A Cautionary Tale

 Never forget that puppies are really toddlers dressed up in fur… Yesterday Portuguese M came round to help me clear the house of chewed up bits of toys, clothes on the floor, those mysterious balls of fluff that appear in the corners of a room – all in preparation for the dinner party I am holding tonight. Now Portuguese M is a garrulous type of woman who has a story for every event but with an accent to go, and one has to really concentrate, particularly when the genders get mixed up and strange malapropisms appear.And of course once she saw Muttley she launched into her very own tale of how intelligent these ‘leetle doggies’ were.  Rather like a bored toddler waiting patiently by her side, I could see Muttley’s attention begin to waver, and as they were both by the open kitchen door, he began to do a surreptitious back shuffle towards the garden. Just then, from out of nowhere, a fox appeared on the lawn, and with a great whoop of joy Muttley shot after him, following him through a previously undetected hole in the fence and into our neighbours garden.

Now we live on a quiet lane, but our neighbours face on to the main road that runs through Mytchett, and I can’t vouch for the security of their fencing as they don’t have a dog.  So lead in hand I ran down our lane and out along the rat run that takes you into and out of, the village.  There was Muttley, panting in excitement as I approached him, his f ront legs splayed out slightly, ready to run. I commanded him in my best Barbara Woodhouse voice to Come – and he ran straight out in front of the traffic.

Luckily, the people of Mytchett are in the main dog lovers, and cars scattered everywhere in their attempt to avoid the excited pup who at this point had that look of bravado in his eyes that meant that he knew he had gone too far but didn’t know how to stop himself.  Luckily with the help of Joe and his mate from Joe’s Emporium (our local house clearance sale shop) we managed to herd Muttley into a driveway and capture him. Joe’s mate said ‘Border collie? I used to ‘ave one o’ those…They’re very intelligent they are, they can read your mind’, I was thinking, I hope he can’t read my mind right now…

So this morning G is on patching up fence duty, and I have booked up puppy training classes.  In the meantime Muttley sleeps, secure in the knowledge that today is another day.