Posting days: Sunday and Wednesday and, sometimes, maybe, extra ‘news flashes

Sunday June 25th 2017

Well, what a laugh!

Today Liz arrives with Dougie and Fergie while I am playing ‘in and out of the pine trees’. She brings rain with her. Very exciting. There’s only one thing I like more than playing ‘in and out of the pine trees’, and that’s playing it in the rain.

Human keeps bringing an old tugger with her to Highbury. That’s O.K. I’m an obliging dog, as you know, so I play with it several times, just to please her. (Humans can get so touchy.)

But today I’m feeling particularly skittish. Just before the rain comes, I find the most amazing stick. It’s not soft and boring like the tugger. It’s big and spiky, and it fights back.

The Human is getting agitated. We dogs can sense such things, as you know. I expect she’s whining something like, “Sweetheart, you don’t want that nasty thing. It’s dangerous. Give it to me.”

I lie down.

That, of course, means “Yes I do want it”, and ‘Shan’t.

I’m happily playing when the rain gets much wetter. You’ll never believe what she does next. She clips me onto my lead and drags me away.

She doesn’t even notice that part of the prickly stick has snapped off and stuck to the inside of my back leg. I’m really cross now so I swirl round and round, and snap at my bottom. She’s getting really cross too. I can smell it. I bet she thinks I’m just being difficult because I want to stay and play with my stick. The rain is very, very wet now. I make her stop and get the prickly stick off me.

It takes her a long time because lots and lots of my hairs are caught in it. She gets wet. Tee-hee. Serve her right. She should have left me alone.

We run to the edge of the woods where the others are sheltering under big trees.

Boring. But she sets me free and I dash down to the edge of the field to play. I like it here and always stay until she fetches me.

Well, I’m not going to today. I nip back to the pine trees to look for my stick.

Can’t smell any of them now. Good.

But, as every dog knows, all good things come to an end.

When she finds me, she smells frightened. Snigger. Well, I knew where I was. She hugs me a lot. Silly b.

Then we set off to find Ji. He’s over in the corner where I was playing. Don’t know what he’s doing there.

It’s a long time before I can smell L. though. Or Dougie. Or Fergie. When they come back, they smell of the woods. They must have been for a very long walk.

I run into Dougie, so he isn’t pleased. He yaps at me. But L. gives me lovely rubs and strokes. And then Ji. pats me a lot.

Don’t know what the fuss is about, but not to worry, I soon find another big stick. One I had a good chew on only the other day.

She’s not taking this one away from me, but just to be sure, I run off with it into the lovely boggy place where the grass is taller than me.

Sometimes you just have to put your paw down.

Isis came from the Aeza cat and dog rescue and adoption centre in Aljezur, Portugal. For information about adopting an animal from the centre, contact kerry@aeza.org or  www.dogwatchuk.co.uk