Wagging One's Tail

Oh what fun I've had! Yesterday morning I went out for a quick patrol of the perimeter after breakfast whilst The Owner took his morning tea and sat down to watch BBC Breakfast. When I returned, The Owner had his clipboard out which is always a cause for concern. He seemed to be paying far too much attention to my back end and then scribbling frantically on his clipboard. I had to check round the back end in case I had maybe had a good chomp on a bit of tinsel that I had forgotten about. The reappearance of tinsel can be problematic I have come to notice in the past. But all appeared to be in order. His interest in my rear end was unnerving to say the least! Then I heard an item on the news which explained his behaviour and his particularly unhealthy interest in my rear end. Some fool hoomun has announced to the world that we K9's talk to each other with our tails. News to me!!! So to play along with him, for every Markie I wagged to the left and for a piece of toast, the right. This was all going swimmingly, so when he went to pour his second cup of tea I shuffled about a bit and his clipboard slid under the sofa. When he returned there was much searching for it, which bizarrely even included the shed in the garden. So he got another piece of paper and rested it on last weeks Sunday paper and continued his "research". So I gave him some conflicting results. Much later he found his clipboard and then noted the anomalies. I think we have seen the last of his experiment and I have a full belly to show for it so that is alright then. I like the idea of being an experiment, I wonder what we can experiment on today?

Postman Maul 2

I think I may have...umm....overcooked it a bit! Yesterday I went out on patrol as The Owner was getting far too animated with something on his desk for my liking so I felt it best that I went out. Out of sight. Out of mind. But on my return I was in time to see Postman Maul driving out of the farm gate again. This morning I was not about to miss him so since we got there first thing this morning I went and sat round the corner of the studio and waited. It wasn't comfortable and it wasn't warm either but I was determined to try and get to sit on Postman Maul's shoulders. Well when he got here he pulled up outside the studio and started fumbling through the box of mail on his seat but his door was open so I seized my moment. Well at least none of the letters fell out of the van!!! True, they were all over the floor and under or behind the seat, but none came out. There may have been one or two with a muddy paw print on them as well but that was hardly my fault, it was muddy beside the studio where I had been waiting!

Postman Maul's Shoulders

Inspired by the video of the cat on his Postman's shoulder seen on Facebook this morning, I resolved to give it a go myself today. Postman, who I now shall refer to as Postman Maul, arrived and was intent on giving The Owner one of his free leaflets that The Owner always smiles and thanks him for and then throws them in the recycles bin. I was trying to find the best way to get up there. Should I try and climb up, or circle round the back and take a running jump and see if I can get there in one athletic leap. I suspect he suspected my ploy as he kept fending me off with the leaflet. Tomorrow I may lurk behind one of the cars and await his arrival and run at him and jump when he has his back to me and see how I get on that way. I will keep you informed over my progress.

A Windy Night in October

Last night you may have noticed it was a little windy and as a result there was a lot of very loud frowning this morning. Due to the slightly inclement evening, noticed (in certain hoomun quarters) only after I was sent out into the garden and returned very wet, The Owner seemed preoccupied with the tumble dryer. Having brought his washing in off the line for the third time that day a little wetter than it was when it went out he formed a strong relationship with his tumble dryer for the evening. The observant among you will have noticed, as have I, that tumble dryers produce quite a lot of dry washing in need of other stuff being done to it and it seems to get put in the washing basket. Basically it gets left there then until he has decided to wear it again, but this evening it was left on top of the taps at the butlers sink. Now I know what a sink is for, but I have no idea what a butler is, or why he needs a sink, or do K9's even need a butler!? During the night there was a big gust of wind, of which I was happily oblivious up to a point. The point where I became aware was when the window above the taps got blown open and the basket and its contents fell on my head. Unable to understand how to fold up washing and return it to the basket, I did the next best thing and dragged it up into a heap..... and laid on it. Well I didn't hear him come down the stairs this morning because of the weather outside so he found me still asleep on the heap of crumpled washing. He has spent the rest of today sighing every time he passes the mirror and passing comment about crumpled shirts. Well I was cold with that window open!!!!!

The End of British Summer Time

The Owner appears to be in a strop this morning. I am assuming it is to do with him forgetting to change the clocks last night and getting up before Old Reg The Paperboy had delivered his Sunday paper. He seemed to have had a strop in the night too so why he didn't change his clocks then I shall never know. Predictably at two this morning the usual fidgeting starts upstairs, until half an hour later when he gives in and comes grumbling down the stairs to have a wee. I thought I would take advantage of the opportunity and I bounced around by the back door until The Owner let me out. Well you know how it works, you rush out to the first bush and whilst weeing on that a sniff passes by on the ample breeze that was blowing at the time. So I went to explore that and then I thought I heard a twig break down in Dingly Dell. So I went to explore that. Then another sniff... and a bit more exploring and so on until, after half an hour I suddenly realised I was actually half way across the cricket pitch field and thought it better to return to the new cottage and find The Owner. I started off with a gentle canter but by the time I got back it was a full on charge bordering on a demented badger run. As I entered the cottage The Owner was not waiting for me at the door, so I continued on through the kitchen and into the living room where The Owner was sat on the settee doing an impersonation of the statue "The Thinker". Although I don't think there was much thinking going on as he appeared to be asleep! Well I soon put that right when I landed and rammed my nose under his armpit and looked up at him. Well I don't know what he was grumbling about. If he had put his clocks right in the first place, given that it was two in the morning, I would have been back half an hour before I had left!! Given that it was The Owners fault, you would have predicted that I was to be punished in some way for his mistake. But how? It is Sunday so The Owner had his bath this morning and as he climbed out he swept me up in his arms and dropped me in without ceremony. I didn't feel too bad about it as when I got out and did a quick demented badger run around the carpet in the living room, I noticed the door to the stairs was open...... so up I went. Then I noticed his bedroom door was open too! He is now throwing his bed sheets in the washing machine, which I can't understand as he only changed them yesterday. He is still grumbling at me and frowning very loudly too. Hoomuns, huh!

Coffee on the Table

As eleven o-clock arrives I start to get excited, as it means coffee time for The Owner and that also means it is Bonio time for me. K9's are not known for such but I feel a "Woop Woop!" ought to be required at this point. The suspense was starting to get to me a little if I am honest as half past eleven was fast approaching and I had not seen him move. He was still up there, at the desk above me, banging on the keyboard and grumbling... a lot. It was then I had a terrible thought! What if I had gone to sleep and missed it? What if he has already had his coffee? I was frantic! Suddenly he threw the mouse pen back in its stand and gets up, picks up his "very special blue mug" which doesn't have Piglet, Pooh or Tigger on it, (so it is obviously still in one piece) and makes his way across to the coffee making stuff. I sit and watch as the palpable excitement in the air builds to a crescendo as he gets his cafetiere and the spoon and the coffee and spoons the coffee in. One......two.....and three coz I'm worth it! He then laughs at his joke, as he does every morning, the same joke - same laughter. Then he fills the cafetiere with hot water and puts the plunger in the top. As I watched intently, dreaming of Bonios, I couldn't help but wonder if he shouldn't have taken the spoon out of the cafetiere before putting the plunger in. He was on the phone by this time so his concentration levels, poor at best, were now at an all time low. As he chatted and laughed he absent mindedly pushed the plunger down. I thought to myself "He shouldn't have done that". And I was right! As the plunger went down the spoon opened the side of the filter in the plunger and allowed a stream of coffee and grouts to pass up the side and out of the spout and all across his desk. The harder he pushed, the farther the coffee shot across the desk unnoticed. After a few more minutes chatter on the phone he leant on the desk with his elbow and noticed the dark lake now residing on his desk and said a few choice words. Words that I pretend not to understand when he says them to me as I have breeding obviously. I rather got the impression that the lady hoomun client on the other end of the phone new exactly what they meant and was none too impressed to have heard them. I also get the impression that he hasn't got that contract after all. This may be an afternoon for keeping below the radar I think. I didn't get a Bonio either!!!

The Crackly Fire

The Owner is now running a tab for me on to which he adds the cost of all my misdemeanour's and then subtracts anything I earn and bring into the house. I am not hopeful of too much being subtracted from my tab to be honest but today I fear I may have added the cost of the "Finest of Chablis". May I just explain that when I was given my P45 as a gun dog (with breeding) from Lord Baths estate it was because I didn't like the bangs the guns made, they said I was "gun-shy". Unlike The Owner, of course, who is not shy of even the merest drop of gin. Well we have had the fire lit tonight, in our new cottage, using some odds and ends of logs he has been hacking up with Owner's Mate's chainsaw. Odds and ends tend to crack and spit a lot I have noticed, but he lit the fire and settled down with a bottle and a glass on the floor beside my comfy cushion so I curled up there too. Hopeful of a half hours fuss, or a Bonio, or better still..... both! Things were going well as we shared a moment of bonding. You know, Owner and K9 thinking as one. Well, the fire did a very good crackle at this point and I leapt forward without thinking and jumped on his lap....... which unsettled his glass..... which knocked over his bottle........ which fell on his Winnie the Pooh mug...... which split into two halfs........which spilled his cold tea from this morning all over the carpet...... which mixed with his wine on the carpet and made a right old mess! Now his cheap £3.99 bottle of Asda home brand "Dry White Wine" has immediately become a £15 bottle of chablis and has joined his Winnie the Pooh mug on the tab he is running for me. I suspect that the hire of a carpet cleaner will yet be added to that. Unable to earn in my own right I may have to conspire to get enough on to his tab to offset my own. I will keep you informed as to my progress.