Despite feeling as rough as a nomad’s heel (my description, not his), Alex was still anxious to walk the dog last night.
I’d like to think that he was demonstrating some sort of selfless responsibility, but I think it was probably more to do with trying out the new extendable lead that Colin bought me for my birthday.
Either way, they both had fun.
We’re chilling out by the coast and there are important things to do like walking on the beach and cooking meat on the braai so blogging is always going to take a bit of a back seat.
Still, you need your fix and so here is not one, but two quota panoramae! [cue gasps of astonishment from the expectant crowd]
The first one is from our journey down here last night. Some nameless dirt road just north of Napier where stopped to give Colin a comfort break and to take photos of the sun setting over the Southern Cape farmland.
The second is from the beach near Suiderstrand, this time walking Colin until it broke and needed to be carried home.
I suppose that if there is one thing to be said for having a dog, it’s that you get the opportunity to take photos like these, when otherwise, you’d probably be in a pub somewhere, enjoying a nice drink and some good laughs.
Hmm.
According to this comment, I should be thinking of Colin as clickbait. The rationale, as the commenter goes on to explain, is that revenue from the Google ads clicked upon by people coming here to see photos of Colin could be used to pay for replacement furniture. It’s a good plan, but there’s going to have to be a lot of clickage to sort out all the damage.
Earlier this week, the dog discovered the joy of digging up the lawn. Turns out that it’s actually very good at it too. Let’s make no bones about this (pun intended), I KILL MOLES WITH A SPADE for doing exactly the same thing. And then on Monday evening, I spent an hour repairing the wire from the alarm contact on the front door because it had been chewed through (the wire, not the front door) (yet). While there’s no actual proof that this was the dog, sources indicate that they are around 99.999% certain it was Colin-related.
Beyond. Reasonable. Doubt.
Look, I’ll admit it. It looks fairly harmless, doesn’t it? It’s clever though. Devious. It has already learned the power of public relations and it poses, looking mournful, underloved and completely innocent, as soon as it sees a camera or cellphone. It has naked selfies on the iCloud and will rightfully expect widespread pity when its account is hacked.
Don’t be fooled.
Once the camera is gone, the mischievous, destructive escapologist reappears. Things get dug, chewed, eaten, damaged. The dog isn’t where you left it and you’ve no idea how it got where it is. Your daughter has been partially devoured. Colin is about 1o weeks old. Apparently, “it gets better” by the time they’re about 10 months old.
Something is going to have to give.
No-one ever asks me how I am. Loads of people ask me how the bloody dog is though. And when they ask me how the bloody dog is, I’m going to send them here and then not only can they find out how the bloody dog is, they can also see that I might appreciate it if they’d occasionally ask after my well-being too.
Anyway, it’s no biggie, because I’ve found that all one has to do is chuck a photo of a puppy on the blog, like this one taken last night:
…and the hits just roll in. Even if the dog looks rather unsure about things.
Look, the dog is fine. Thanks for asking.
It’s getting big: 4.6kg at the last weigh-in. It’s noisy*, it’s nippy, it doesn’t sleep much (at night, anyway) and it’s generally a bit of a pain. I’d actually really like to get rid of it now, because the novelty has worn off and it’s a whole lot more work than I was promised, it’s costing loads of money and it’s all take with no reward at the moment, but (much like the individuals referred to at the start of this post) my family would probably rather I left than it did.
And so we persevere.
* Apparently, beagles don’t “bark”, they “bay”, thus Colin’s noise is “baying”. I think “baying” may just be short for “Bloody AnnoYING”.
It’s been a dog-dominated, sleep-deprived weekend. I asked my wife if she’d bitten off more than she could chew.
“No,” she replied, “I’ve bitten off more than I thought, but I can still chew it.”
I’m not sure that this says more about my wife’s determination or her dietary habits.
Or her gob capacity.
And right now, I’m too tired to care.