Posting day: Sunday, and, sometimes, maybe, extra bits in between.

 

Apologies to anyone who received an email with only the title of last week’s post. Thank you for alerting me Ian.

Unfortunately I only nailed the error tonight. I think I published a draft instead of the post.

Perhaps that’s when my silly week began ………………….

 

Sunday February 23rd 2020

 

I don’t think my human is quite right. What are humans supposed to do? Are there any rules? Perhaps if I could see and hear, I’d understand.

Do humans have to have kwolifikayshuns before they can look after a dog?

I don’t think so.

How are they supposed to behave?

Not like my human does, I think.

On Monday morning there’s something she can’t find. I know because she keeps running up and down the stairs. She makes the stairs shake.

When she’s upstairs she runs round the room above my head. Sometimes she stops and throws things on the floor. She makes the floorboards shake.

When she comes downstairs again, she’s making a buzzing noise. I think she’s shouting something. It could be something very rude. I’m glad I can’t hear it.

I’m lying on the rug in the front room. She’s stamping on the the floor, then stopping. I can feel puffs of air from the table, then from all the chairs, then from the floor. I think she’s lifting things up and dropping them again. I think she might be lifting everything up and dropping it again.

She must be sniffing under papers and books and bags. You have to do that when you can’t find things.

We must be quick today. We go out for our walk very early. I think she’s got a point meant.

It’s good when we come to the park early because all the micey and foxy smells are strong and interesting.

When we get home, she stops looking for whatever she’s lost. She must have given up.

I have my breakfast, then she sits in the front room at the table. I can smell her seereal. And milk.

I like milk but she doesn’t give me any.

She’s very quiet now. She’s eating her breakfast very slowly. I  think we got up too early, so now we can be slow.

I can still smell the milk, so I stand near her chair, just in case she might think, “Dogs like milk. This is a very good dog. Perhaps I will give her some milk. ”

But she doesn’t give me any.

I sit back down on the rug. Near the table, just in case. She might drop some milk on the floor. She often drops things on the floor.

I can smell her phone now. Then, suddenly, she swipes her arm across the light from the window. There’s a very loud bang, and the smell of coffee is getting stronger and stronger. I can feel the hotness coming towards me very fast.

I jump back.

Just in case.

A dog has to be very careful in this house.

She’s shouting again and rushing into the kitchen.

She runs back in and lifts things up in the air. The coffee smell is spreading all over the room. I smell wet paper and wet books and a wet sticky table.

She’s putting on her coat and opening the front door. I can feel a bus coming. She slams the door and her scent fades away.

Thank dog for that. I get on the bed and go to sleep.

When she comes back, she’s much quieter.

We go to Highbury Park and she takes me to the new grass that I’ve been running on. It’s lovely. There’s lots of space.

Then, bang! Something hits me. Something hard. I smell metal and rubber. There are people behind it. I shake myself and run away before they can attack me again.

Suddenly, Human’s there. She pats me and goes over to the people.

I’m all right, so I run off to play again. I run fast and jump up in the air. It’s lovely.

Then, smash. Something hits me very hard. It’s the metal and rubber thing. The people have hit me with it again. It hurts. But I don’t squeak. I run away from them. Human comes near and pats me again. This time she puts me on my lead. Soon I can smell the people going away.

My nose is stinging and I can taste blood on my muzzle. Why did she let them hurt me? Humans are supposed to  take care of dogs.

Aren’t they?

She wants me to run around and play again, but I’m too frightened. I sit by Human, then I lie down. She feels me all over. I think she finds the sting on my nose. She wipes the blood off my mouth.

I know she feels bad because she kisses my head and strokes me. Then we go home, and soon I find a bit of cheese in my bowl.

That night we lie on the downstairs bed. She still hasn’t found the lost things. I know because she keeps feeling under my blanket and lifting up the cushions and pillows. When she puts the radio on, and when she puts the television on, they’re very loud. Even I can hear them buzzing. They’re not usually as noisy as this.

I wonder what she’s lost.

The next day we go for a long road walk.

Now, when a dog needs a poop, a dog needs a poop. I always try to be quick. I don’t like to make a fuss. I’m not like Nancy who walks around pooping as she goes. And I’m not like Rufus who trots a long way away and poops in very long grass so we all have to wait ages  for Bev to find it.

I’m a neat pooper. No fuss.

I’ve just finished when something falls past my face. It’s Human’s glove. The shame of it. She doesn’t just pick everything up so we can walk on. No, we have to stand there on the pavement where everyone can see us, while she faffs around with bags and gloves. In the end, she puts the glove in the bag as well. When we get home, she puts the bag in the dustbin.

Then, another day it’s her painting day. Her paints smell very strong, so I always know when she opens her painting trolley. Fwoff!

We have to go to the park very early on painting days. Sometimes it takes her a long time to wake me up. Especially if she’s stayed up late and kept me awake the night before. She’s  often thoughtless like that.

She lets me choose where I want to go when we get to Kings Heath Park. I choose the Colour Garden, of course. She sits on the bench where I can smell her, and I run up and down and find sticks to chew, and jump around.

 

 

 

 

It’s lovely.

When we get back home, she suddenly starts looking for things again. She can’t stay away from dustbins these days. But now she’s taking things out of them. I can’t believe it. She wouldn’t let me do that.

She gets a big, full, smelly dustbin bag out of the bin, brings it into the porch and opens it.

Fwoff!

Soon she yaps in my ear. It’s not an angry yap, it’s a happy yap like I do when she’s putting me in my harness to go out. She takes something out of the bag, and puts it on the shelf. I sniff it. That’s strange, it smells like her ears.

She doesn’t stop yet, though. She must be looking at everything in the bag. I can smell each bit as she takes it out of the big, smelly bag and drops it into a new one. There’s onion skins, food wrappers, very old cheese, stinky tissues and some bits so smelly that even I don’t want to sniff them.

Then, at last, she gives another happy yap and puts another thing on the shelf. This smells like her ears as well.

She grabs the things she’s put on the shelf and we both rush into the house.

Now she’s bouncing around. She’s opened something which smells horribly clean. I’ve smelt it before. She has it in her pocket when we go to the park and she gets it out when she’s put her thumb in something nasty.

She sits down. I  sniff her ears. There’s something in them now.

Dog, humans are very strange.

I hope she goes painting soon so I can have some peace.

 

*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