April and I know I should be hoping for rain but I just can’t bring myself to do it. Rain is great when you are in a nice dry house with a cup of tea looking out at your recently planted flora drinking it in but when you live on a building site in a delapidated mobile home with 17 dogs and 20 cats around, it’s a different story. However much time you spend wiping surfaces down they are immediately covered in William Morris Paw de Chat print. I have to wear waterproof trousers to get down to the car otherwise I’m covered in the later design of Paws de Dog sizes various !
Mea culpa time !! I’m always banging on about getting your dogs sterilised. Even if you say your dogs never go out without you, there is always the possibility of a second’s moment of inattention and there you go, more puppies who risk ending up in the Lot or a dustbin. Well, we have Fargo, a huge Ariegois dog, who is so frightened of everything that it was considered putting him to sleep as he would have no quality of life. I said I would give him a try here, he could just live his own life in the safety of a park and large garden and no-one would bother him. He isn’t aggressive you understand, just terribly terribly nervous. Well, after six months I can just about touch him but only when he knows I am going to open the park and let him run in the garden. The other day when bringing the other dogs home from a walk, I had that “moment of inattention” and Fargo was out into the big wide world. I hadn’t had him neutered as I didn’t want to put him through the stress of a visit to the vet. SILLY, SILLY ME !! I spent an anxious day at work imagining him battling with other males in order to impregnate some poor female – it’s ‘season’ time and there are hundreds around. All the other dogs were shut up in parks, the back gate left open, Ernst was asked to keep an eye out and to close the gate as soon as Fargo came home. I got back in the afternoon to find Fargo happily playing in the garden. Phew ! Then a SFB moment (I can’t possibly write that in full), the back gate was still open. I charged up to it and did an Ally McBeal flying leap to close it before Fargo realised he could get out again. I turned round to see him looking at me a sort of bemused “duurrhh, been there, seen it, dunnnit, got the t-shirt” look on his face. For those of you who are interested, Ernst had been so involved in putting in windows (yeah !!) he hadn’t even realised Fargo was back!
I get the last laugh, Fargo is off to the vet next week and will come home missing two little pieces of his anatomy !!