I have been thinking about what ‘normal’ is. I have concluded that it can’t possibly exist. As dogs go I think I’m normal anyway. It all started when a poodle asked if the clipping of his tail was straight. Well what do you say? I actually said “Get a life,” but it didn’t seem to go down too well. He seemed to think worrying about whether he had a hair out of place was ‘normal’. I conducted a poll of all the other dogs and they thought worrying about their appearance to that extent might be normal for models and dogs going into the show ring but that for any of the rest of us it was just pointless. The poodle however was convinced that he was normal and all the other dogs he knew would be just the same. It transpired all the other dogs he knew were poodles too, which may have had something to do with it. This led me to conclude that either this was normal behaviour for a poodle or that all poodles are not normal. To be honest I tend toward the latter view! Other than that the day was a bit quiet really. I thought about causing trouble but couldn’t find the energy, so contented myself with just thinking about it, which is almost as good. Sometimes just knowing you could do something is as good as actually doing it, with the added advantage you don’t have to face the consequences for your actions.