Three hairy things.
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PET'S CORNER. (person's of a sensitive nature should read no further!) CLICK! As you may, or not know, we have dogs, beautiful, fluffy, staggeringly hairy dogs, bitches which I prefer to males - as they can be less bothersome in some regards, sometimes. Rough collies. They are beautiful, gorgeous, lovely, cuddly and wonderful. They are also vile, revolting, amazingly intelligent whilst simultaneously really astoundingly thick! I suppose this means, they are DOGS! Maeve for example, is a lovely creature, beautiful, intelligent and as I said above, 'as two short planks' (according to my completely accurate world view). Possibly she is hormonal? Maybe the cold weather has affected her sense of smell? Whatever, she has gone through a period of eating ahem, non-edible, non-food stuffs which are regrettably associated with (probably) male dogs who share the same daily walking circuit. (ie 'droppings') Having eaten the inedible not to mention unspeakable, she has proceeded to return home and vomit her guts up in various rooms of the house. This has stimulated a severe urge in me to chase her through the house with various murderous implements whilst screaming "Die you stupid *$!&$!", or words to that effect. I hasten to add, these violent brainstorms have been confined entirely to my head where they merely raise my blood pressure. (Okay, just occasionally I may have said "Arrrgghhh!" in a loud voice.) My wife, ever a calming influence in my life informs me that when she was young, one of the old sheep dogs in her village was known for eating coal and handkerchiefs, and the old farmer who owned it said they needed to train it to shit on the fire. She laughed and I didn't. The dogs are aware that my saying "Arrrgghhh!" in a loud voice means that I am not at all pleased right now and Maeve, oh dear Gods, Maeve will try to eat the offending deposits in order to clean up. She then instantly feels most unwell and naturally vomits again - whilst being chased through the house as I attempt to stop her moving about. This dietary aberration has made her very sick indeed. The answer I have found is to keep her on a lead at all times when out walking. She is not keen on the restriction but her health has improved remarkably since I started doing this. I did try briefly letting her run freely again once she was better and blow me, the same problem arose again, so now she walks on the lead ever hereafter and all is well more or less. Note. By chance I met a fellow dog walker whilst shopping at the supermarket the other day. We exchanged greetings, enquired as to each other's health and as always said "And how are the dog's?". We both related copious information concerning our canine pets and she told me that her dog never touches animal droppings, rather it eats compost given half a chance! Dogs, Why do they do it? But I digress. NICER THINGS (readers, you can look again now) CLICK! In the deepest depths of winter, which have just barely relinquished their grip upon us, we were driven to purchase a small fan heater for the games room as the night light method of heating just wasn't cutting the mustard as it were. CLICK! Being a modern, though basic cheapo model, fan heater it has a safety device built in so that should it fall over for whatever reason, it turns itself off. This is welcome. And it goes CLICK! China, the other beautiful, fluffy, intelligent exasperating etc dog has not the slightest idea as to how to play with a ball in the garden despite much encouragement, but she has discovered how to play with a fan heater. You nudge it and it goes "Click!" NB You do not knock the heater over, no, no ,no! You just nudge it, it goes "CLICK!" and you can nudge it again. " CLICK, CLICK, CLICK, CLICK!" This gets mummies and/or daddies attention, which is amusing to a dog! She has also learnt how to nudge Christine's right arm whilst she is working on the computer. This also gets mummies attention of the 'annoyed but also endearing' type, causing such comments as "Oh China, yes we do love you, you are very nice, why don't you nudge daddy instead?" China wags happily, the operation is a complete success.
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