Woody’s Dog Blog

There’s little more unsettling and tedious than being woken up by squealing toddlers at 6 am, waiting to be let out for a wee (me not them, they just do it in their nappies), then waiting another half hour until the boys start flicking milky Cheerios onto the floor during breakfast, then listening and watching everyone pull on their clothes and whinge about mismatched socks and non-existent wardrobes, then sitting through the pre-leaving-the-house tantrums (usually but not exclusively child ones), and finally being dragged out of the house and to work, ready for a trot in the park at 9.30am. By then I’ve usually lost the will to walk.

Well I say usually … oh how I longed for angry sock combinations and mulchy corn hoops this morning. At 8.30 am I found myself hurtling down the M40 to London without any hope of a decent walk in sight. An hour later we’d been the wrong way round the North Circular, back-tracked to Hanger Lane to find the correct exit, and whoopee found our way to Greenwich to pick up some paintings or something. Apparently we arrived a bit early so the mas took me round the area for a windy walk, a very long wee and a poo on the pavement (absolutely no greenery anywhere, not a jot; just cranes and boarded up land being bulldozed for the 2012 Olympics). As concrete jungles go, there was little in the way of wildlife, or any life, around the place.

The artist and his wife were both at home, and I had to stay in the van whilst the mas collected not only the paintings but decades’ worth of unwanted pish posh. I should explain that Cooky Ma’s recently deceased godmother was the artist’s mother, and there was paraphernalia galore up for grabs. Truth be told, the mas just wanted to collect the paintings and have a bit of a chat, but they’re polite types and consequently found themselves the reluctant new owners of a dusty glass sugar bowl and spoon, three of somebody else’s family photo albums, a 1950s vanity case, four small bottles of off-Port, a packet of Rich Tea (good until October 2009), five bottles of silver dip, two tins of Silvo, twin wicker bins and a ball of string. Items they rejected included another dusty glass bowl, a dodgy looking steamer, some plates, a basket to house Christmas napkins, a family suitcase and a pot of ‘universal household cleaner’ that was so old it had turned to concrete.

Boy was I glad to leave. If I’d been any other dog on the planet, I’d have been back home by 3pm, just in time for a decent walk in the leafy countryside. Sadly, my geographically-challenged mas were driving me home, which meant travelling via Docklands, Essex and South Mimms before arriving back in Oxford nearly three hours later than planned. I even wondered whether I saw a faint glimmer of the Angel of the North winking at me in the distance as we farted along some erroneous A-road for the sixty eighth time.

Ma found a tick on me a couple of nights ago, but she’s lost the tick-picker. Shall I tell you what she did to me instead? She tried to drown the little swine by squirting vanilla vodka onto it through a plastic syringe. The shame of it! Apparently vanilla vodka is the only alcohol in the house that nobody will drink (even my little boys won’t touch it, and they’ll drink or eat anything they’re not supposed to*), so it’s joined the ranks of the other 65 household pest killers and cleaning materials under the kitchen sink that don’t keep their promises, that will stay there until we move house on account of my ma believing it’s a waste of money to bin them. It is apparently sinful to dispose of cleaning materials, whether they work or not.

So now my tick is drunk and out of control, singing ‘I Will Survive’ and throwing up all over my back for all I know. Terrific.

The low point of the weekend came on Sunday, shortly after the mas shunted me off for the day as they were going off who knows where (they never bother telling me, and if they did I wouldn’t bother listening). I was to spend the day with lovely Laura and her family, and I was so pleased to see everybody, as I’ve stayed there several times when the mas have been on holiday or an awayday. The joy in my heart soon left me, however, around the time I was introduced to a caged rabbit in the back garden. It was a houseguest for the weekend, and almost as big as me. Apparently I was expected to spend the day with this lolloping great stew without chomping its head off and devouring its inside bits. It tried to make friends with me and be all pally, but frankly I wasn’t impressed, and had I found myself in less polite company I would have been spitting out bunny bobtails before bedtime.

* My boys’ preferred delicacies include shingle, marbles, cat food, playing cards, socks, cat litter, polystyrene, grass and someone else’s Smarties off the pavement.

Ma and I popped off to the Co-op this morning*. I have to sit outside with all the other poor pooches, all licking their lips and whining for their mas and their pas (whatever they are) for fear of being dognapped.

So Ma bought some bits, and a few bobs, including some frozen soya beans and a bag of crunchy granola with dried pineapple, coconut and banana chips (mmm, good choice Ma - lovely. Don’t forget to save me some, just in case I need ammunition against potential dognappers.) Get this though. There is a warning on the back of the packet: “This is a crunchy product. If in any doubt about the state of your teeth, please consult your dental practitioner.” Well Ma’s top set nearly flopped right out onto the floor.

I learnt today that, for most of the last century, it was widely thought that intelligence was in decline. The idea was that those at the lower end of the intelligence spectrum were having more children, thereby reducing the general intelligence level. Some bright spark called James Flynn, however, carried out a few tests and discovered that IQ was going up by 3 points per decade in the developed and developing worlds. This ‘Flynn’ effect is a little bit long to chat about, but suffice it to say that he predicted that somebody with an average IQ today (that’s 100), will have grandchildren with a score of 120. Perhaps more shocking, it suggests that someone with an average score today would have had grandparents who were close to mental retards.

If Flynny’s theory holds true then the illiterate, barmy, cereal-munching grandparents of yesteryear would have all choked to death on their granola, thus annihilating their own stupid gene pool and safeguarding the intelligence of today’s generation.

So what went wrong poppet?

*It’s a bit like the Pope, full of good intentions, but lacking in charm and ethical diversity (where are the free-range meats Poppet?).

I’m so glad the sun is back. Last week was totally hot and delicious, and then a couple of days later I found myself tottering around the sodden park with a cold tummy, Ma was crossing her arms over her winter coat to stay warm, and the daisies had all recoiled in horror. It was like stepping out into February after a Centerparcs mini-break*.

Of course when the sun comes out, so do all the lovely local litter louts. Mmm, I’ve had some tasty snacks in the park this week. Yesterday I found practically a whole Chinese takeaway on the grass just near the playground! Just as Ma crept up to get it off me, I darted away from her like a whippet, laughing at her efforts through a gob full of spare ribs. It was just like the old days, when she would chase me round in circles for up to an hour, trying in vain to get me back on the lead. Ah, happy days.

* Cooky Ma tells me that Centerparcs is a heavenly, balmy oasis of fun and wonder, that every square inch of the place is filled with sunny joy, pant-wetting excitement and skippity bunnies. Drinky Ma is suspicious, however. She envisages a big communifuncentre laced with sunny Yellowcoats who encourage you to partake in quad-biking tournaments with the family from hell in the chalet next door. She knows full well that, rather like death, a Centerparcs holiday is inevitable at some point in the future, but she’s jolly well going fight it for as long as possible.

My boys (nee babies) have been on hunger strike for over 3 weeks now, which means I get most of their dinner. Great when it involves ham, chicken or big meatballs. Start fobbing me off with pasta twirls with mascarpone & tomato stir-in sauce and peas, or M&S Chicken Teddies in Breadcrumbs (I love teddies - why would I want to eat them?), or Nice Rice with Chicken (nice rice, small chicken), and I feel sad. My belly feels all rumbly and uncomfortable, and I’m not sated. A dog needs his protein, and it is for this reason, ladies and gentlemen, that a couple of balmy evenings ago, whilst my mas dined al fresco on their fluffy herby rice with la de dish of mullarkey whatsits, I stuck my face into the shrub border and scoffed a couple of cat poos. Mmmm, nice and rich and full of iron - just what I needed, and nicely grilled too. Drinky Ma didn’t care much as she has a cold and therefore her senses aren’t working as they should, but Cooky Ma’s cod in coconut milk, lime & coriander broth apparently lost its appeal around the time my little faecal snack let out a soft crunch as I bit into it.

More importantly, I’ve found my way back onto the Facebook. Well, I have some spare time, and frankly it’s the only way I can communicate with my mas at the mo. Stupid Scrabulous, silly Scramble, wretched WordTwist. Smelly CubeCrash. Even my granny has joined this social fast food restaurant. She got a laptop and some wireless internets for her birthday, and suddenly she’s unstoppable - she’s having her turn at Scrabulous every three weeks! My grandpa says he’s worried about how much the blinky lights on the router cost him, however, so he switches it off at the mains every night*. It’s playing havoc with Granny’s wireless connections.

Anyway, I’m off to see what the cats have left today (it’s going to be soggy due to the rain, but who cares). x

* I secretly think Grandpa’s switching the router off as he’s a tinsy bit jealous that the broadband signal doesn’t quite reach as far as his garage den, and so he’s still on dial-up.

Did I mention I nearly died on Saturday? No? Well, I got one of my callings from the woods at Shotover, but the wretched bunnies were so deep down in their little holes, that I had to bite through several tree roots to get to them. Suffice it to say, the roof of my mouth became attached to a horizontal branch, and I found myself unable to breathe or shut my mouth. Blood was spurting everywhere, several family members tried to wrench the damn tree trunk out of my mouth, no luck, so Cooky Ma whisked me off to the vets, whoopsie it’s shut, so she drives to the shop to get other Ma, who promptly opens my mouth and slips the tree out of my mouth as though it was a soft marshmallow.

Anyway so I took Ma off to the Polling Station this morning to pin the tail on the donkey, which she does every four years or so apparently, and we trotted into the designated small hall side by side, voting card at the ready. The room was empty but for the four officials, all sitting in plastic orange chairs that were perfectly spaced apart, tucked under two wallpaper-pasting tables that had been arranged just so. Each lovely had her own clipboard and pencil at the ready. Ma glanced at the ’smiliest’* of the four and asked: “Is it ok for my dog to come in?” (we were already in). The lady looked really quite frightened. Her brain hadn’t prepared itself for such a question, and she didn’t know what to do with it. She looked around at her comrades, and a brief interlude of teeth-sucking, mouth-twisting and nervous pencil-tapping ensued. I mean really! Finally, the furthest-away lady on the second table braved an executive decision: “As long as he doesn’t wee or poo on the floor,” she asserted, to which Ma replied haughtily, “He’s about as likely to as I am.” How humiliating!

I was so upset that I considered having a word with the door on the way out, but I thought better of it at the last minute as I spied a box of Tenalady poking out of one of the official’s handbags.

* Not very smiley at all as it goes.

Ma’s just got back from the vets. And guess what? I didn’t go! For the first time in ages, it was nothing to do with me. Hurray! It was my cat brother Louis’s turn today; he’s been weeing in the house when he shouldn’t have done apparently. Hurrah! Ha ha! Don’t get me wrong, I love Louis to bits, but I’m flicking relieved it’s not me in that room today. Ma thought he had diabetes because he’s a bit fat, but apparently he’s got cystitis. I say apparently, because although the vet man is very nice and all, Ma can’t understand all of what he’s saying because his Spanish accent is thicker than Spam. There are lots of ‘pardon?’s and ‘mmm?’s and quite a few ‘what’s he got again?’s, and the odd ’sorry was that once a day or once he dies?’.

I don’t know why everyone can’t speak the same language - it would be so much easier wouldn’t it? Each generation’s linguistic modernisations, abbreviatations and bastardisations always aggravate the elders. What used to be ‘haven’t’ is now ‘ain’t', who you thought was your ‘friend’ is now a ‘gr8m8′, what was once fat is now genetic (or phat which is wicked wot used to be bad before it was good) and what was once a ‘house’ is now unaffordable and at risk. The humble letter ‘aitch’ has sneezed its way into the 21st century as ‘haitch’ quicker than you can say ‘halitosis’. Ma said that the boys (nee babies) will grow up with ‘haitch’ in their halphabet over her dead body. That their old-fashioned aitches may alienate them from their m8’s (don’t even mention apostroppy’s) doesn’t seem to worry Ma as much as propriety and the current order of things. Well Ma, all I can say is:

‘Now lat hym riote al the nyghte or leve.
And for ther is no theef withoute a lowke,
That helpeth hym to wasten and to sowke
Of that he brybe kan or borwe may,
Anon he sente his bed and his array
Unto a compeer of his owene sort,
That lovede dys, and revel, and disport,
And hadde a wyf that heeld for contenance
A shoppe, and swyved for hir sustenance.’*

Is it a dyslexic? Is it a drunk? Is it a Swede? No! It’s Chaucer! That’s progression poppet. Lol.

* That is in fact an excerpt from A Cook’s Tale. Chaucer couldn’t be bothered to finish it apparently. Don’t blame him either.

I was reading libertylondongirl’s blog today, as you do. Well I clicked on one of her links and what did I see? Shall I show you? I’m not sure if it’s right … oh well, have a peek if you dare. I can’t remember the last time I saw such a fright … I couldn’t believe my eyes. A blue string bikini thong! How 2002 is that? And it doesn’t remotely match the pink bra top. What was she thinking?

Now I do like to keep abreast of couture matters, but don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of those pitiful pooches who get primped and blinged up like a dolly wolly, no no. Poochy Pringle sweaters? Not for me thanks very much. Personalised hound hoodies adorned with ‘Snoop’ or ‘My Mommy Rescued Me’ on the back? Puleeease. Little flicking pink doggy sneakers? With Velcro fastenings? Do I look like Tiffany the Toy Tinkerbell Twitface Terrier? It’s not right I tell you. I for one shall not be attending this year’s Pet Fashion Week in New York (the fact that the event only stretches over two days should give you some idea about the chumps that organise it.) The pets’ outfits have surely been dragged out of Julian Clary’s 1982 fantasy closet, and as for the tumors of misery who parade their wretched animals up and down the catwalk, well … they want a little tickle from the Diddymen if you ask me.

Those dogs should be rolling their fur in fox poo, not putting rollers in it.

Well, ’twas the night before Wednesday and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

And then there was only a flicking earthquake wasn’t there? Both my mas woke up straight away - apparently the bed shook quite violently and there was a noise like a hostess trolley full of assorted heated crockery and food matter being shunted across the room … one ma thought there was an intruder in the airing cupboard, the other just sat upright with mouth wide open and eyebrows riding high for a while, expecting one of our big fat cats to scramble out from underneath the bed with a full Noah’s Ark in tow. However, having subsequently searched the house for any disturbance, the mas found not only everything to be in tact, but that also both my cat bros and I remained sleepily unperturbed by the whole incident, so they staggered back to bed and mumbled ‘well I really thought there was someone blah blah … wonder what that was … weird … God knows.’ Cue snoring.

Good to know they’re on the ball anyway.

Well it’s no wonder I’ve been quiet for a few weeks is it? I’ve hardly had a chance to get my paws near the computer of late. Cooky Ma has become obsessed with Scrabulous, the somewhat topical (10 points) and litigious (bingo! double points plus a triple word score!) interweb game from facebook. She’s got about 13 games on the go at the moment (some concurrently with the same person) and so evenings are spent trying to unravel endless anagrams of non-existent words - inzani? nazini? ainil? linani? zil? plinp? plip? pli? … terrific! Five smelly points. What’s the point? My other ma (shall we call her Drinky Ma) was quite keen to get into it, so she challenged friend Sophie with a seven-letter word to begin with (it’s a bingo!) and then waited 2 weeks for the response. It came, and Ma responded, but the whole affair was tardy and well, suffice it to say that facebook deleted the game due to lack of interest from the key players.

Speaking of interest, and players, one of my foreign lady friends took me to the park this afternoon, and I met who I thought was my girlfriend Molly … ooh it looked just like her. So anyway Molly and I are quite close, and we were doing what dogs do when they love each other, and my walking lady suddenly balked in horror, clipped my lead onto me, and swiftly frogmarched me out of the park, apparently horrified that I’d been engaged in intimate relations with another boy dog - well she was yabbering on to me in Spanish how was I to know? It wasn’t till we got back to the shop and she outed me to Ma that the unfortunate incident really started to sink in. It made me feel quite ashamed and really shocked that I was friends with a flicking doggy homophobe.