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It’s a dog’s life — 14 Comments

  1. Our Pomeranian is called Zorro and he has been bossing us around for nearly eight years now. Only once in his long life did he sleep away from home, (for three nights), and it was when his owner, our daughter, was getting married. We tried bribery, we tried threats but the Killarney Maldon Hotel refused to allow him sleeping rights our room. Then the ladies of the house took to the road and interviewed kennels far and wide but rejected each one as kips. So a deal was done with our vet to keep him in her home for the three days. He was appalled at our behavior, refused to settle even once for the vet, wouldn't eat the slop she served up to him and the little maggot has borne a slight grudge against us ever since. It's subtle now but I swear it's still there …………

    The odd time when he looks directly at me I see an accusing shadow cross his snout that seems to be saying, "You're the fucker that let them put me with shagging vet, aren't you?"

    • I'm not sure Sandy ever forgave us [and she was an extremely gentle and forgiving type].  Certainly we were shocked when we saw her condition when we collected her, and vowed on the spot never to use kennels again.  The place where she stayed was a fantastic place – all fully fitted out with individual bedrooms and masses of play areas so I'm not saying for a moment it was the kennel's fault.  It's just that some dogs become extremely attached to the family and can't take the parting.

      • Exactly! The vet adores our little snobby dog but nobody else but us will do for him. I read up on the breed to discover they are clannish and once they establish, (as a puppy), who the family is, then it's all over. Their next natural urge is to check the pecking order and find out their place. They begin this process by assuming they are in charge and it took all of us four years to let him know we operated on a last in, first out basis here in Mayfield. But he still demands to be fed first and then retains the sacred right to stare at the rest of while we eat until we relent and give him a taste of what's on the family menu. Oh! He goes apeshit for carrots …………….

        • I don't know anything about our Penny's history as she was rehomed after been found wandering the streets.  I do know though that she was very well trained and cared for [she never flinches when she sees a threat which presumably means she wasn't beaten?]. 

          The moment she came through the door, the pecking order was confirmed – I'm Top Dog [of course], she comes next and Herself is at the bottom of the heap [of course].  If I am going upstairs for example, she will politely wait until I'm nearly at the top before following.  When if comes to food, she politely picks at her dish most of they day until we start eating, at which point she laces into her food. 

      • Well, I'm just as bad in taking the parting as my dog is – we both can't stand it1 😉

  2. I used to have a Siamese cat who thought she was a dog. I only put her in a cattery once, never again! she refused to eat and if we had been away any longer she would have starved to death. After that we only ever left her in her own home with a sitter but mostly we took her everywhere with us, she walked with a harness and at the time we were living in Germany we had no problems with hotels in Belgium and Amsterdam, so much so the Marriott wanted to keep her when we were coming home. She lived to 21, I am a bit stuck now with my elderly Birman cat who has dementia but I will look after her and visits will have to wait. A pet is for life as far as I am concerned.n

    • Herself had a cat [Smudge] in the house many years ago.  One day this filthy tattered yoke appeared on the window sill, obviously madly in love with Smudge.  He was covered in sores, had a ripped ear, his fur was matted and it was obvious he had been slleping rough for a long time, so we took him in, got him seen to and cleaned up and from then on he trailed me around like a faithful dog.  I used to walk up to the pub of an evening and Chip [as we called him] used to trot up the road behind me and then sit on a gatepost while I had my pint.  Sometimes Smudge used to tag along too.  I became quite a tourist attraction!  Chip was the only cat I had a real fondness for.

  3. Don’t get me started on the dog thing, Gramps.  When we picked up our latest furry friend she’d only been in kennels for a week, but she was skinny as a rake, shivering, pee-ing herself and just looked so totally downcast and miserable that that was it – we had to take her home with us.  It wasn’t the kennel’s fault – they’d looked after her very well – but she’d previously been in a family home and perfectly well cared for, but a divorce meant that one of their dogs had to go and, as she was the newest, it had to be her.  She simply couldn’t understand why she’d gone from a lovely home with a family that she clearly thought she belonged to to this strange place surrounded by lots of other dogs and with none of her familiar things (or, more importantly, people) coming to pick her up.  She was, literally, pining away.

    Needless to say, the moment we opened the door (and I mean, literally, the very second) to a “real” home the ears went up, the tail started wagging and she was like a different dog – excited, happy, curious, exploring every last corner of it, before plonking herself down on what was to become “her” sleeping spot and has been ever since.  She’s a family dog through and through, as most of them are, and kennels, no matter how luxurious, just aren’t the same, particularly when they have come from a family but suddenly find that family has disappeared.  Well, we’d all be the same, wouldn’t we?  Especially if we didn’t know why it had happened.

    That’s why people who would give their dogs up for the sake of a f***ing holiday should be banned from keeping animals.  Ever again.  Disgusting.  My mother’s always said that a person’s attitude towards animals is often a mirror of their attitude towards children and I’ve usually found that to be true.  So maybe they should have their ghastly offspring taken away from them, too, and not allowed to have any more!  Then they could have all the sodding holidays they want.

    • When we brought Penny home she was very quiet for a day or two.  She also took to helping herself to food off the kitchen table nd we thought we were going to be in for some trouble.  Within a couple od days she obviously realised that this was home and her street wandering days were over.  She became quite bouncy and has never since taken any food unless it is either given to her or is already in her dish.  It is a sign of the complete and utter trust she has in us, and I could never betray that trust.

      I wonder if these people would even think of bringing their kids to an orphanage [without a single word of why or how long] and then fuck off to the continent to enjoy a holiday?

      It's my experience that people with dogs tend to be much nicer and more friendly.  But then they are real "doggy" people and not just people who have a dog as a status symbol.

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