BARKING PART I

Among the various members of the part-wildlife, part-person commune which Bloggiana and I like to call home, one of the most psychologically challenged is our dog. Bloggiana’s friend Chumsky, an ideas specialist from World’s End, says he thinks Our Dog is actually not a dog but a human trapped inside a Bearded Collie Costume. Every time Chumsky comes to tea, Our Dog pops his nose into Chumsky’s lap and ogles him in a thoroughly android fashion. Sometimes he hums him a little tune which Bloggiana says Chumsky finds jolly disconcerting.

Our Dog goes by a number of names. Officially he is registered as Pride of Loch Lomond Audition for Troilus and Cressida. (His mother being the much-garlanded Kyle of Lochalsh Where Did you Put My Railcard Darling; his father the magnificent but rarely shown Drumnadrochit Compulsive Obsessive Hider of Random Objects). But the name that we use most and the one Our Dog is most likely to answer to is It Stinks.

It Stinks has a number of peculiarities. First and foremost, It Stinks stinks. Worse than a walking packet of skunk deterrent, worse than a sweaty 18th century goat-barn filled to the roof with scented candles, worse than the entire world supply of artichoke liqueur boiled down to resin, then mixed with guano. Grown men have been to known to pass out when It Stinks saunters into their airspace. Sommeliers, perfumiers and those who live by the nose tend to give our county a wide berth, just to make sure their most important professional tool is not contaminated in any way by Our Dog.

The main reason that It Stinks stinks brings us onto Our Dog’s second principal peculiarity which is his abject terror of receiving any treatment that could remotely be described as cosmetic. If Bloggiana goes towards the room where the cupboard is that holds the drawer where we sometimes put his brush, It Stinks goes into a tailspin and howls to the moon. If she mentions the s*-word in his presence or folds flannels when he is nearby or if either of us even so much as daydreams about clippers, It Stinks has a fit. Quite often, his fit takes the form of doing a large dog-poo in the dining room. Sometimes, he does one in the guest room as well, for added effect. Should the pong get so great that either of us is moved to brave the whole grooming procedure, one of us has to close all the doors of the parlour while the other throws herself onto the floor behind the hatstand and, hope upon hope, catches It Stinks napping and unprepared. Usually for our troubles one of us gets slightly mangled and this is when we use It Stinks’s other name, It Bites Too. *soap

Chumsky came to tea again the other day and egged on by Bloggiana, he googled Bearded Collie on his Dried Apricot. As you would expect, there is a Bearded Collie Club and there are Bearded Collie Kennels selling Bearded Collie puppies, proffering volumes of Bearded Collie advice, dispensing indispensible nuggets of Bearded Collie history. You can have your Bearded Collie immortalised in art by any number of Bearded Collie artists. You can shop at the Bearded Collie shop. (How about an I love my Bearded Collie keyring, I teased Chumsky.) (He retorted How about an I love my Bearded Collie on top keyring.) (That shut me up.)

Finally we discovered that there is an actual Bearded Collie chatroom. As Bloggiana and I and Chumsky grappled with the image of a lot of Bearded Collies sitting at their laptops surfing the net, my friend Jollyosa knocked at the door. She had brought a friend of hers to tea as well. I was slow to go to the door and it was Our Dog instead who greeted them both as they walked in. I got there in time to hear Jollyosa saying to her friend, Good Heavens, that dog looks like your mother. Later I found a message from Chumsky in my inbox. Told yer, it said simply.