There comes a point at which it is time to start moving forward again, or so I told my Mistress last night when I wanted to go to dog training but she didn’t think she could face it. It wasn’t exactly the training bit I wanted to go to, I just wanted to get out, meet other dogs and let off steam. We’d been for a walk and I could see the others starting to arrive, so when my Mistress said if it was all the same to me, she’d rather not, then I told her it wasn’t all the same to me and I did want to go. I lay on the floor of the hall with my nose pressed against the front door. In the end she felt sorry for me and gave in. I said to myself “Alfie” I said, “as a thank you for being brought, you must remember to behave.” Then we crossed the road and I caught the smell of the other dogs and the rabbits that occupy the field when we’re not there and I forgot all about behaving and a barked and woofed solidly for half an hour. Oh I did the ‘sits’ and ‘lie downs’ at most of the right places, but I may not have cooperated on the walking to heal and I was most certainly not ‘quiet’. I had a fantastic time and to be fair, despite my appalling behaviour of which I am deeply ashamed, my Mistress looked brighter than she had for a few days too.
The only other important thing that had happened, apart from my Mistress going to the dentist, which she seemed to think was important, was looking through the ‘Encyclopaedia of Dogs’ with her. She was trying to convince herself that another breed would be almost as good as me. I’m proud to say she got all the way through and then hugged me and told me that none of them were a patch on an Entlebucher.