Dog Days

I have two dogs, both girly mutts from the local dog's home that cost just the standard donation of £60 each. They've been with me for a good few years, before Little Bird arrived. They used to sleep in my room and even at the end of the bed sometimes (don't say yuk, I'm not the only one) and snuggle on the sofa. These days they have comfy beds in the middle room and stay downstairs. Both have had showers this week after it was noted by a family visitor that they ponged! Don't you just love that wet dog smell?

Each has their own funny personality. Tara will not walk across trailing cables (as they are snakes), sees imaginary hazards that she has to skitter past like she's on roller skates, shreds any bins left out, jumps like a gazelle, tries to dig her way out of the wooden flooring when it thunders, loves car journeys and will perch over your shoulder and growls at poor Milly when she accidentally nudges her. 
She was here first. She's the boss. Her nickname is Whipper-Doodle.

Milly is exceptionally greedy, comes over to you and kindly belches after eating, hates anything coming through the letterbox and shreds it-including any hands posting it (now we have a mailbox), has spindly legs that do not match her potato croquette of a body, does break-dancing when she has an itchy back, very clumsy, shoves her nose at you until she gets a stroke, hates car journeys and guinea pig squeals the whole way, snores loudly. 
She shows a lot of cupboard love. Her nickname is Dumper Truck.

This week a delivery man ignored the mailbox and pushed a telephone directory through the door  (like I really needed one anyway!) and in her hackles up, feisty, pudding footed dash for the useless book, dragged the door curtain, pole with fixtures and fittings, plus a chunk of plaster all off the wall, landing on my head in the process. I still love her - just.

The Power of the Dog - Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936)

There is sorrow enough in the natural way

From men and women to fill our day;

And when we are certain of sorrow in store,

Why do we always arrange for more?

Brothers and sisters, I bid you beware

Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.

Buy a pup and your money will buy

Love unflinching that cannot lie--

Perfect passion and worship fed

By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head.

Nevertheless it is hardly fair

To risk your heart to a dog to tear.

When the fourteen years which Nature permits

Are closing in asthma, or tumour, or fits,

And the vet's unspoken prescription runs

To lethal chambers or loaded guns,

Then you will find--it's your own affair--

But ... you've given your heart to a dog to tear.

When the body that lived at your single will,

With its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still!)

When the spirit that answered your every mood

Is gone--wherever it goes--for good,

You will discover how much you care,

And will give your heart to a dog to tear.

We've sorrow enough in the natural way,

When it comes to burying Christian clay.

Our loves are not given, but only lent,

At compound interest of cent per cent.

Though it is not always the case, I believe,

That the longer we've kept 'em, the more do we grieve:

For, when debts are payable, right or wrong,

A short-term loan is as bad as a long--

So why in--Heaven (before we are there)

Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?