Continue reading »]]>  

Photo by Geoff Walker

Dear Readers,

I can hardly believe it, but I’m having to backtrack on a bold declaration made in a previous column. Early this year I declared full of certainty that while Jas the puppy could bark and jump and beg, she would never, ever make me play. I backed up this emphatic statement by saying that I’m 13 years old, which puts me in my 70s in dog years, well past the time of playing just for fun.

Obviously I jump up and down with excitement when it’s food time, when my boss gets home, when my boss takes me for a walk or when I find her in the garden. But these situations don’t qualify as playing.

Playing is what Jas the puppy does. It involves jumping, spinning and dancing for no reason whatsoever. Why, I used to wonder, does Jas think dropping into what you humans call the ‘soliciting play’ position will make me play? Just in case you’re not clear, soliciting play when done by dogs involves poking the front legs forward, dropping the chest on the ground (which happens when the front legs are thrust forward) and poking one’s backside in the air

This ingratiating position also involves vigorous tail wagging, although this barely rates a mention as vigorous tail wagging is automatic for dogs when we’re pleased. On the odd occasion I’ve felt pleased and have tried not to wag my tail, it’s been an epic fail. That tail of mine has a mind of its own.

Anyway, on the fated day when I played for no reason whatsoever, I’d followed my boss Rae into the paddock when she went to give the horse a snack. Already, I was acting strangely because I often only follow her part way to the horse.

You can’t kid me that this counts as a walk. A walk is when she devotes her attention to me and I follow her. Walks are mostly along the beach and moving bulls. They used to include paddocks, but I’m now suspicious when she goes into the big paddock by the house because she might just be going to visit or catch the horse. Last week, I was suspicious as usual, then I realised my boss was off to gather mushrooms. I had to run to catch up.

Anyway, on this day she’d fed the horse and was walking home when this unearthly desire to play overcame me. It was as if I’d been taken over by the character of Jas the puppy who was standing nearby. I jumped, I lunged, I spun around and I dropped into that ingratiating solicit play position and begged my boss to play. She grinned and I thought she was going to laugh at me but she jumped and frisked and lunged and ruffled by furry neck and together we played in the paddock. Golly, it was fun.

For once Jas didn’t play at all. This silly and thrilling moment was just for me and my boss. Then the feeling passed and even though my boss patted me on the head and told me she loved me, it hasn’t happened since.

It was, I’ve decided, a moment that may never be repeated. Note my use of the word ‘may’. Once I’d have said never but now I’ve learned never to say never. Oh, perhaps I’ll amend that because I know myself too well – I’ve learned almost never to say never.

Your friend, Floss.

Continue reading »]]>

Here I am looking dorky in my Elizabethan collar and with my leg in a bright green bandage.

Dear Readers,

Who’d have thought one little lick could have started all this? Dogs lick. It’s what we do. Then I licked again and again until – and I was fascinated by this – a lump formed. I’m just regurgitating what the vet said here. I usually only regurgitate after I eat grass, but these are unusual circumstances which are, apparently about flea treatments. Because I’m special and sensitive, some of the usual stuff doesn’t quite work.

Anyway, here I am looking like a dork. I know this because the lady at the vet centre who I used to like looked at me and smiled and said, “Oh Floss, you look so funny.” Just because people can’t speak dog lingo, doesn’t mean I can’t understand every flipping word they say.

My boss, who I’m also cool on at the moment, has been heard marvelling about my good nature because when she gets me out of my cage to pee and poo I can’t wait to get back in. I don’t do this because I’m nice. I do it because I don’t want to be seen looking like a dork and I can avoid Jas the puppy. They call my neck gear an Elizabethan collar which confirms that the royal family, who my boss finds fascinating, are dingbats.

My leg, meanwhile, has a few teeny problems because I’ve ended up with insufficient skin to contain it. Ugggh. Doesn’t bear thinking about.

The only excitement during my incarceration has been thanks to the farmer. Soon after I’d had my right foreleg bandaged he came home with his right forepaw in plaster. What a guy! He fell off a truck while loading wool bales – just to make me feel better. Some bone that links his thumb to his wrist, apparently.

Then, when the farmer let me out to do ablutions, he forgot to put me on a lead. I was off up the back paddock at a gallop – finally in a private place to do what should be done in private. Then there’s the dodgy door he made for my pen. I had many long hours to check out that door before the day of my escape.

As usual, my boss was walking Kate and the annoying puppy along the beach. But I could no longer overlook her disloyal behaviour because she was with her friend Fluffy. Some people get us mixed up and call me Fluffy. I love that.

Then Kate barked, “Come on, Floss. It’s fun on the beach.” That did it! I ripped some slats off my door, wriggled out and was off, peg legging it along the beach, not giving a dog’s biscuit who saw me.

Finally, on the same day, the farmer and I set off to get our appendages released from prison. He came home bare pawed, but I was still bandaged – and furious.

One night, I bent my horrible collar, gripped the end of the bandage with my teeth and pulled like you wouldn’t believe. I was free!

I love going in the car, except once again I found myself at the vet centre with the lady who tells me I look funny. Turns out I knew best. They let me come home with no bandages, but I’m still locked up. Something about my skin being very fragile. Let me tell you, it’s not nearly as fragile as my patience.

Your friend Floss.

Continue reading »]]>

I tried to ignore my boss’s skirt.

A Blog by my Dog.

Dear Readers,

My boss recently went on a cattle moving mission dressed like a real girlie girl – and being a female, I’m qualified to comment. Oh, the shame!

I was, of course, wildly excited when cattle broke through a fence and got onto the beach. Not only is this illegal, but they hardly ever get onto the beach these days because the farmer’s done miles of coastal fencing. Pity, because dealing with cattle kicking up sand is fantastic fun. They’re excited and a good stiff ocean breeze gets them even more worked up.

We were in the ute on the way to sorting out the bulls when my boss spotted the place where they’d broken out – although there was a clue: one bull with its foot caught in the wire was bucking and jumping.

The farmer dropped my boss Rae and me then drove on down the beach to get the rest of the cattle – and that’s when I noticed the boss’s skirt. I kid you not, she wore a flimsy, pretty wrap-around skirt. Full length. It was flapping all over the place. Cattle, as you know, only like people in jeans. I took off after the ute, figuring if I ran really fast I’d catch up and . . .

“Floss, come back here,” called the boss in the voice she uses when she knows I’m not inclined to listen. Damnation!

Turns out it’s also the voice I can’t help obeying. Why is that? If there’s a question in the universe I’d like answered, it’s that one. I slunk back, sat beside her and thought, ‘Why did you have to wear that dumb skirt?’

Pretty soon, the farmer was herding the cattle towards the boss who was holding a stick with one hand and the flapping skirt with the other. This wasn’t going to go well.

But the clever farmer urged the bulls off the beach and up the bank to the break-out spot – where they gathered in a muddled huddle. No way would they jump the single low wire into the paddock. Bulls are odd like that – happy to jump over a wire to get out, won’t do the reverse.

Meanwhile, the farmer moved quietly around the bulls which were all gaping at my boss and her skirt. I knew their attention was making her nervous.

“Stay there, bullies,” she called before yelling at the farmer, “I’m going to get the ute,” and took off at a gallop – or as much as a gallop as she could manage, what with the flying skirt and wearing gumboots. I followed. Couldn’t help myself.

After she got back and delivered a hammer and nails to the farmer, he lowered the troublesome wire and the bulls ambled into their paddock.

On the way home my boss’s words whistled past my super-sensitive ears: “Did the tangled bull free himself or did you do it?”

“I did,” said the farmer whose face had been twitching with amusement for some time (there was a lot to laugh at – my boss, her skirt, her nervy attitude, her ungainly gumbooted canter). “I wrestled it to the ground and unwrapped the wire. The judges gave me 9.5.”

I knew this was nonsense, but I don’t think my boss did because she just grinned and said nothing.

Yours truly, Floss

(Hope you enjoyed this – I do enjoy Floss’s point of view. I’d love it if you’d share this or comment here or on my Facebook page. Thanks.)

Continue reading »]]>

Floss, who’s smart enough to write a blog, arranged to have the photo that worried her so much deleted – and her blog inspired ‘her boss’ to delete a few kilograms.

Dear Readers,

I’ve recently lived through a stressful time worrying myself into knots because I was sure the farmer’s death wish would come true. My first inkling he had death wish came when I saw him photograph my boss’s rear end when she was leaning over helping herself to Christmas pudding, brandy butter, custard and cream. Her tight jeans weren’t flattering and her hindquarters were smack in the middle of the photo.

I slinked underneath one of our guests’ cars and fretted. I’ve got a widening girth myself and hate it when my boss comments. Like her, I’m a bit of a foodie. Is it my fault bags of milk powder are left open when the calves are being fed? Is it my fault I like licking calf poo? Is it my fault my mate Kate is such a fusspot I sometimes nick her food? Is it my fault . . . The list goes on and the answer is always no.

I will concede to being a bad dog for sneaking to the manager’s house and scoffing the meat he’d left defrosting for his three dogs. The farmer caught me twice and I’ll never confess how many times I got away with it.

What would the boss do when she saw the photo? Almost a week passed before the inevitable moment. I was peering through the window when she downloaded the photo and I wanted to be sick. Normally I’d chew a few blades of grass, but at this moment grass was not needed.

Acid rose from my gut as she marched to the living area where the farmer watched telly. I raced to another window to watch and listen.

“There’s a photo of me at that lunch we had,” said my boss. “My bum’s smack in the middle of the photo and it looks enormous.”

“I’ve never said your bum looks big,” said the farmer (and here’s where I thought his death wish would come true) “because you’ve never asked, ‘Does my bum look big in this?’”

Then (danger, danger, I could barely breathe) he laughed . . . at his own sick, sick joke. The boss’s face went a funny shade of red. “That’s not funny,” she said as she stomped across the kitchen. Then she stopped, “Well, it is funny, but it’s not funny.”

Can you make sense of that? I couldn’t. Was she suffering from an attack of Christmas spirit?

Somehow I knew his life had been spared – until he asked: “How heavy are you?”

Danger! Danger! Rising bile! No grass needed!

“Four kilos heavier than when I met you,” she said with a sigh.

She had watery soup for dinner then a few days later bought jeans that are the same style as her old, ripped favourites. She couldn’t believe it when size nines fitted her rounded haunches because she knows and I know she’s really size twelve.

I was confused when she left the enormous ‘size nine’ stickers on the jeans then wrapped them in Christmas paper – until I saw the gift tag. The farmer gave them to her on Christmas Day.

Good luck with working off the excesses of the silly season. Your slightly fat friend, Floss.

Continue reading »]]>

Floss, a farm heading dog, in point position – she’s spotted a shag. She held this pose when she found the teeny kitten we named Cheetah.

I was a little put out when Rae questioned my intelligence in a previous blog, therefore I’ve put paws to keyboard in the name of the truth – it’s the boss who’s the space cadet.

It’s true I’ve had mishaps but these next questions all have the same answer: Who put me on the back of the ute which I fell off and broke my leg? Who turned her back on the chocolate cake I ate? Who let me run on the beach where I cut my foot? And who left me in the car for the time it took me to destroy the box of staples she thought I’d eaten?

While I’m at the computer, let me share more of the boss’s dim-witted moments.

When she started gardening, she froze silverbeet in little plastic bags. Everyone was too kind to make fun of her. (If she’d exercised the same restraint, I wouldn’t be writing this). She now knows silverbeet grow year round.

Tara the cat was about to deposit her first kitten on the bed when the farmer said, “Quick, get hot water and towels.” The boss was heading for the door when the farmer confessed he’d been joking. Tara hates water so she picked up her kitten in her mouth and, without leaving a smear of yickiness, decamped to a spare wardrobe where she gave birth to two more in a similarly squeaky clean fashion.

Then there was the day she was too scared to climb into the water tank when it needed cleaning. She’s scared of climbing ladders. She bleated (up till then the domain of sheep) to the farmer that she was sure to fall off the ladder, crack her head on the side of the tank and drown.

Rex phoned his mother who nimbly scampered down the ladder and set to work cleaning the tank. The boss’s next job was to coil lengths of alkathene pipe. It was like putting snakes in a box and she very nearly failed at that too.

To be fair, farmers often do dumb things. One told her recently that his tractor had a flat battery and no gas. He filled it up, started it with jumper leads and left it idling to recharge the battery. A couple of days later he remembered the tractor . . . once again with a flat battery and no gas.

Then we had a visitor who said, “That electric fence can’t be on, there’s a sparrow sitting on it.”

The farmer and my boss did eventually stop laughing. Now whenever she needs reassurance after a space cadet moment she thinks about that . . . ummm . . . really gifted sparrow.

Woof, Floss.

PS: A while back the farmer caught a fly blown sheep and when the farmer asked her to hold it down while he got the ute, she actually did that! Eughhh! Talk about smelly. She lay on the ground, hugged it and fended off blowflies. See what I mean, she’s not that bright. But she feeds me and loves me, so I guess I’m stuck with her.

(Dear blog followers – thank you all – 15 people get my blog via email and one via Networked Blogs. I hope you enjoy reading my yarns. Warm wishes, Rae)