A post should appear every Sunday

 

Sunday December 17th 2023

 

It’s been a tough year for me. I’ve been in and out of the kennels like a hairy yo-yo. It all begins in January, when Human leaves me behind and goes away. Oh well, I’m only a dog. What can I do about it!

Here’s the bad news: soon after she comes back, I’m very ill. Yes, really. It must be Human’s fault. I have diarrhoea and keep being sick. I can’t eat anything and just want to sleep. One day I don’t even want to go for a walk. And then she doesn’t give me anything to eat – not for forty-eight hours.

The good news is that after being very ill, and then being starved, I get a tiny bit of scrambled egg. I could eat a very big pile of scrambled egg, so I keep licking the dish. She doesn’t get the message though. But every hour I get another helping. And Human is very nice to me. I keep getting pats and strokes and she doesn’t get cross about anything.

When I’m better it’s lovely outside, all icy and dead cold. And there’s snow. I have a wicked time, but – and you won’t believe this – Human is a miserable git. She doesn’t run into the garden joyfully in the mornings, just shivers and moans and shuts the door.

I’m better now, but if I’m not very interested in my boring food, Human gets all worried. Tee-hee! Then she gives me something different, like a bit of fish, or some freshly cooked mince. I love freshly cooked mince, but I even get fed up with that in the end. And anyway, she still gives me those boring kibbles with it.

I keep sniffing my food, then walking off and leaving it. She’s getting frantic. It’s a right laugh.

It’s well into February now, and she’s still worried about my eating. If I don’t eat what she gives me, she makes me something else. I like this.

Then, the bad luck happens. She takes me to Lee’s shop and tells tales on me. She says that I act like a strong, healthy dog but I keep leaving my food.

Lee weighs me. I’m nearly seventeen kilos.

How embarrassing.

Then he tells Human that I’m not eating my food because I’m not hungry. Huh! How does he know? Then he says some other things to her about diets, being firm and not giving in, and silly things like that.

We leave the shop with five little bags.

For my tea all I get is a little pile of kibbly bits. Stuff this for a game of soldiers. I leave it and go away. I know she’ll give me something nicer.

But she doesn’t. She leaves me without, and next morning she gives me the kibbly bits again. Well, I’m damned hungry, so I have to eat them, don’t I?

Actually, they taste quite nice, but I eat them very slowly, just to show her.

Then she leaves me at the kennels again. With lots of the little bags.

In March, when she comes back to fetch me, Tracey tells her I’ve eaten all my food without a murmur. Well, Of course I have, or the other dogs would have stolen it, wouldn’t they?

I’ve been had! Blasted sneaky humans.

It’s spring. I can smell it. I’m having lovely walks. New smells are popping up all over the place, so I sniff and sniff and sniff some more among the old fallen leaves.

There’s lots of mud everywhere now. I’m very happy and don’t mind it at all; human does though; she keeps sliding all over the place, and moans and mutteres all the time we’re out.

Worse still, when we get home, she washes my feet in a bowl. She’s just doing it to be mean because she’s fed up with everywhere being so muddy. Typical.

Between you and me, she sometimes forgets and leaves the mud on.

 

 

 

 

 

But I don’t say a word. If she notices, she’ll mess with my feet, and if there’s anything I really hate, it’s having my feet messed with. I give a little growl every now and again to reming her of this.

It’s April now, and I’m still the perfect dog: I sit dead still by my dish and only eat when Human touches my chin; I polish my dish every morning and evening; I am very nice to Human, and snuggle up beside her – I still have to growl now and then when she fidgets, but on the whole, we’re both very kind to each other.

I guess it’s still spring but it’s very cold. At night when I settle to sleep, she puts three fleeces on me before she goes to bed.

 

 

 

 

 

Silly person! She forgets I have a lovely, thick warm uncoat underneath all my long hair, but it makes her happy to cover me up, so I just let her get on with it, then toss the covers off when she’s gone.

So April’s nice, but soon it’s May and she leaves me at the kennels again for a very, very long time, and when she comes back it’s June. I’m so pleased to see her that I even make a big fuss of her when she comes to fetch me. 

Now you’d think she’d be especially nice to me after all that time, wouldn’t you? But no, now she’s attacking me with the buzzy thing and with the scissors as well, and cutting off my beautiful coat.

Wicked, I call it. I  feel undressed, and not myself at all.

Stupid Human ……………………….

to be continued

 

 

Isis came from Aeza cat and dog rescue in Aljezur, Portugal. For information about adopting an animal from the centre, contact kerry@azea.org or go to http://www.dogwatch.co.uk.