EVERY dog, they say, has his day. And Lucy, The Dog That Is Not Ours, had her day recently. She was trotting ahead of me on the path when she suddenly took a sharp left turn up a vertiginous, stone-strewn bank.
She paused on the top, looked back and said ‘Let’s go up here.’ ‘I can’t,’ I answered. ‘There is no way my poor old hips can climb up there.’
‘Oh go on.’ She cocked her ears and stamped her feet with enthusiasm. ‘It’s fun up here. Come on!’
‘I can’t. You go on.’ I encouraged.
With that she disappeared, and I continued on my way.
Some way further on a truly awful smell clouded the atmosphere, followed by a very happy dog. Donning gas mask and oxygen cylinder I tied her up to the outside table and, for the first time in her nine years, gave her a bath.
She tolerated this surprisingly well, considering her extreme aversion to water when applied to her outsides.
There was a chilly wind, so I insisted that she remain inside the house until completely dry. I tidied her bath accoutrements up and went inside, where I found her busily devouring the first of three enormous piles of vomit from the carpet.
Wet or not, I turned her out, armed myself with steely determination, several newspapers, a new roll of kitchen towel, a bottle of carpet cleaner and grimly set to.
She had had her day, and got me back for bathing her!!
