I have been looking at the mighty Internet to discover whether it might be a good idea to get a new dog to replace Roger Poopy’s poor ailing father.
This is because I do not think he is going to be above ground for very much longer, and because I think it might be prudent to introduce a replacement dog before he departs rather than afterwards.
He does not like Roger Poopy at all, and apart from occasional outbursts of the sort of sexual abuse which would see him jailed if he was a person, his interaction with him is largely limited to grumbling and growls, at any rate since Roger Poopy became the bigger of the two.
Still, they are used to one another, and Roger Poopy, at least, loves his father. He sucks his fur whenever he thinks he can get away with it, which isn’t often, and tries to curl up as close to his miserably unwelcoming warmth as he can.
Honestly, it is more than clear to me that these people who say that dogs are nicer than people have never actually met one. It isn’t even as if Roger Poopy is blameless. He will shamelessly steal his father’s bones if he can get away with it, and at bedtime, will deliberately lie across the middle of their two cushions, trying to force his arthritic, hobbling father on to the floor. The pair of them are rotters, and the only targets for their charming blandishments are us.
Despite this, I like being a two-dog family. I do not think that it is ever a good idea to leave a dog by itself whilst you buzz off doing more interesting things, like having a career or going off out to dinner. Dogs are pack animals, and need at least part of the pack around them at all times if they are not to become anxious, or lonely, or rejected. At least Roger Poopy’s father is around to reject him in person.
Hence I looked at the mighty Internet whilst I had breakfast this morning, and discovered to my complete astonishment that dogs are suddenly an improbably valuable commodity.
Puppies, the cute and fluffy variety, come at a range of prices anywhere between one and four thousand pounds.
One and four thousand. Imagine paying four thousand pounds just to have some ebullient little horror wee on your carpets.
Older dogs are not much cheaper. You can pay five or six hundred quid for a dog that somebody else has already turned into an anxious wreck . There was one ancient smelly old ruin with one eye, almost as old as Roger Poopy’s father, and even that was up for two hundred quid.
Hence, if we get a new dog we are considering the possibility of a girl, whose reproductive talents might have the added advantage of giving Roger Poopy’s father a new lease of life. It won’t stop him being sick every time he eats something interesting, but at least he might go out with a smile on his face.
I don’t much like girl dogs. They are not at all as easily browbeaten as boy dogs, we are not all the same under the skin at all, and girl dogs are tiresome assertive rascals.
I do like puppies, though, and at a thousand pounds each a litter of six is not to be sniffed at.
Still, I emailed one lady who had a girl dog up for sale at four hundred quid. I asked her all about the dog but explained that I would want to offer a bit less, and wondered what she thought. She emailed back with a description of what was clearly an unhouse-trained, distinctly unhinged-sounding dog. However, she explained, it sounded as though we were just not five-star dog owners, so probably it would be best if we just kindly got lost.
I concurred with that description. I am not sure what five star dog owners do, but I imagine it doesn’t include bellowing in horror and hurling them out of the back door when they have just been sick on the clean duvet.
She concluded with the utterly horrifying sentence that she hoped we would find a fur-baby to suit us somewhere else.
Fur baby. Rarely have I been so repelled by a description of a dog.
I tried to make the mental leap of applying it to Roger Poopy’s father, but without success.
Wazzock was the description that came to mind.
It would appear that he is a valuable wazzock.
The world is a very peculiar place at times.
