Woody’s Dog Blog

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?).