The wickedest whippet and the beginning of the longest night....

Sassy aka The EBJ looking unusually winsome and angelic...

It's been a massive secret but even I could no longer fool my husband into thinking the dog was just fat - she is very definitely preggers.

Up until a week ago you'd have been hard pressed to notice but now she just looks like an overweight  sausage dog on stilts. Gone is the slender waist, the sylph like form and in its place a roly poly pudding of a dog.
Whippets, when the are heavily pregnant, do not look like whippets and for a large part of the time don't act like whippets either apart from the nicking all and any edible morsel, and sometimes in edible morsels, they can find.
Mostly she's been asleep, or eating just occasionally in the middle of the night she's been nesting.
How do I know she does this in the middle of the night?
Because she wakes me up to help her.
She comes up to my bed rests her head on the mattress as close as she can get to me and stares until I awake. It is seriously disconcerting to wake up with your nose millimetres from your dogs face especially when you normally wear glasses.
Once awake she licks me to ensure I stay awake then she moves off to where she has been trying to make a nest and then looks at me again until I get up and help her to get comfy. I don't know why I bother because it seems like only minutes before she wakes me again to make her a nest in another part of the room.
Of course I could put her in the back kitchen, out of sight and harms way, but she just prefers to make her nests in my bedroom and I haven't the heart to stop her. I'd also worry myself senseless if she wasn't close at hand.
What if she got into trouble?
If the puppies were in difficulties?
If I needed to call the vet?
So she has had me up making nests and sorting her wheel ping box out at least twice a night for the past week and now finally tonight I think it is THE night...
I bet it's a long  one!

I apologise: it’s Friday and the all the dogs are in my office…

Tigger waiting for the Postman

I apologise now to anyone who is going to call me on the telephone and to anyone I telephone today. The reason is that when I do call you can bet your bottom dollar that the postman will arrive.

Now it’s not the postman’s fault that he will arrive right in the middle of a telephone call and nor is it his fault that he will set my dogs off.

Normally I contain this sort of event to the kitchen but today all my dogs are in my office because they pleaded with me and I gave in.

So in advance I apologise for the eruption of noise which will make it impossible for me to hear who is on the other end of the telephone and I also apologise for the sounds emanating from my end of the said telephone.

I apologise for the language used both canine and human. For the ensuing dog fight  as they all try to crowd each other out on the window sill.

I apologise to the postman for yet again terrifying him with my unruly mob and no I don’t think them jumping out of the window and chasing your van down the drive does constitutes hunting with hounds. Don’t even think about reporting me….

If my boss calls I apologise for not hearing that my deadline is due and for negotiating an extension through to next week.

I apologise to anyone asking for me to pay bills or even reminding me; I didn’t quite catch that and I will call next week.

Promise.

Finally I apologise to the Chuggers, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and anyone else taking a punt to approach me in my den thinking that just because I live in a big house I have cash to splash, I will not hear you over the noise and you must believe me when I yell that there’s no one here, I’m a devout catholic and I’ve already installed it.

To anyone else you know me and you know the dogs, the back door is open so pop the kettle on…

The Wickedest Whippet has a problem…

The Wickedest Whippet: soulful or just plain guilty?

The Wickedest Whippet (aka EBJ – evil black job – aka Sassy) has a problem. Or let’s say I have a problem with the wickedest whippet.

She’s decided to hole herself up in Bog Boy’s room behind a chair on top of a whole load of dirty washing and she’s not coming out.

Every time I try to force her to get out she looks balefully at me then digs her feet in and won’t budge.

My boys call me cruel for dragging her by her collar so that I can get her outside to go to the loo. I have said that as soon as she uses the loo in the bathroom she can stay inside for as long as she likes. The boys look at me blankly. “You just wait until you tread on the proverbial as you get up in the morning,” I snarl as explanation.

The dog sighs and while I am busy haranguing the boys about why dogs do not use toilets (a word I hate) she trots back to her hidey hole and buries herself more deeply under some smelly socks.

I have got her downstairs but she’s a wily creature and as soon as she gets an opening she shoots back upstairs again. I warn the boys NOT to leave doors open and for a while there is progress. I manage to clear away the clothes and get them to the washing machine and I rescue a variety of goodies ranging from a couple of my shoes, a teddy bear, a biro and a pair of my husband’s running shorts. There is also a quantity of ripped up newspaper or at least what I think is newspaper, it could be an Economist…

However, she’s there again now. Someone left the window in the downstairs loo open and she’s leapt through it and ensconced herself yet again. I can see I am going to have to get professional help. I do believe she’s in the grip of a phantom pregnancy as it is the only thing that makes sense.

I have just been to see her again and she does look ever so pathetic.

Oh maybe not just heard thunderous roars from downstairs I think the whippet has just eaten all the newly made bread painstakingly made by husband. So maybe she was just looking guilty….she really is the wickedest whippet!

The Wickedest Whippet: Tell me someone, why do I like dogs?

EBJ whippet lazing on my pillow

Tell me someone why I like dogs? Why do I have so many of them? Why do I allow them in the house, on the sofas, nay even in my bed?

They are horrible, they have disgusting personal habits and they greet each other by sniffing each other’s nether regions. They eat stuff that you and I would gag on and they regurgitate their own vomit. And then they lick you…

Today I should be writing about the fact that it’s The Boy's, my eldest’s, birthday but all thoughts of that have flown because of what I found when I came up the stairs to my office.

It was carnage. My bag lay disembowelled on the top landing, paper and pens and loose change scattered. The destruction continued as I walked down the corridor, chewed up bits of detritus here, mixed with what looked like vomitus bits of tissue paper there.

I approached the open door leading to the spare bedroom and there, lying in abandon, splayed out in the sunshine on her back without a care in the world was the Evil Black Job (EBJ).

Strewn about her were the last remnants of an Alpen snack bar wrapper and just as I stepped forward to tear a strip off her I felt the slight give you feel when you tread in something soft. All I can say was I was lucky not to be barefoot.

SHE is now downstairs in disgrace, actually she did it without me asking after I bellowed out loud following my treading in the proverbial. I have never seen a dog move so swiftly.

I don’t know when I will forgive her, the jury is out. She is the most evil dog on the planet, she really is! I wouldn’t mind quite so much if she actually looked the slightest bit sorry. But I suppose I will be whistling in the wind before she looks contrite.

The other dogs are keeping their heads down and there is much skulking under the kitchen table and well they might skulk.

I growl and they skulk some more. My nose twitches as it does when I am starting to see the funny side of things and before long the dogs know I am no longer angry. There is a feeling of palatable relief and the animals visibly relax. I make tea and mentally prepare myself to clear up the mess and before long I sit down here at the computer and start to write… it wasn’t the blog post I thought it would be when I woke this morning but it will do, just like them. That’ll do dog, that’ll do.

Reasons why I love them ...

The sleep with abandon..

She's always there for me

What walk would be complete without them...

The problem with dogs...is they just don't live long enough!

Tattie asleep on my down jacket

The problem with dogs is that they don't live long enough. Today  J had to put down his dog Socks. There was nothing else he could do. Even though you know it is the right thing, it is a hateful thing putting an animal to sleep. Putting a friend to death. For as much as we try to tell ourselves it is for the best there is a bit of us which cries: "Murderer!"
We know we shouldn't anthropomorphise animals but a lot of us cannot help it. There is an imperative to love and if we cannot love another human then a pet will do just as well and sometimes even better. For the love an animal gives is utterly unconditional. They don't care what we look like, how we sound whether we have bad breath or not, they just love us as we are and for whatever reason however awful we may be it is sometimes the love of an animal that is the only thing that makes us remotely human.
So when one of these earth bound angels dies, and they die far too soon, the breaking of the bond can totally paralyse us. We are unable to cope and the grief is as bitter and sweet as if it were  our parents or even our children. We would like to think that no one should grieve over a mere animal but for those who keep animals, who love their pets the grief is all consuming and never really lets up as grief has a tendency never to go away. It can fade with time, as all grief does, but a scent, a movement, a touch can bring it back as strongly as if it had just happened even though decades have passed.
There is something magical about it; something unexplained. And why the question one always asks do they put up with us? Why do they love us so unconditionally?
Tonight all I could say is: "All dogs go to heaven", and then reminded J that there would be an awful lot of them to welcome us when it was our time and would they knock us flat as we entered? And was it one huge joke and would St Peter laugh at us as all these dogs and cats come bounding up?

Rats on stilts....

There is a history of badly behaved dogs in my family, it's a fact I am not desperately proud of but a fact it is. Our dogs are not endearing either, I mean whippets aren't everyone's cup of tea are they? To us they are perfect, to others - well most say they are horribly skinny, shivery dogs but I think the best descrioption of them was something I overheard  in Wales such a long time ago now...

It was on a beach picnic in the mid 1970s there was me, Mum, my sister and two of the most badly behaved dogs ever. In their defence we were there first on the beach and it was quite empty to begin with but as the morning wore on and the sun became hotter and hotter, more and more families came to join us.

Now our two dogs Robin and Jay were northern whippets and like all whippets enjoyed sloping off to hunt whenever Mum’s back was turned. They were quite incorrigible and Mum had no control at all. From a distance she could see that her dogs were misbehaving badly. Instead of hunting up the grassy slopes away from the beach those two rascals had hit upon the best game ever - nicking everyone’s sandwiches and peeing on all the sandcastles and running like stink when people found out. It was pure heaven - for them!.

When you can do something really, really well you can’t help but show off and these two could run and it was so lovely watching them – although when I pointed this out to Mum she quite disowned them and said they weren’t ours. She rammed her sunglasses on more firmly, dug her nose more deeply into her magazine and studiously ignored the dogs.

I think this had a lot to do with the fact that there were two ample ladies in nylon flower print dresses looking disapprovingly at the dogs as well.

Creaking in their comfortable stripped canvas deck chairs one pursed her lips and said to the other: “Look you at those two dogs over by there – ooohhh, they look like rats on stilts!”

A day to cross off one's calender...

I've been in the shit quite literally so for those of you of a more sensitive nature come back another day - it is not a pretty sight. In fact I doubt it was a pretty sight for my guests either particularly as D had to clear up two of them himself.
It all started last night, The Boy wasn't really up to much but with the excitment of having friends to stay and playing on the Wii and crisps and Orangina, I didn't take much notice. Then in the middle of grown-up dinner, there was a pad padding down the stairs and he was there looking pale and wan and clearly not very well at all.
That was the start of the night from hell.
And I could do nothing.
He had ear ache and it was excrutiating.
All I could do was dose him up to the eyeballs with Ibuprofren and Calpol and get him hot drinks and hot water bottles all night long. He would wake up crying in pain and whenever I went to hold him, he'd angrily push me away saying later Mummy or not now and it hurt like mad and I felt ever so silly. In fact I got quite cross too in my disappointment and frustration.
The Boy slept with me and suffice to say I did not sleep much at all. I watched him and tried to be of help, I fear I was more of a hindrance. And Oh Thank God for Calpol!
At quarter past three I resorted to the internet for inspiration but all the perceived wisdom stated there was nothing that could be done. Eventually we both fell into and exhasuted sleep. Only to be woken waht seemed moments later by a shriek from downstairs.
Our dear Guests had met with the first of three offerings from my dogs, not forgetting the dubious gift courtesy of the cats.
It was not something I needed.
Why oh why if your family is going to be ill must they do it when guests are staying? And why oth why if your dogs decide to do the same thing do thay have to do it right where someone is going to inevitably tread in it? In fact mine did more than that as well as depositing in the main throughfare they also depositied on my Indian Silk Carpet in the dining room - a place they are forbidden from entering. But that's the problem when things go shitty - it really hits the fan!
So bleary eyed I did my best at tidying up and felt that I went from one scream to another chasing after my guests in an attempt to coral them in one place so I could stop them treading in it and hence spreading it all over the house! It was not pleasant.
And just when everything was all back to normal, I noticed the chickens were out - the ones that are not supposed to be out and it dawned on me that today was just one of those days. A day to cross off one's calender...

The case of the Missing Prawns (or the wickedest whippet in the world strikes again...)

Arrghhh!
I thought I was being so clever this evening but she’s gone and done it again. My pesky whippet puppy has eaten all my prawns – and I hope she gets a very poorly tummy. Though saying that, if she does she will probably land up regurgitating the whole lot on my bed knowing my luck!
Oohhh!
I had been very indulgent and had bought - dare I say it? - a ready-made Chinese meal the other day. Beef and Black bean sauce, egg fried rice and crispy prawns with sweet chilli sauce courtesy of those goodly people at Waitrose. I was so looking forward to it, wrong we were both SO looking forward to it.
This evening I had it all sorted. Dear Charlie was soaking in a bath trying to warm up – poor chap is feeling a bit crook and awful cold. I was going to surprise him with a real treat, which we could eat in front of X Factor.
Everything was done for once and I was ahead of myself. The children were fed and in bed, chickens were all shut up for the night, laundry was done, table already laid for breakfast, washing up done. All I had to do was slam the dinner into the oven for 25 minutes and Bob’s your proverbial Uncle.
However, the prawns did not take as long as the sauce to cook. The idea being that you place the sauce in first then half way through place the prawns on a baking tray separately so they don’t go soggy.
So what to do with the prawns for the seven minutes before you place them in the oven? Of course, put them on a separate baking tray and leave them on the kitchen counter high enough, you think, to be out of reach of the dogs.
I hadn’t counted on EBJ’s tenacity had I? Nor on her ability to problem solve. In fact I keep forgetting she has a brain. I must admit it is not one of her most attractive qualities. The other whippets are blissfully brainless – that or they have better manners and/or are not quite so greedy.
However, I leave the kitchen for a few moments to check on Dear Charlie and tell him supper will only be ten minutes, and when I return everything seems fine. Nothing has moved, there are no tell tale marks to indicate anything is wrong. The baking tray is where I have left it but because I don’t go right up to it I fail to notice that there is nothing there until it is time to place the prawns in the oven and they are gone, not a crumb has been left. For a few moments I am bewildered. I question my actions and run through exactly what I did and come up with the conclusion that I must have put the prawns in the fridge. But they are not there. I am genuinely puzzled because there seems to be no way the dog could possibly have half inched those prawns without making an awful lot of fuss or else flying and I had heard nada, nothing, not a dicky bird. I only left the kitchen for two minutes - if that.
But as the Great Sherlock Holmes stated “when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”.
All I can say is, I have no idea how she could have done it. She is not a cat and to have leapt up 90cms to land on top of the counter which is only 30cms in depth without breaking anything or pushing anything off is incredible.
By a process of elimination I can hazard a guess as to how she might have achieved it but the complexity of the solution seems a bit beyond a ten-month-old whippet.
However this is what I think she did: she walked away from the counter top to the other side of the table where there was a chair slightly pushed out. She climbed on the chair and jumped onto the tabletop. She then walked along the table and jumped about half a metre onto the counter the other side of the oven from where the prawns were sitting. She then walked back along the counter, jumped over the hob without knocking over any of the pans upon it and ate the prawns on the baking tray. Then she retraced her steps. And quietly curled up in her basket.
If it wasn’t for the fact that she happened to have a few tell tale crumbs round her muzzle and for once looked particularly guilty when I glared at her, I swear I would never have known.
I am afraid I reprimanded her for all of two seconds. She seemed so abjectly sorry and it is so out of character for her to show any remorse at all that she was swiftly forgiven.
Dear Charlie mutters that the dog is a serious weasel and is not to be trusted ever and that this is just another ruse to add to her repertoire. Needless to say I suspect he is right. But she’s so cute…

“You get Smarties on your pillow at bedtime in Heaven.”

It was said with such utter matter of factness that even if you wanted to there was no room for discussion. I had wondered if the fact that I had to put our old Jack Russell down yesterday afternoon had had any affect on either of my boys – they just seemed to have taken it in their stride.
In the morning there was Biggles and in the afternoon he was gone.
The Littlest has said nothing and I’m not sure if he has noticed. But the Boy has obviously been considering the matter very seriously.
After demanding biscuits and other foodstuffs on immediate entry to the car at pick up time from school this afternoon and as we meander back along the windy Suffolk lanes, he suddenly pipes up from the depths of the back seat.
Him: “What happens when you die?”
Momentarily flustered and veering slightly in the road, bringing us rather too close to the answer in a practical way, I avoided the question with one of my own.
Me: “Who’ve you been talking to about that?”
Him, nonchalantly: “Daniel, Henry … what happened when you killed Biggles?”
Well there you go then. No beating about the bush, no putting a gloss on it, no putting him down or putting him to sleep, just straight out there – when YOU killed him.
Me: “Well,” - not actually trusting myself to commit to the word kill and unsure quite where the conversation is heading – “what do you want to know?”
Him: “Everything!”
Everything?!
Me: “What from the start?”
Him, slightly losing his patience: “I want to now everything from the beginning, what happened.”
What happened? So I start by telling him that Biggles was old and probably not very well. I tell him that Biggles had got too grumpy and that when dogs are grumpy it means that something is wrong, perhaps they are in pain. I remind him about Biggles snapping at people and how horrid that was. The Boy takes it all in and I have a feeling he’s not interested in the reasons behind the decision. It seems as if he takes these as read. Would that it were so for me. I am uncomfortable with the word kill – but that is what I did. I don’t want to say it was because Biggles had become too unpredictable and that I was scared.
My musings are brought to a sharp halt.
Him: “Muuuum, what happened at the vets, when you killed him…”
Me: “Right well, um, well, er, I took him into the vets’ on his lead and we went through to a room, which was nice and warm and comfortable, then the vet put him on the table and got a needle out and injected him then Biggles sort of fell asleep and that was that.”
Him: "Where? Where did he put the needle in??"
Right details as well ok then. Blood thirsty little monster.
Me: "His front leg you know sort of like your arm when you have injections…."
WARNING WARNING NOT A GOOD ANALOGY NOW HE’LL THINK THE DOCTOR WANTS TO KILL HIM!!!!!
Him: "Like my injections?"
PANIC!!!!!
Me: “ER, well no, um, not really, but in the same place but we don’t do that with humans, you see we have a duty of care with animals and we have to look after them and you see it’s important that we do these things so they never suffer..”
Him: “Like being God?””
Oh Phew!
Me: “Yes. Like God.”
That was close…
Him: “So now he’s dead - is he in heaven?”
Right. Now Heaven. OK. Dogs and Heaven. Should I say yes ‘cos that’s what I believe or should I sort of fudge it? What has he been told at school? Maybe dogs are not heaven material as far as the Church is concerned? Well I bloody hope they do though ‘cos I love my dogs and it wouldn’t be much of a place if they wern’e there. Right then here goes…
Me: “I’m sure he is.”
Him: “What’s heaven like?”
Why has he chosen now for this conversation? Why when I am driving home has he chosen now to ponder these questions? Next he’ll be asking me how many Angels dance on the head of a pin!
Me: “It’s the best of places. Just think of all the good things you like doing and eating and stuff like that and that’s what it is like I expect.”
The Boy ponders for a while then starts rattling off a list of things he likes doing and it feels like we are on safer ground.
Him: “You get Smarties on your pillow at bedtime in Heaven.”
Not bad…
Him: “Mummy, you wouldn’t have to wash up in Heaven!”
Heaven!