, the good news is that the sore has cleared up now. I have finished my course of the cream and my hair is beginning to grow back. I don’t know how much longer I’m going to have to put up with the harness but I suspect that once they get the idea that I can pull even harder in the harness, they’ll probably be quite keen to return to a collar and lead as soon as they can. Funnily enough though, the last few days I seem to have forgotten all about pulling. Well, at least, that was before we went to the White Hart Barn for a ‘Garden Party’.

The Gardeners’ Club hasn’t actually met for over 16 months now. There have been a few monthly ‘meetings’ on Zoom. (I know, I had to Doogle it too!! Zoom is the human equivalent of Boom in the doggy world. It is a very basic form of talking via video to a group of other people. Frankly, Boom is far superior. We don’t need cameras and all that rubbish. Just one bark is enough to let others know that they should pass it on and before long the whole neighbourhood has joined in!) Anyway, there as a Garden Party arranged for the Gardeners’ Club in the garden (appropriately!) of the White Hart Barn. He had printed the show schedule for the Annual Show which is going to be held in September (assuming that the Blond Potato hasn’t shut down the country again by then because his latest decision that COVID is cancelled has backfired on him), so the Garden Party seemed the ideal opportunity to take the schedules along where they could be distributed. When we turned left out of the gate rather than right, I thought I was actually going to get a run around on The Green. I near took his arm off because I was in such a rush to get there!! He wasn’t happy! He kept stopping and trying to tell me off for pulling. I refer him to the paragraph above! And anyway, he was so red in the face and the language was so utterly dreadful that I had to close my ears so that I didn’t learn any more human naughty words!

When we got to The Green I discovered that we weren’t going there after all. I was not at all happy about that and I tried my best to drag them over there but no, we were going to the White Hart Barn instead. When we got there I discovered that there was food!! That made everything alright, just as long as I could devise a way of getting some. His first mistake was that he listened to someone who said, “It’s ok, he can run about in the garden the gates are shut so he can’t escape”. He let me off the lead! Escape? I had no intention of escaping. I was after the food!! I did a lap of the garden just to throw them off the scent and then made a beeline for the food which was in the hall. Do you know, sometimes it surprises me just how observant he can be. Usually he’s about as useless as a match with no strike, if you get my gist. This time though, I hadn’t even made it through the door and he spotted me! He came flying in and caught me before I could get anywhere near any of the food. That scuppered my plans, I was straight back on the lead which was tied to the fence so I had a very short range of opportunity.

I had to think very carefully about my next move. Then it occurred to me. I am the handsomest dog in dogdom! I should use this to my advantage. When Auntie Sylvia came out I looked at her with my big brown eyes and it took only seconds for her to offer me a pig in blanket. As she stood there chatting I had my eye on a bit of pork pie on her plate. It didn’t take long before I got that too! I realised I was onto something here. Next I turned my attention on another very nice lady. I went all gooey with my big brown eyes and, result, another pig in blanket!! I tried this tactic with a few other people and largely found it to be very successful. I looked all gooey eyed at Auntie Cathy and yet another good result! This was fun! I couldn’t get told off because I was just sitting there being a good dog. It was hardly my fault if people thought I was cute and slipped me a sausage (so to speak!). So, in the end I had a very satisfactory afternoon and a rather lovely amount of sausages. The only down side was when Daddy Richard gave me my dinner a little later at home. I noticed that it was largely carrots and very little actual food! I wonder whether they had found out about my tasty afternoon’s foraging! So, that’s about it, not much else has happened recently. We get up, we go for a walk, they pretend to do that work thing they claim to do, he goes out to work in the afternoons, he comes home and I have dinner before spending the evening trying to invent new games to annoy them. Dinner! Did someone mention dinner? It’s that time so, for now, must paws … 🐾