Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Gone To The Dogs

Now I have full-time employment I also have colleagues. One would wish for colleagues like Gareth, Colin or Johnny. But no. It’s hard to get any fun or indeed human interaction of any kind and therefore to have remained sane by Friday. My best bet - and my main source of Jeremy Clarkson news - is Doru, a jolly decent chap but with rather low horizons: “Barry Bogiss he won last night”; “Eh??”; “European Long Distance Lawnmower Rally. You did not see on Eurosport 2?”; “Oh, errr, yes, of course, errr...”; “Sven Spodsen he started well but his rotor blades were set too high. In London is raining a lot, yes?”; “…yes, indeed, yes, almost all the time, yes……. Chim chiminey, chim chiminey chim chim cher-ee….”.

So after the departure of my donkey friend, I’ve been forced to turn for companionship to the canine community. Dogs are plentiful here: domesticated, wild, feral, bi-feral, feral-curious… one of my wife’s cousins even has a dog that’s half wolf! I remember when it was the cutest puppy you ever saw, but now it’s a wolf, though for some reason still as soft as shite. The man next door has dachshunds, which he tells me – inexplicably, unless it’s to make me feel at home – are English. I’ve been convinced there are at least 20 of them, but Mrs Dilo assures me that because they move around so quickly and randomly it just seems like there’s a lot. I therefore applied my A.I. unsupervised learning and pattern recognition skills and deduced that there’s 3 of them, based on 3 distinct emergent patterns of fur-colouration. But Mrs Dilo, again, whose eagle eyes spot bargains, gypsy misdeeds, and the differences between hedge warblers and sedge warblers from several kilometres distance, assures me there’s 4 of them, but that 2 look quite similar. And they’ve got names: “Bruno”, “Blackie”, “Boo-Boo” and – oh yes – “Lady”.

Another mystery solved. I’m now friends with them all and with their Ţuică-breathed owner. We’ve barred them from our garden by boarding up the holes in the fence, but Bruno in particular can make himself incredibly low to the ground so it’s only a matter of time before he’s crapping on our carpet.

13 comments:

  1. You want a dog, don't you Gadj? Go on admit it.
    Sx

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  2. There were several dogs in my office...
    I must get to grips with your use of emboldened text. I keep thinking they're links (although what possessed me to click on 'crapping on our carpet' defeats me).

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  3. "domesticated, wild, feral, bi-feral, feral-curious"

    I first read this as "bi-sexual", which is of course entirely plausible given that our canine friends are such easy-going, un-fussy creatures. Even a lamppost will do for some of them.

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  4. How many will you be getting then Gadj? Are you planning to start a dachshund farm? Are you thinking or roast dinner for one or ready-made spats (put buckles on those little legs and I think you'd have a design feature - I guess you could do both.

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  5. At least you can use them to clean the carpets if nothing else. I hear they pick up the dust like nobody's business.

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  6. A shitzu on a stick is good for tall bookcases

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  7. Bananas, I think the situation is more complicated - it would be incest. Indeed, many people here strive to get something as wolf-like as possible in their gardens to chase away gypsies and to bark incessantly everytime a leaf falls from a tree etc.

    Scarlet, I always thought I was more of a cat person, but yes, I do I do!

    Brother Tobias, either you work in Battersea Dogs' Home or you are very cheeky! Emboldened text is achieved with {your text here}, whereas links are achieved with {your text to describe the link here}. Good luck.

    Francis, yes, they really are quite apalling. Never mind lamposts, from what I've seen, Blackie (or is it Boo-Boo?) is posing as a somdomite. (Another post perhaps).

    Lulu, three seems to be the miminum number for people obsessed with these animals. Given that they're "sausage" dogs, I would opt instead of the roast dinner for some kebab skewers and some bar-b-que sauce.

    Madame, great idea: Mrs Dilo has become obsessed recently by fluff, and this may be the only way I can persaude her to allow an animal - though preferrably a cat... or a donkey - in the house!

    Kevin, I really want to believe that that's what you do in your library. (Though I expect the work is subcontracted to A1 Shitzu-On-A-Stick Cleaning Solutions).

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  8. My brother Annwn has a Doberman called Bruno, who snatched a stick from our daughter Arianrhod's hand during a walk in the woods over a year ago. The very name of the beast causes her to furrow her brow and intone "Naughty Bruno took Arianrhod's stick". Like an elephant she never forgets, and is a curious grey colour.

    On a drive around the Suceava area our guide for the day pointed out a house where a man kept a lion as a pet. It got to breed with pretty much anything it fancied, from what I gathered, including at least one policeman and a Ukrainian maid called Yirtsya.

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  9. Boyo, young Arianrhod has the advantages of time and superior intelligence on her side, wheras that mutt really only has its stick-taking ability. No contest, at the end of the day.

    The Lion of Suceava? Never heard of it, but it's rather pleasing that somebody here has sufficient eccentricity. There's certainly enough raw meat for it around and abouts.

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  10. Once the stabilisers come off Arianrhod's bike, that's dog's days are numbered.

    AS for Aslan of Suceava, I imagine he escaped from one of the Conducator's private zoos and made his way through the Borgo Pass by feasting on pilgrims.

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  11. Boyo, I'm imagining she also has curved steel blades attached to her stabilisers!

    Here, Aslan would refer to Ana Aslan, Romanian inventor of miraculous anti-aging treatment Gerovital, which is banned almost everywhere else but never did J.F.K., Marlene Dietrich, Kirk Douglas or Salvador Dalí any harm.

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  12. Gadj, your typesetting tip to Bro. Tobias has enhanced my life. Thx v. much.

    I am still under-informed about Ţuică. Might it be possible for you to begin the long, slow and arduous process of enlightening me by listing the occasions when its consumption is incorrect?

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  13. Bro. Inkspot, my typesetting tip to Bro. Tobias was a genuine act of stupidity on my part but I shall pass it off as wit :-)

    Ţuică may be consumed on any occasion except when there's a "Ţ" in the month (there aren't any).

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