Moi, le seadog, at St Martin |
It was hot hot hot pour moi, the humans spent a lot of time
in the boring swimming pool but not moi as this activity is wrong for dogs. I
like to dip myself gently in a stream or perhaps the sea. That is dignified,
whereas a swimming pool or even an inflatable paddling pool is undignified and wrong,
obviously.
For the first time in my life, I took to getting up at (or
before) dawn to demand my morning walk and it was very pleasant to survey the
countryside in the cool morning air. Despite the grumpy companion, obviously.
I developed a winning strategy when we all went to
restaurants or cafes. I lay myself in the doorway or in the gaps between
tables. It is a strange thing but the French don’t seem to mind at all and
politely step over me or walk around me – very gratifying, lol.
Whilst we were en vacance the French hunting season started.
For the rural French this means that they dress-up like Serbian paramilitaries
and go out shooting at the few songbirds left over from last year. Every year
they shoot quite a lot of each other, particularly after the compulsory boozy
lunch. They are supposed to wear orange tabards but our locals regard this as
sissy – can you imaging Ratko Mlidic in one? So they shoot each other instead.
Gus and Judy wear their jazzier shirts when walking me in the evening.
The shooters take their dogs out with them, about the only
exercise these poor chaps have all year, the French aren’t hot on walkies. On
one of my morning walks we came across a couple of heavily armed locals with
their springer spaniels. The shooters were pissed-off that their dogs asked me,
very politely, if they could come on my walkies instead.
I confine my hunting to giving the local cats a hard time.
He he he. One year a cat dashed into a farmhouse kitchen window we were passing
so I followed it in through the window. I can’t think what all the fuss was about.
This year on a dawn walk I saw a cat mousing very intently
in the middle of a field that had just been harvested. I dashed at it, it swore
at me and ran off but not bothering to run fast, I ran after it, but making
sure I wasn’t too fast as I like chasing not catching. The cat got to a
telegraph pole and looked round at me saying that this was ‘homey’, it
acknowledged that I had won, but couldn’t be bothered to climb the pole. I
wandered off to admire the view, this unsporting animal is not the kind of cat
to chase, obviously.
AAagh! What is this all about? A dog wearing pants! |