PS

I made a pasta dish tonight; I made twice as much in order to freeze half. So there were the two tubs with the leftover pasta, sitting on the counter top cooling.

You know what happened, don't you? You're right. Richard came through and asked how many tubs there were? - cos there was only one now!

So on top of three pieces of pizza, she also had a tub of pasta today.

She's a bad dog! (as she looks up at you with those big eyes and the tail slowly wagging)

PPS - it occurs to me that this may actually be my fault (apart from the obvious, of leaving the tub too near the edge) - I've been cutting her food back a bit so she's probably a bit hungrier than normal - and with Maddie, that means she goes looking herself!

Proof

I'm sure nobody questions Maddie's ability to track down and remove various items of footwear (I'm sure I've talked previously of her growling at a shoebox of mine and removing one of my purple suede boots from it) but thought I'd just put some evidence up here....

...if I can get the damn video to upload!!

The Incorrigibles

So on today's walk (I had to go up to the shops just past the play park) Maddie went into the Co-op on the way past (there and back!) - this is quite common for her, it's a motion-activated sliding door and when a door opens as you go past, what's a dog to do? (Luckily it's the fruit and veg that greet you as you go in, otherwise I think we'd have paid a fortune for half eaten rolls and cakes by now).

Then I attempted to avoid the school carpark on the way back and crossed some waste ground next to it, taking a short cut back to the play park. I should have known better. While I was concentrated on Murphy, who didn't see us going that way and couldn't find us, Maddie found a treasure of her own - a pizza box. And not empty! I've never seen 3 pieces of pizza eaten so fast. She knew fine she shouldn't have been eating it and ran away behind a whin bush (gorse) till she was done. Grrr/...

Murphy then stopped by the doughnut-thing in the play park to investigate the possibility of there being further cat-treat-containing bags (see picture) and all in all, the walk was longer than anticipated - which was a bit of a problem as I was supposed to be picking Richard up from the airport. Luckily the plane was late and it took me half the time to get there I thought it would, so all was well.

Welcome home, Richard!

(The return of the Prodigal Son!)

Favouritism

It's not that I take offence, but I'm a wee bit put out that Murphy is so blatantly pro-Richard. Richard was away overnight last night and Murphy spent most of the evening lying in the hall, obviously waiting for him, till he eventually gave up and came and begrudgingly spent some time next to me before retiring to his bed!

Life is never dull

We had an interesting time today on our pre-dinner daunder. Took the dogs on a wee trip up past the primary school playing fields, round the playpark and back. And it was supposed to be that simple; only Murphy decided to step up his career in social embarrassment and general thievery.

There were a couple of girls at the playpark - we ignored them and they ignored us. However, as I wandered round the edge, I realised Murphy was stravaiging across the middle - with a purpose in mind. As I stopped to call him he reached some kind of big doughnut-shaped thing on legs (play equipment, not an obese child) and went for something in the middle of it. Much to my horror, I saw it was a leather satchel (pale pink so obviously one of the girls') - and he was rummaging around inside it!

Needless to say I made a beeline at speed but by the time I got there he had a bag of cat-treats clenched in his jaws. Cue a wrestling contest and some wheedlery with a dog biscuit under his nose (he ignored it). All I can say is thank the lord humans have opposable thumbs which can be used as leverage!!

I was able to get it off him before he got into it and, having attracted the attention of said owner (who must've been about ten), ascertained that she was luckily quite blasé about the whole thing. I wiped the bag free of dog-slaver and handed it over, she said it was OK, her cat did that all the time, and off we went, Murphy quite oblivious to any of the comments on his character I directed at him.

Half way home, (the dogs now safely on leads, being no respecters - or even recognisers - of the front garden boundaries in these new fenceless estates) we turned a corner and saw not one, but two cats! One was on top of a fence and one was on the pavement directly beneath it. And the latter looked a lot like Gizzy. Upon closer viewing it turned out to actually be Gizzy as well - clearly taking advantage of the milder weather to start exploring the neighbourhood and make new friends.

I carried on and Gizzy decided this looked promising on the food front and trotted calmly ahead of us. Maddie wasn't impressed by this lack of fear but there was little she could do with me hanging onto the other end of the lead like grim death! We passed the fearless feline (who had paused at a reasonable distance from the line we were taking along the road) near home and she followed us instead; the girl from two houses along (one of my erstwhile Brownies, as it happens) who came out her front door in time to see this was intrigued enough to follow us round the corner to watch.

Luckily I maintained a firm grip on the leads and any further late afternoon excitement was averted, with the dogs' attention turning to more easily-available food sources, like their bowls! Gizzy kept a discrete distance until the dogs were eating and then trotted past them in the kitchen. Home for tea.

Could've been worse!