With only two weeks to go, my Mistress has given in to her desire to play Christmas music and I have given on to my desire to put my paws over my ears. Whilst “Do they know it’s Christmas time at all?” is an important question, it is not one I need sung to me every forty-five minutes on a repeat cycle. I am seriously thinking of offering to donate some of my pocket money to charity, every forty-five minutes if she will stop playing it.
Christmas is one of those times that can get to the conscience of a dog. Here I am, cosseted in the warmth of a well heated home with plenty of food, even before I start scavenging in the bin and out there are many animals, humans included, who are less fortunate then me. I become immune to the many demands for my pocket money that come through the post, all of them with their pictures of tragedy, all of them offering to use my pocket money more effectively than they think I can. I have given it serious thought and I am going to take direct action to feed the needy and starving. I’m going to increase the amount of bird food I put out and leave some on the ground for the local animal community to help themselves. I have seen birds with one leg, struggle to scrape together an existence. It’s a tough world out there. It isn’t that I don’t want to help humans, if they want to come and eat from the bird table, that will be fine, but I need to focus my efforts into one activity and be able to see it getting through to those that need it. I will promise not to chase them for the duration of the winter and as long as I remember, I won’t eat the food on the ground myself.