Friday 28 January 2011

Jakey and Deevs!  Thank you for sniffing us out and for stopping long enough to lift a leg and add us to your list of followed blogs!

Before I proceed any further, I will hearken back to the last, somewhat disturbing, blog entry for an explanation.  Let me explain that, occasionally, dogs such as Ewan and I (who were both condemned to the operation-of-which-we-do-not-bark AFTER we had passed our years of puberty and reached physical maturity) lose our ability but not, necessarily, our passions.  Indeed, my own struggles with post-snippage desires will form the final chapter in my "Evolution" series...  And "entire" ladies chase after the boys just as much they are chased by us boys in turn.  Particularly if they have, erm... , if you will forgive me, "experience".  Fizzy, we are told, bore a litter of puppies in her younger days (before she was adopted by Ewan's partner) - so she knows the delights she is pursuing.  Happily (for Ewan and his sleep-deprived partner, at least) Fizzy's season has passed and everything is once more as it was.  Ewan's partner is still frowning with concern, however, lest there had been a slip with the snip, so to bark, and Ewan has been able to successfully... great heavens, I cannot even bark the words.  The fact that Fizzy may now be carrying a bellyful of baby Ewans chills me to my very core.  I love my friend Ewan dearly - but the line must end with him.  His genes are such as should never be passed on.

I very much doubt that Fizzy is in pup.  It has been three weeks or so now and the fair one has shown no signs of increased maternal behaviour.  I think the future generations of dogs can breathe a collective, spectral, sigh of relief.  But it has been many a night since I have enjoyed a completely peaceful sleep.  Every time I lay down my head and close my eyes, my mind fills with the vision of six or seven tiny Ewans capering around my ankles and dewclaws with their high-pitched little yips and squeaks - "Uncle Jasper!  Uncle Jasper!  What cheese is this?!  Where do we go for our milks - mummy or daddy?  Uncle Jasper!  Which bit of a tree is a cat?  Why are squirrels?  Uncle Jaaaaassssper....?"  Arrrrrrgh....!!!!  Let us continue to pray that this horror never becomes reality.

And let us move hastily on from this murky business.  I have new neighbours!  They moved in last weekend, into the house formerly occupied by the permanently-annoyed, loud electric-guitar-playing, misery-monger.  My partner met the young man of the household, who had formed an advance furniture-installing party with a couple of his friends.  The young man's lady and baby daughter are also to live there, although we haven't met them yet.  They are slightly younger than my partner.  He was most pleasant to me, happily scratching my furry head and greeting me by name after we had been introduced.  I have since, once, heard the young baby squalling but I can tolerate this noise.  'Twas the ill-advised persistence in believing his own proficiency in music that vexed me so about my former neighbour.  The innocent cries of a helpless babe-in-arms are sweet sounds in comparison.  Yes; I welcome my new neighbours.

And, barking of neighbours, I had an opportunity to talk with the exquisite Rosie - the beautiful young, delightfully pert, West Highland Terrier, who dwells with her partner on the other side of my property, on Tuesday.  My conversations with her are never up to much.  Generally, I bark a friendly greeting, wag my tail, she begins to respond (fluttering her eyelids at me all the while) and then dissolves into giggles and scampers shyly away.  I cannot comprehend her - but she seems nice enough.  I was beginning to recall that I hadn't seen sweet Rosie for some time lately when her partner, in talking to MY partner, accounted for this mystery.

Apparently, an horrendous canine sickness bug has been "doing the rounds" locally.  Twelve straight hours of constant, unceasing, vomiting afflicts each victim and, following on from that, the dog recovers as if naught had ever ailed him (or her).  Poor Rosie had been the latest to succumb (although thankfully now recovered).  According to Rosie's partner, only three out of the many dogs in the vicinity have not fallen prey to the virus; Archie, the Jack Russell from two doors along, Eddie, the Rottweiler from across the way, and myself.  Not that this is much of a clue to the business - I had a trifling night of minor illness last Thursday and suspect that was a fleeting glance of the bug, sparing me from its worst.  Archie is so irrepressibly chirpy that it's well-nigh impossible to tell whether he's ill or not, and Eddie is so robust that he'll probably still be in excellent health on the day they finally lay him in his coffin.  I am not worried for myself - worrying uses up too much energy, I have decided.

The new neighbours mentioned above are not the only recent arrivals.  The lady in the house directly opposite mine has got herself three new young cats.  Three!  Why?  She already has Honey, the ginger-striped queen, and now she also has three smokey-coloured others.  I cannot fathom why anyone would want to blight their own life with even one cat, let alone four of the parasites.  However, one of the latest arrivals provided me with an unexpected source of amusement this morning.  I will explain.

This morning, as my partner and I were leaving our house for work, our attention was arrested by a most unusual spectacle.  One of the new smokey-cats opposite was attempting to re-enter its house through the cat-flap.  Unhappily (for the cat), it could not master the workings of the small door.  The dimwit cat repeatedly, and with increasing frustration, batted at the flap with its paws, tried levering it open from each side, shouted at it, head-butted it, all to no avail.  After some fifteen minutes of this, a small human hand appeared, pushing the flap up from inside the house and holding it open to allow the baffled moggy to enter.  I laughed until my belly hurt and a little bit of wee accidentally dribbled out of Little Jasper.  My partner laughed too.

As I meandered to my New Teal Megane, still laughing, I spotted the queen-cat Honey, lying atop the wheelie-bin (one of her favoured perches).  Her face was a picture of wry disdain.  I met her eye and, instead of barking foul abuse at her, I grinned and winked.  Honey rolled her eyes heavenwards, winked back at me, and was gone.  I have asked it before and I ask it again now.  Cats:- why?!

For goodness' sake.

Good night.