OCTOBER

Ready for that walk, no need for company, I can take myself….. but no, the Boss and the Mrs want to come too.  I can get along much faster on my own sniffing all the different animals who have passed by our domain but they who hold the other end of the lead want to spend ages discussing the origin of all the trails, tracks and spoors, and are constantly on the watch for footprints of deer, wild boar, coypu, pine martin, hedgehog, all found in France along with the lovely crunchy French sticks, the incomprehensible language and my chariot being driven on the wrong side of the road……… 

The spoors are up for investigation, which animal had left it for discussion?  It makes me laugh – if ever I mistakenly leave one there is never the same interest that my wild friends poo generate, in fact the other day when I had a nasty attack of cramps and inadvertently left a calling card on my bedroom floor there was hell to pay.  My ownership was heavily discussed, was I his dog or her dog.  I was barred from returning until the clean-up had taken place.  Trust me it wasn’t that bad – just a little accident and beyond my control.  At least there was no head scratching about who it had come from!                             

The Boss has purchased a wildlife camera to catch a shot of all these resident creatures in France and they spend every morning discussing the nightly wanderings of each of them.  I sit and listen and think to myself…. I could have told you that just by their scent alone, never mind their footprints, their spoor or the expense of the camera but we are up against the age old problem of linguistics, the Boss and the Mrs just cannot get their head around dog talk or barkage, so they remain ignorant of so much that I know.   The long slow walks continue as before, but I never complain – sometimes their ignorance is bliss.