Yellow

Who? Me?

I'd forgotten just how much hair Labradors can shed in a day. More than their own body weight it would seem. Quite how it is that Haggis the Lucky Labrador is not bald, given the amount of yellow spread liberally around the house, I am really not sure.

I'd also forgotten just how enquiring a mind an adolescent Labrador has. And how adept they can be at finding the one thing you really didn't want chewed, and chewing it just enough to make it useless. It's odd, because in general if you shine a light in one of a Labrador's eyes, the other one glows - there's that much going on inside. And yet the contents of a perfectly innocent plastic bag just have to be pulled out and spread across the floor.

I'd forgotten too how much damage can be caused by the tail, and the unbridled enthusiasm, of a Labrador about to be taken for a walk. The SausageDog might weigh much the same as Haggis, but his legs are short and his turning circle wide. He doesn't knock things over much. Fifteen months of yellow hairy muscle is like a force of nature, bounding through the house without a care. He jumped onto the sofa from the wrong side the other evening, much to the shock of the Horse Doctor, who was sitting on said sofa at the time.

So this week has mainly been an exercise in identifying and removing to high ground anything and everything that might otherwise end up in little pieces on the floor. For a house we've not long moved into, that's a surprisingly large task. Yesterday, for instance, young Haggis managed to find an almost full bottle of orange squash, undiluted, which he carried through from the kitchen to the living room, then very carefully opened and spilled all over the carpet. It could have been worse, I suppose; it could have been wee spread around in intricate spiral whorls. That's what Chiswick used to do when he got overexcited.

The weekend's task is to dog-proof the back garden and create some kind of dog-flap in the back door.* Then all the beasts can be confined to the utility room, with access to the outdoors so we don't have to worry about cooping them up all day. Even then I am sure Haggis will find something to destroy.

Most likely the postman.

*no, that's not a euphemism. Go and clean your mind out with soap and water. You filthy pervert, you.