Something goes wrong and I get the blame. I’m a ‘scape-dog’ that’s what I am. I understand my mistress gets asthma and I do my best to avoid being the cause. I try to shed my hair in neat little piles, to be fair there are sometime quite a lot of neat little piles that meet up in one blanket of hair, but that is not the problem. I keep myself very clean and wipe my paws when I come in from a walk. Sadly, the same cannot be said for my master. Being frank he hasn’t got a lot of hair to leave in neat little piles but that wasn’t the difference I was referring to. There we were in the office working away, all three of us, when something started to affect my mistress’s asthma and she concluded from the smell it might be something to do with me. So she opened a window to see if it would solve the problem. Well it did improve but she decided I must have rolled in something when my master took me for a walk. At which point the call went up to put me in the bath and wash my paws. So off we all went, I needed rather more encouragement than they did. It was when we were in the bathroom and the water was running that my mistress turned round and realised my master was leaving muddy footprints everywhere. It was in fact my master that had rolled in something, or maybe trodden; he doesn’t roll very often! His shoes went into the bath and a great deal of dirt came off them. For good measure the water was run again and I was made to get in and have my paws washed. Zip, nothing, no mud, clean little paws as always! Did I get an apology from my master or for that matter my mistress? No. Did my mistress get an apology from my master? No. Then he wonders why I think I should come higher in the pecking order than he does!