I’m a doggy person.

I don’t love all dogs mind. I don’t have much grá for the little ankle snappers, the accessories of the fashion world. Also I have a thing about dogs with squished up noses, like pugs or boxers.

Penny is none of the above. She has never bitten ankle to my knowledge and she has a fine long nose which she uses to great effect. She communicates by nose-bumping to announce she has arrived and also to gain attention. She then proceeds to talk. This is where she looks me straight in the eyes and proceeds to throw silent words at me. Sometimes she adds in a particular movement such as a gentle pawing of the ground which means she wants me to bring her blanket in from her be to lie on. A lot of the time she relies on thought transference which seems to work well.

In any sense Penny is the :perfect: dog: intensely loyal, patient, excellent on the lead and all around good very quiet company.

She is the perfect dog.

Except she has started pissing and shitting all over the place.

I don’t mind the shit. It’s generally hard and dry so I just fuck it out the door. The wild rose outside never looked so healthy.

The piss is a different matter. She pisses anywhere and everywhere. Unfortunately one of her favorite places is the rug in the conservatory floor somewhat ironically near the back door.

I do my best with these puddles. The wooden floor is no problem – I just use half a roll of kitchen paper to absorb the flood. Unfortunately that doesn’t work too well on carpets.

For the last few days I have notice a nasty stink permeating the atmosphere. I scoured the place looking for a hidden turd but that proved fruitless. I didn’t fancy living with that festering pong. Then I realised what it was – the fucking rug!

Today I got out the carpet shampooer and gave the rug a thorough shampoo and wet-wash. It now looks and smells a lot better.

It’s a great machine, that cleaner. It has a very powerful suck. I robbed it off Daughter.

Daughters have their uses sometimes.