LET SLEEPING DOGS RUN

I like dogs. We had a family pet when I was a child and I have owned cocker spaniels and let one have a litter. Dogs are man's best friend. 

Unfortunately my present wife is allergic to them so I am unable to have a dog at home. I rely on others to let me stroke and play with their dogs to get my fix.

My love of dogs might be because I may have been a dog in my previous incarnation. There is evidence to suggest this.

You will be aware that when dogs dream, they often start running in their sleep and there are many funny videos of them doing just that. 

I have recently had two dreams when I was fighting. In the first I was kicking my opponent and in the second I was punching his lights out. On both occasions my dear wife had to wake me up because she was being kicked and punched by me!

Thankfully she was not injured since my skills at sleeping combat are unremarkable. 

So yes, I like dogs. In fact, as I have often said, if I should ever lose my wife (perish the thought), I would get another dog.

IT'S A DOG'S LIFE

I'm sure that you will have heard of 'Help for Heroes', the charity which supports our brave members of the armed forces who have been wounded in active service.

You may not have heard of 'Hounds for Heroes' however. It was founded by Allen Parton who suffered a serious head injury while serving with the Royal Navy and was left wheelchair-bound. Having formed an amazing relationship with a dog named Endal, he is now busy having puppies trained to help others like him.

But there's the thing. This dog is a very talented canine. These are just a few of his skills.

He can:
Collect the post and deliver it to his owner's hand.
Help in the kitchen by opening cupboards and fetching cans etc.
Load and empty the washing machine. (Not mastered ironing yet).
Insert and remove a card in a cashpoint machine. (He's not been told the pin number).
Get shopping off the shelves in the supermarket and load the basket.
Open electric doors by pressing the pad... and much more.

No wonder we call them man's best friend.

HORSE SCENTS

It has been a while since I had a good old-fashioned rant so should you be carrying a hard hat about your person, this might be a good time to put it to use.

Pretend for a moment that you own a dog, all the better if you actually do. It doesn't matter what type it is but since the royal wedding is still keeping us buoyant let's go for a corgi. Your much loved corgi needs regular exercise and the fact that it is sitting there looking at you with the lead in its mouth is a clue here. So off the pair of you trot for a brisk walk.

Your corgi is very creative and takes an early opportunity to produce a small work of art on the pavement in a carefully chosen spot. Having completed its masterpiece, it sniffs it and satisfied with its achievement is ready to continue.

Being well aware that the local council do not share your corgi's opinion of its latest production, you produce a plastic bag from your pocket and dutifully scoop up the poop so as not to fall foul of the law. However, as you are doing so, a horse and rider pass by and said horse chooses this moment to deposit a massive smelly, steaming pile of dung in the road which puts Fido's small effort to shame.

Unlike the contents of your plastic bag this is completely legal excrement. The horse can if it wishes, prance around the road depositing small dollops wherever it likes and then ride on leaving steaming heaps in its wake. What madness is this?

Of course, horse riders pay no tax to use the road whereas the poor motorist, that will be you and me, pay an extortionate amount of road tax, part of which is used to pay people to clean up the horse shit. This is plainly unfair. We even have to stop, or slow down to let these free-riders pass.

My vision is that horse's bridles be slightly modified with a small circular pocket to display a tax disc. They should in future, pay for the use of their road toilets.

Alternatively, how about horse nappies? I commend the idea to the house.

PAWS FOR THOUGHT

I was sad to read the recent story about the pet border collie who leapt into the family car and attacked their 7 month year old baby so ferociously that it almost severed it's leg. The family were astounded at the dog's behaviour since it had seemed to get on well with the baby up to that point. They felt that the dog must have been jealous. The dog was put down of course.

The incident reminded me of our own similar experience when my daughter Amie was about 2 years old. It was a lovely sunny day and Amie was playing happily in the garden. Our golden cocker spaniel, Crumpet, was out there too together with Crumpet's puppy 'Muffin'. You may have met Crumpet and Muffin before when I wrote about 'Puppy Love'. As with the other family, we 'knew' that they were safe together since they had co-existed happily since Amie's birth.

On this occasion however, we heard Amie scream and start to cry. I rushed out to find her with a small gash just above her eye as Crumpet moved away from her. My best guess was that Amie may have poked Crumpet in the eye. Who knows?

It was an easy decision to take Crumpet to the vet's to be put down but I wept bitterly as I stroked her gently while she received the lethal injection.

The moral is clear. Small children and dogs should never be left together unsupervised. Spread the word!

PUPPY LOVE

As I mentioned in my last post, I kept dogs for most of my life. Back in the early 1980's, I had a golden cocker spaniel called 'Crumpet'. That's her on the right of the picture. She was such a lovely good-natured dog that I thought it would be a good idea to let her have a litter of puppies.

Accordingly, I took her to a kennels who had a pedigree stud dog for hire who proceeded to 'service' Crumpet. This must have been one of the most expensive 'quickies' in history! Well the time came when she was close to giving birth and I was nervously keeping a close eye on her when one night (why is it always night?) she started to produce.

Nature pretty much took over and after a while, the first puppy popped out. For those of you who don't know, puppies are delivered into this world looking for all the world like sausages! They each emerge in their own little translucent bag and while she is waiting for the next pup to emerge, the mother busily licks the newborn one free from its bag so it can start breathing. She then eats the bag itself which nourishes her in readiness for the feeding to come.

Out they came, 1,2,3,4,5,6. All went well until the last. By now, Crumpet was exhausted and wanted nothing but sleep. So there was number 6, twitching in its membrane sac about to suffocate. Quickly but carefully I helped the pup out of its bag and it started to breathe.

So there they were. Six new born puppies and as you can see they were absolutely beautiful! So much so that we sold only 5 of them, keeping one back who we named Muffin.