Dearie me, I have had a day of some difficulty.
Probably rather less difficult than the visiting dog, not that this is much consolation.
It did not take us very long to realise last night that it was crawling with fleas. It had not been anywhere other than the conservatory, and so hence this presented a fairly minimal problem, but nevertheless, minimal was still a ghastly nuisance.
It did itself no favours this morning when Mark bent down to pick it up so that we could clean its poor sore eyes out, and it bit him again. This did not make it popular. When Mark is cross with a dog there is a very lot of shouting and growling, but not very much actual hitting it. It was very frightened indeed by this and had an accident on the floor.
Mark picked it up anyway and pinned it down whilst I washed its eyes and squirted them full of cream.
Once he had gone to work I got the clippers out and shaved it until it was bald. It was very sore, with lots of raw patches where it had been bitten by the fleas. There were lots and lots of fleas, and the dog smelled vile.
Once it was thoroughly bald I bathed it and dried it. It cheered up a bit then, and then we all buzzed off for a walk found the park. It still does not come back when you call it, so it has got to stay on a lead, which is a shocking nuisance, I would not be a dog owner if I had to put our dogs on leads, you can’t just tootle along at your own pace and them at theirs, meeting up occasionally when they think you might have a sausage in your pocket or when you start yelling at them because they are doing something brainless somewhere in the distance.
We think it does not actually know what its name is. Its name is actually Pip but it might just as well be Ralph Merridew The Second for all the notice it takes of it.
When we got back I fed our dogs anti-flea tablets in a bit of roast beef. Then I took some roast beef and flea tablet to the visiting dog.
It growled at me when I offered it the roast beef. Then in a little flurry of snarling and malice, it bit me.
What followed was a violent bloodbath. For animal lovers, the blood was mine, not the dog’s. The violence was mine as well.
I do not subscribe to the idea that dogs will learn from noise and being scary. I beat it up. Then I hauled it out from under the table, where it had buzzed off to cower, sat on it and prised its jaws open. I dropped the tablet down its throat and rubbed its neck until it swallowed it.
I gave Rosie the roast beef. The visiting dog could get stuffed.
After that the dog hid under the table whilst I started again on the eternal process of laundering absolutely everything dog-related, hoovering, scrubbing, and spraying with anti-flea spray. By a double stroke of good fortune it was Monday, which is Clean Sheets Day anyway, so I was already intending to hoover and polish, and also the sun was shining, beaming amiably down and breathing the water out of the washing with happy benevolence.
I dried absolutely everything outside, the sheets, the towels, our clothes, all of the dogs’ beds, the cover off the sofa and the tablecloth.
The tablecloth did not really need washing but it had been on the table in the conservatory, where the dog had had its accident on the floor and might have left a rogue flea or two hiding in the cracks between the tiles, and therefore I had a vague feeling that it was guilty by association.
Oliver and his friend took the house dogs off for a walk over the fells in the sunshine, and the visiting dog, which can’t go on long walks because of the stupid lead, lay in a corner and felt sorry for itself.
It almost growled at me again later, but remembered at the very last minute that this might not be a good idea, and stopped itself mid-snarl, so perhaps it is learning.
I am going to bath our dogs as well tomorrow, because of going away in the camper van tomorrow night. I should have done it today, but frankly I had had enough of dogs by the time I got around to it.
Mark put a new window in the camper van roof tonight.
We are all systems go.
Probably.
