May 9, 2007

  • Who
    let the dogs out?

    As a
    child, my parents would take me and my sister to Dorset in south west England for the
    summer holidays. My aunty there had a farm where she kept sheep (if I
    remember correctly), and cows, and horses, and geese (bastards used
    to chase me until I was told that when they chase me, all I need to
    do is chase them back. So I did. It worked! It was a lot of fun
    chasing geese afterwards). She also had several dogs.

    One of
    the dogs – my father tells this story regularly, but I am not sure
    if it is really true – was so stupid that it would lean against
    your leg when you stood close by. If you walked away though, it would
    just fall over. See? Absolutely cuckoo.

    Riding
    the mountain bike up through Linkou, one of the neighbouring towns,
    there are a lot of dogs – perhaps they are stray, perhaps guard
    dogs – and they like to chase passers by on mountain bikes. They
    wait until you are past them, then start to bark, growl and chase
    you, by which time you are already 100 metres away, and in absolutely
    no danger. It generally will bring a chorus of "Who let the dogs
    out" as I speed off down the hill.

    Then I
    was riding up towards Da Tun Shan once more, heading up the hill out
    of Danshui, when out of nowhere a dog started barking and chasing me.
    Problem for the mutt was that the pavement he was running on turned
    in to a wall, and the dog was too busy chasing me that he almost ran
    straight in to it.

    Having
    narrowly avoided that obstacle, it chased me some more. With the
    slope being quite steep, I was not riding fast, so it was easy enough
    to keep up with me. The next hazard for the dog was avoiding the
    ditch, filled with rather disgusting water. Again, because the dog
    was busy chasing me, snarling at my feet as they pedalled their way
    up the hill, he only just avoided falling in the water. Time for
    doggy to quit, and go home, which is what he did.

    Another
    recent ride, up Guanyin Shan, saw a very forlorn looking dog sitting
    behind a locked gate. He was bored, he could see all the other dogs
    running down the street in relative freedom, but this one was not
    free. He was an oppressed dog, and he was not happy.

    "Who
    locked the dogs in", I sang, as I headed up the mountain.

    I
    recently bought a new couch, the old one having been absolutely
    devastated by the sharp claws of the kitty during the last 7 years. I
    went out looking for something, and found a great couch. I asked the
    price. The lady told me.

    "Ouch,"
    I said in Chinese, "that is quite a lot more than I was hoping
    to pay."

    "Then
    let's go upstairs," she said, which was without doubt the best
    offer of that kind I have had in a long time, "which is where
    the cheaper stuff is."

    And as
    we climbed the stairs, she complimented me on my Chinese, which
    really is very embarrassing because I can not speak Chinese very
    well. Not that well, for sure. She was a very friendly girl, and
    showed me a couple of other things, that just were not quite right.
    And then I saw it – a nice brown and cream couch that I knew
    immediately would be great in my home. I sat down on it, and it was
    good.

    I asked
    the price, and it was also good. But that did not stop me from
    bargaining a small discount. And the discount, too, was good.

    "Can
    you deliver tonight?" I asked.

    "No
    problem," came the reply, and everything was looking rosy.

    "Can
    I pay with credit card?"

    "No
    problem."

    Done
    deal.

    The
    problem came when it arrived at my home. It was really quite a lot
    larger in my home than it had been in the furniture store. It had
    grown in transit, rather like my belly. Kitty, it has to be said,
    looked in awe.

    The
    guys took the old couch with them – a great, comfortable couch
    without doubt – and then I was left with the problem of where the
    heck to put the new couch. It was about twice the size of the old
    one, and without doing a complete overhaul of the living room, there
    was no way it was going to fit inside.

    10
    minutes after the delivery men had gone, kitty was sharpening her
    claws on this new sharpening post. The REAL sharpening post that was
    bought for her has been decommissioned due to a lack of use. After
    all, why scratch something she is allowed to when there is something
    there that she is NOT allowed to scratch? Seems like a cat who is
    just like me when I was a kid. Like now.

    She
    hasn't left the couch since. It is huge, it is great for sleeping on,
    it is great for cuddling on, it is great for watching the birds on.
    She only gets off to poop, and to eat. Then she jumps back on to
    watch American Idol on TV. Well, perhaps she tolerates it on her new
    couch. After all, if I bring something this nice for her to sleep on,
    she will allow me to watch whatever I like on the box.

    Unlike
    the dogs, my cat's not stupid.

    Update from the mother, who had this to say about the aforementioned dog in Dorset:

    Gyp, the "leaning" dog!
    The stories are all true, he did lean on people's legs and almost fall
    over if you walked away suddenly. He was also the one who once chased a seagull
    along the cliff top and ran straight off the edge. He used to swim across the
    bay from Seatown to West Bay and on one occasion someone saw him in the
    water and alerted the coastguards who launched their boat to go and pick
    him up. He refused to get into the rescuers boat and so they escorted him
    to shore. He was often seen sleeping on the War Memorial in Whitchurch
    Canonicorum, with his bum on the top step and his head on the bottom - a real
    character of a dog.     He's long gone
    now, of course but his legend lives on!