Buffet days

So. Buffets. Absolutely smashing opportunities for the acquisition of free food, but also presenting certain challenges.

If you have four paws rather than two feet, the 'help yourself' buffet rule is somewhat different. Don't bother with a plate, it will just get it the way and is anyway difficult to handle without thumbs. Equally, there is no point in queuing in line with everyone else since they are under the impression that the buffet is not for you.

Please don't be put off by this species-ist attitude. You have just as much right to a buffet as people. They just get mixed up sometimes.

The prime times for accessing the buffet are either early, just after the cellophane covers have been removed (actually, if you're not picky about what you eat, just dive in cellophane and all) or late, after the initial rush has calmed down and people have drunk enough alcohol to no longer care what you are doing.

If you have long legs, just jump up and work your way round the dishes on the edge. You should manage to get a taste of everything. If you are not so lanky, like myself, you will have to get imaginative. My favourite access method is an opportunistic one. Look carefully for chairs parked close enough to the table to provide a potential bridgehead. Perfect for getting complete four paw access. Otherwise, pogo sticking up and down in front of the table and using ones nose to dislodge dishes can work really well, because you then get food scattered across the floor and no person is going to bother to stop you then.


A final word of warning. Be stealthy, or be quick. You can survive being found face down in the butter dish, I am living proof of that, but there will be consequences and your buffet time will come to a sad and immediate end.20p

Why I love pub life

1. A shocking number of people don't realise you shouldn't feed other peoples dogs. Excellent.

2. Evening work by parents means they spend at least 8 hours each day in daylight walking us, feeding us and playing with us. Or at least they could and should. Aspirational.

3. Evening work by parents means the sofa is vacant and available all evening long for undisturbed spaniel snoozing. Spot on.

4. Lots of people in and out means attention needy collie whippets are distracted and less likely to be darn annoying. Bonus.

5. Large number of discerning customers think I am wonderful, as indeed I am. Carry on.

The vagaries of women

Here is the scenario.

You are taken to the forest, in fact frog marched to the forest, encouraged to run around, cooed over when you wriggle gloriously on your back in a pile of pine needles, and then rewarded on your return home by a wonderful bowl of food.

Why on earth would you then be reprimanded for decorating the homestead with memorabilia of the wonderful experience you as a family have just shared? I speak of course of the flora and fauna of the forest which, by no deliberate act of myself, becomes attached to my flowing locks and hitchhikes home.

I just don't understand the contradiction.

I certainly don't think it is reasonable behaviour to drag me up onto a table and, whilst muttering in a most negative way, hack off said flowing locks that "harbour dirt and detritus".

Dirt and detritus? These are not words that need to come into contact with my ears.

I am a fitness goD!

Honestly, it's true. I am six and a half years young and have never been fitter. I am lithe, supple and have great stamina. Speed is merely a glossy facade behind which pretend athletes hide (like certain collie whippets, for instance).

In fact, I am now fully signed up to a Triathletes training program! Or at least the canine equivalent, which probably involves more running after than bike than biking itself (I am not stupid enough to run just in front of the bike like He does, barking his head off annoyingly) and perhaps less swimming. Don't get me wrong, I am fond of a bit of a swim, but I'm more of a lazy Sunday afternoon in the sun swim in the river guy than lap after lap type pool swimming. Plus I'm not allowed in many swimming pools. Apparently, they don't like the hair in the filters.

Haven't they ever heard of doggy paddle?

So you can expect training reports on a regular basis and I fully expect that my food intake will be increased according to the extreme level of exercise I am now undertaking.

What's to go wrong eh?

Turns out there are worse things than collie whippets

I honestly would not have thought it possible, but it seems to be true. Don't get me wrong, I still have no time for That Whippet, but I find myself on occasion siding with him against IT.

IT is new. IT is everywhere. IT seems to have an obsession with my ears (well that one I can understand, they are after all fantastic ears). Just as I have settled down for a comfortable snooze on the sofa IT arrives, dribbling, burbling nonsense (all the time, really, it just spouts gibberish), staggering like a drunkard and reaching out with its wet little hands to paw me (paw me...get it? ha!).

Now I have always had an affinity with the small people. I know where I am with them. I sit, I give paw, I am adorably gentle. That is innate in my small people friendly soul. I am reliably informed that IT will one day become a small person. Personally, I just can't see it. IT's not cute, doesn't tickle me nicely under the chin or throw my ball.

On the other hand, IT takes up space on the bed where I used to be, gets fed before me (possibly the worse crime of all) and has significantly decreased the amount of me-time I get with the parents.

Oh and this one is almost unutterable, but I will be brave. IT has meant that not only am I attacked by the dreaded clippers, but I was abandoned with a complete stranger who locked me in a cage and then attacked me with the dreaded clippers.

I believe the parents went to a nearby pub while this heinous crime was taking place. There is no justice in the world that can right this wrong.