Woody’s Dog Blog

Dear All

Having a lovely time here in Skeggy. Going for walks on the beach (choppy), eating takeaways from the locally rated restaurants (chippy), and spending time in the sauna (Champneys).

It’s a funny old place up here - imagine if God had got his iron out and pressed East Anglia good and proper, ironed out all the hills and nobbles and dusted it with mud and twigs. Now all you need to do is add a sagging esplanade of chip shops and fat birds (not the winged variety), throw in a row of raunchy stick’o'rock shops and a smattering of ‘Eileen’s Fashion Emporium’, ‘Avago Amusements’ and ‘Gold’n'gifts’ shops to taste, (not to mention the ‘Stumble Inn’) and hey presto, you have the Lincolnshire seaside resort in January.

Not that I’m complaining. Apparently the only reason we’re here is because of me. My mas felt bad about swanning off to sunnier climes and leaving me shivering at home alone, so they splashed out an extra £20 so that I could tag along and watch CBeebies from a Land of Leather cream suite for a week, on a nice big telly that makes everyone look life sized. Balamory’s Miss Hoolie’s happy, smiley hair looks as though it’s going to swing through the TV screen and scoop me up any minute.

Wish you were here.

Woody xx

Well I only caught a flipping Muntjac deer today! There I was, trotting through my grandparents’ garden at Shotover minding my own business, la de da, sniffing the bushes, watering the lawn, and then I look round and there’s a little deer just standing there with its head cocked, asking me what I’m waiting for please? Well I chased him all over the garden, zig-zagging through the molehills and ouchy bouncy through the bracken until I had his stumpy little tail between my teeth*.

Anyway my babies have managed to rip the cat flap door off so we’ve got an Arctic breeze blowing through the house at the moment and we’re all shivering as a result. Ma Sellotaped a tea towel over the cat gap until we get a replacement on Thursday, but whenever the cats go through it they take the tea towel with them. Jim (my ginger cat brother) came into the house through the gap this evening looking like a Jewish preacher cat with a talit draped over his back. He paused as he passed me, called me a Shmuck and lifted his tail before poppy-footing out of the kitchen and into the sitting room, where he sat for the rest of the evening mumbling about losing his front door and gaining an attitude and a bad back - whatever next already? “They’ll take the tea towel off my back and I’ll freeze to death”, he decided.

*I wish. I got so near I could almost hear him praying for Thumper to save the day. Next time though. Next time. You just wait. I’ll show him who’s prince of the forest round here.

Since I’ve been unwell I’ve been sleeping upstairs with my mas. I used to sleep in the kitchen or sometimes the playroom but they took pity on me all poorly and sorry for myself, and invited me up for a couple of nights. Well how time can test one’s fidelity … four months later and apparently they’re getting fed up of me licking my lips for hours on end, shuffling around the room snorting, wiping myself across the carpet and scratching for Britain when I can’t sleep. So last night Ma prepared the spare room just for me; drew the curtains, popped my bed right next to the radiator, gave me a bit of leftover steak for my bedtime treat. All very nice. But then she left me on my own. All alone. In the dark.

And I cried. I sat on the end of the sofabed and I cried. I cried and cried until she eventually came downstairs to get me. “What? What?” she shrilled impatiently. “What? What is it? What’s the matter? Are you cold? No. Hungry? No. Dying?” she suggested, throwing her hands up in the air. “No.”
I whimpered softly as I licked my lips. “Oh for God’s sake come on then.” she chuffed. You’ll never know how sweet those words sounded to me. I leapt off that sofabed like a gazelle, raced straight down the landing and up the stairs before you could say ‘dog whisperer my arse, it’s my mas that need lessons in discipline’.

Nighty night.

I had to go back to the vet on Saturday for a second opinion, as my mas don’t think the root of my problem is being treated, and also Cooky Ma is damned if she’s going to double, double toil and trouble over eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog, liver of blaspheming Jew, gall of goat and slips of yew again. It stinks.

So the alternative seems to be an allergy test which will mean me giving some blood away, and my mas giving some £222.96 away. It’s possible I could be allergic to one thing (imagine if it was cheese?) or even 50 things (imagine if it was 50 types of English and continental cheeses?), but what with my babies chucking food onto the floor at every possible opportunity, and lovely neighbours giving me treats all the time (Bob at the hardware shop next door keeps a Rich Tea in his pocket at all times just for me, and my neighbours at home give me their Sunday leftovers each week, all beautifully chopped up and presented in a sealed margarine box), it’s not really going to solve my problem, rather just diagnose it. Still, I guess it’s better than becoming a junkie.

It’s turned into Jamie’s Kitchen round my place today. My mas aren’t convinced that the drugs are making me better - well they’re not are they: anti-histamines make me sleepy, antibiotics make me sick, steroid cream makes me sting, my sores keep being sore and my itches are driving me nuts still. So anyway one ma convinced the other ma that a change in diet may help. So the one that can cook (Cooky Ma) went out and bought lots of lovely meats from the supermarket, and my goodness me what a pallaver ensued. Well she chopped up some carrot (do I look like a gerbil?) and cooked it with some peas and pasta (boring), some tomatoes (yaaawn), added some pork (ooh, better), let it simmer (come on come on …), got the rubber gloves out (beg pardon?), sliced open the raw liver packet (now we’re talking), retched at the raw smell (what’s wrong with these people?), chopped said livers with Marigolds still tightly on, spattered blood over the worktop and the clean plates (lick it off?), let it simmer for 20 minutes (mmm, liver vapour), opened the doors and windows (too late, the smell’s settled onto the walls and ceiling for ever more), lit a candle (flowery offal), lit another (offal flowers), scrubbed the hob so much it almost disappeared (Fairy clean) and voila, my new tea was born.

Cooky Ma said if I was sick after eating this she’d leave home (it tends to get inbetween the wooden floor planks you see), but luckily I vomited before tea and not after, so we were all safe.

On a brighter note, did you know that King Henry VIII introduced a beard tax in 1535? Yes, old beardy no.8 decided that only he was allowed to sport the swish, and anyone else who dared to defy the furry order was ordered to pay him money. Elizabeth I thought this was a wicked idea and re-introduced the tax during her reign, and guess what - Peter the Great copied it about a century later after a visiting noblewoman pointed out the snot dangling from his hairy face. Well I hate to think what else was lurking forgotten in there - they used to eat a lot of offal in those days didn’t they?

Well I’ve been visited by the skin cowboys yet again.

‘Can I interest you in a free trial of our very latest dermatitis Sir? We don’t think you’ll be disappointed in the quality. It really is a corker. Why not let us spread some onto your seat and see how you like the feel of it?’ So thanks very much for that, I’ve got a really sore botty now, and I can’t sit down properly. The only blessing is that Jenny, the veterinarian nurse at my surgery, has a soft spot for me and gave me a bag of liver sweets when I left. Lovely, lovely Jenny.

Speaking of lovely ladies, I happen to know that it’s Rebecca Whitwick’s birthday today. Happy Birthday Rebecca! Being a lady and all, I wouldn’t know how many years you are celebrating today, but please accept a felicitous lick from me.

This is what I look like again tonight. I’m itchy again, I’m sore once more. And I’m devastated.

On top of everything, somebody is bombing our neighbours a few doors down. They’re using fancy explosives with lights and catherine wheels and all sorts - not exactly subtle. It’s been going on for a few nights and my mas don’t seem to care. They will get us eventually I just know it. I don’t know what to do. I can’t catch them with an ice cream cornet on my head can I?

Well I was going to recount last Thursday’s short but eventful walk to the park, and tell you how I mistook a velvet jacket hanging outside a charity shop for a bush, and woopsie did a little wee on it, and how Ma felt so awful about it but just kept walking in a forwards direction in a frenzy of shame and panic; but frankly something very grave has occurred, and I digress.

I’ve been kicked off Facebook.

Deleted, barred, disabled, sent to social networking damnation - I am now an ex-entity of the Facebook. I have been wiped from the memories of approximately 83 friends, human and mammalian; I am unable to write on my friends’ walls, kick them, poke them or throw sheep at them. The multi-billion dollar company has executively decided that I am an unworthy, lowly little fidget wipe and without any notice has denied me the delights of licking friends in faraway places, and ripped apart all the flowers I sent my ma. No more recruiting people to causes such as ‘Stop bull-fighting’ and ‘Put an end to animal testing’ for me; so long to comparing culinary tastes in the group ‘Cheese, I think I love you’; and to all you common fanciers of weatherproof dog clothing from the group ‘Whippet in a raincoat’ - well it was fun wasn’t it. To all my buddies in Canada, USA, Australia, Sweden, France, Hawaii and beyond - so long, later, g’day, farvål, adieu, aloha - sorry I won’t be there to tickle you across the waves next time you’re feeling down.

The big Facebook chiefs have decided enough is enough. ‘Get these wretched pests off our land. These facebook animals are dirty little flea benches and they have no place in our world. Killll themmm!’ they cried in their very best Baron Greenback rasps, stroking their furry cackling caterpillars as they guffawed at my virtual demise.

Meanies.

If I had to choose between two low points of the week (1. having a haircut or 2. vomiting on the shop floor during working hours) I think it would be the haircut. Liz the Groomer knocked on the door on Wednesday morning, took me away a self-respecting dog (dishevelled beard, lovely thick mane and spinal mohican) - she brought me back home at lunchtime, short back and sides, beard off, toenails cut - well hello Trudi the Toy Fox Terrier. Since then, I’ve had two ladies in the shop bending down at me cooing ‘Oooh isn’t she good? What a lovely dog she is! Aaah, look at her in her basket - she’s tired, bless!’ My long-haired cat bro Louis had a cut’n'blowdry too, but he’s somehow managed to return home with his long coat and self-respect in tact. The worst bit was the granny perfume Liz washed us in - think old roses, Lux soap, Glade plug-ins and lots and lots of budget face powder. I still smell two days later. How humiliating?

God’s been smiling at me though … I was walking home from work with Ma the next day, we were a hundred yards down the road and she was about to put my lead on when I spotted it. Can you guess what I found? Was it a forgotten breaded chicken wing in a basket? No. A regurgitated kebab? Think again. A whole, round, unsullied chocolate cake twice as big as my whole head? You got it. It wasn’t so much winking at me as begging me to be its Facebook friend and offering me pretend pints of beer - it was giving me its whole profile on a plate. Status: double layer. Interested in: men, women, random play, whatever I can get. Hometown: Cake Corner, Headington Car Park (temporary placement). You bet it’s temporary! I clamped the entire chocolatey tyre into my jaws and ran off with Ma chasing me into the road! Silly woman running into the road, hasn’t she ever heard of the Greedy Cross Code? Never, ever run into the road chasing after food Mother. It’s very unbecoming in a woman, unless you’re a supermodel in which case it would be a headline, and frankly a blessed relief.

Life is getting desperate here at home. My paws are so sore I’m on steroid cream, I still have to wear the ice-cream cone (on and off), both my babies had terrible tantrums in John Lewis on Saturday whilst their little handprints were being embedded into clay (Christening present from a friend - thanks Wicky!) and worst of all, my ma has become an ebay addict. She can’t stop buying unwanted clothes and toys from faceless strangers off the interweb. Our house is now filled with baby shoes (’BNIB!’), baby shirts and trousers (’BNWT!!!!’), baby coats (’ONLY WORN TWICE!!! FROM PET AND SMOKE-FREE HOME!) and second-hand toy garages with cars missing (’L@@K!!!! BARGAIN!! MUST SEE!!!!’ …) all right, all right, don’t get your knickers in a twist, I might have a L@@K!!! if you’d only CAAALM D@WN P@PPET!!!

A couple of months back, I even saw her ‘watching’ a set of earplugs (’BRAND NEW! 28 PAIRS IN PRESENTATION BOX’). I don’t know why they were there, how long she was watching them for, or who ‘won’ them, but you’ve got to wonder what sort of person wants to buy 28 pairs of earplugs in a tailor-made presentation box? A pair for every day in February perhaps?

I bet the winner was pleased that they were ‘BRAND NEW’.