Floblems, Plops and Privates

I might have legs so short that you'd imagine I'd been dropped from a tall height, legs like Lego people, all joint and no limb, but I do LOVE a long walk and I can run fast enough to get within a sniff of the backside of any squirrel that I chase.  My human Mummy takes me on most of my walks, but about once a week she leaves the house with a big square bag and doesn't come back until the next day - she calls it WORK, as if she can't avoid it, but I do have a sulk - and that means that the man does my walks.

I don't like the man as much as human Mummy.  His walks are shorter and he doesn't talk much to me on the way, he just shouts, 'COME PADS' if I lag behind and 'PADS, WAIT!' if I go too far ahead.  You can't win with him, really.  Anyway, I like to play the odd trick on him during our walks.

Most of the tricks I play on him involve poo, because he acts as if a dog should always have one poo per walk, preferably firm enough to pick up without it spreading itself all over a clump of grass like a knocked-over tub of chocolate mousse and location-wise about 10 metres before we get to a dog poo bin.  So, I aim to have about 3 or 4 poos per walk, usually by not finishing the first and holding enough back for later.  On the walk the man gives me, I dump my first load in a field in which some green stuff grows.  Don't ask me why, I think I just like the way it tickles my bum as I squat.  The man hates that and shouts, 'NOT THERE PADS. ON THE PATH. NOT ON THE STUFF THEY'RE GROWING, WHATEVER IT IS.  PEOPLE HAVE TO EAT THAT.'  And then he looks really self-conscious crossing into the field to collect my poo, as if a farmer is waiting with a gun to fire a warning shot over the man's head and shout 'OI, GET OFF MY LAND!'

That first poo is always a solid one, a post-breakfast plop, pretty inoffensive.  But once we have walked far enough past the dog poo bin and got into 'squirrel alley', I then crimp out a series of softies.  He hates that.  Especially as it's a series.  He doesn't know when the last one is.  And you can't pick them up without grabbing a clump of earth at the same time.

When I'm feeling really mischievous, I run off and pretend to do one in the undergrowth.  You can see the man staring at the spot from about 50 metres back, making sure he knows where to look for it.  Then he'll get there and look confused for 5 minutes, unable to find anything, saying, 'THAT'S FOUR NOW, PADS.  WHERE IS IT? WHERE THE HELL...?"

I just look back at him with my resting deadpan face.  It's the only facial expression I can do with my mouth closed, but I find it suitable for all situations.

In between pooing and chasing squirrels, I sniff other dogs' privates.  Not ALL dogs.  Some dogs, you see them coming from a distance and you can just tell that those privates have to be steered clean of.  In the same way that soap or water has steered clear of them for years.  Yuk.  Dirty buggers.  And some dogs with even shorter legs than me, their privates are so close to the ground that you can end up grazing your nose on the gravel as you go in for a quick sniff.  I prefer sniffing big dogs' privates.  And not just because they're bigger privates.  More because of accessibility.  

The problem with some big dogs - I say this a lot, because in fact, big dogs are flawed in thousands of ways - is that they can sometimes have big curtains of phlegm hanging down from their mouths.  This problem of flob on big dogs, I call a 'floblem'.  If I see the shine of some flob dripping from a big dog's mouth, then they could have privates that smell like doggy Heaven and I still wouldn't go in for a sniff.  There's a giant puppy on the walk, a big red-haired bastard, bouncing along out of control, stupid as shit, and he has an ENORMOUS floblem.  He jumped up on the man last week.  All over him.  The man was polite, smiled at the big clumsy beast's owner while he gave the dog a shove, muttered something afterwards along the lines of, "Yeah, don't even say sorry for not controlling your dog, you dickhead" and then when we got home, he took his jacket and said all sorts of bad words when he realised that his entire arm was drenched in that dog's flob.

I had to laugh.  Behind that deadpan look, anyway.