Update

I've done my best to right the clocks but some are too high up. I guess they'll be right eventually.
We've been playing with file conversions and the e-reader. Basically it's a learning curve we're still on.
FP told me that I have eaten all the pig's ears now so it's back to bonios (gravy bones, jumbones & whatever chocolate I find on the shelf).
I ate about a third of a bar of caramel chocolate yesterday & it didn't sit well in my tummy. Felt queasy.
Well, I'm off back to the grindstone to see if I can work out how to get PDFs readable on the e-reader.

Something's not right

None of the clocks in the house tell the correct time...

Smashing

People,
It is not, repeat NOT, cool to throw bottles off the steps in the park so that they smash all over the terrace path. NOT COOL.
I am cool.
Yesterday I saw 7 collies being all nicely trained and obedient in the park and I thought to myself how lucky I am that the most FP & ST ever ask of me is a paw wave every now and then. I also think that if we ever got a motorbike and sidecar I would raise my paw at all the pedestrians. I'd have a specially made helmet on which had Collie Ear Attachments and a strap to go under my chin. I might have goggles. I suppose this would mean that it took longer to get ready to go out but my in-car singing would reach a wider audience.

A Boy & His Pie – from a Dog’s Perspective

Most dogs are severely tested when it comes to young children and their propensity to hold food at mouth level. Some owners train their dogs to resist temptation by sending them to Boot Camp, monasteries in China or Dog Borstal then they show off about their dog's achievement in the Internet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sp_WV91jx8E

Good on you Stains.

Real family pets though learn to take advantage of situation on an ad hoc basis. Recently I came across this story of a boy, his pie and a lab-whippet cross who we'll call Honey:

Honey was on her way past this young boy sitting on a comfy chair holding a Mr Kipling apple pie in his hand. He was laughing at something and paying little attention to the pie. Honey (the old pro) stopped in her tracks and here we can see her making a careful appraisal of the situation, including key details like wrappings, how tightly the pie is being held and just how distracted the boy is.

Here we can see how Honey fixed the pie with all her attention without once alerting the boy that he was about to lose out on his snack - why, he's still laughing!

Seizing the moment she knew would come and never once taking her eyes from the prize, Honey waited until whatever the boy was laughing at became so funny he had to throw back his head and close his eyes...

Here we can see how this story ended! Even the boy's Mother is looking on in admiration of Honey's dedication to the pie and the boy is not bothered either. Just look at Honey - she's eating that pie almost upside down and that's labs for you!

Take your rubbish home!

We all remember the great fun we all had when it snowed, right? Even I had a laugh:

"Catch Tugger!"

"Tugger all covered in snow"

Yes, everything was lovely. But now I'm finding that the fun had consequences.

The slope in the park where people were tobogganing is still littered with tatty bin liners, bits of broken plastic and even lumps of what seems to be old kitchen work-top, which might have seemed like the ideal sledge at the time but which is now just killing the grass where it lies waiting for whichever nitwit brought it into the park to realise that it DOESN'T belong there.

I know you're thinking it should all have been cleaned up long ago and I agree; it should. But none of this junk should have been left in the first place. I don't leave my poo on the ground for people to tread in and neither do most of the other dogs I know in the park, so do us a favour, people and return the compliment.

I shouldn't laugh but I can't help it

FP's lost her voice so she's having real trouble stopping me from chewing up her lunch box. She looks cross and everything but I'm pretending I don't get it, laying it on thick with the collie ears and tilting my head to the side. I look adorable but she didn't train me to understand hand gestures alone! It's a technical point but I'm exploiting it because the other thing is that if she tries to pull the lunch box out of my mouth, I'm going to interpret that as play. Giggle, this is hilarious!

Alanis again

I'm in the study having a lie down whilst listening to Alanis Morissette.

I've earned this relaxation by being tested to the limit today. Honestly, if you all knew even half of what I put up with in a 'normal' day...

When I first moved to London (I'm from the Midlands but my accent is almost gone now) I used to go nearly crazy trying to keep order everywhere I went because order is what collies do. For more information on what collies do see this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2FX9rviEhw

Alright, so it was collies and some mad people but could it have happened without the collies, eh? No.

Point is that I used to round up joggers, cyclists and people who weren't going in the same direction as me when I first came to London and FP discovered that I had some issues with living amongst lots of people as opposed to lots of fields like when we were in the Midlands.

We worked on my issues and now, as you all know, I just bark at things I cannot control. In my heart I am herding all these variables into a circle. In reality I'm just making sh**-loads of noise.

Then, this evening, I was out in the garden waiting for FP to come home and blow me but didn't a fox amble by looking all like "I own all this"!? Cheek! I was so surprised I forgot to bark loudly and made this pathetic little 'Wuff' sound. Not enough to put the fear into Mr Fox as I would have wished but enough to alert him to my Presence, at which point he dashed away. Casual as you like he was up to that point then gone in a second, off into someone's back garden for a night of making that dreadful racket with his friends.

Or, and this is the horrible part, maybe FP was with the fox all day and the reason he showed up when she did is because she prefers hanging out with foxes and not me!

You see now why I need Alanis, don't you?