There are some new people who have just moved into our road. I knew they were new as I hadn’t smelt them before. I went straight up to the gate when they were walking past to say hello. Isn’t it great how people will say hello to a strange dog or a child but if it had been an adult although they might have said a “Hello” they would not have come straight up to the gate to shake hands and introduce themselves. To be fair I don’t shake hands yet. My mistress has talked to me about learning but I’m not really socially adept enough to differentiate those times it is appropriate to shake hands and those times I can go up and sniff their bottom. My mistress has said that I should work on the basis that shaking hands is always acceptable but sniffing bottoms is only ok with other dogs. “Where is the fun in that?” That’s what I say. There is nothing quite like a good sniff to get to know someone.
I have evidence that honesty is not the best policy and in fact there are times when you are better to keep quiet. My master came home and sheepishly announced that he had received another speeding fine. Well this was a situation in which I saw opportunity to tease him mercilessly. My mistress made the mistake of asking when exactly it was for and then admitting that it must have meant she was driving the car. Now if she hadn’t said anything there was no way he would have sat and worked out that it was the day she had borrowed the car. She could have let him continue thinking it was him. Now instead they are evens and she can’t complain about his speeding at all, well not without being a bit hypocritical! She can continue to tease him about setting fire to the oven gloves however. It seems that the new ones she bought to replace the ones he sat fire to the time before last that he had a weekend without her now need to be replaced. It turns out he set fire to that pair last time he had a weekend without her. I can see a pattern developing here. Is it his carelessness when cooking, or is it a cry for help that he shouldn’t really be left on his own for the weekend? Either way if I see him heading for the kitchen I will be going out from now on!