Things my Spaniel says she knows

I have been conversing with my Spaniel Molly today. Mostly through telepathy because as you know, whilst they understand a great deal, a dogs vocal range is a bit limited.

Anyway, the conversation started when I picked her up to say hello after my hard day at work. She licked my glasses.

"Careful, I won't be able to see anything" I said

"Sorry bloke, I'm afraid I don't have much of an understanding of such things. What they for anyway. They just sit on yer face and get in the way of yer lookers." She replied

I did my best to explain the purpose of glasses and short sighted-ness but the yawn gave away the fact that it was of little interest. I put her down on the floor and she wandered to her bowl

"So if you don't understand the science of glasses. What do you have knowledge of?" I enquired.

She stopped in mid chomp of a biscuit and looked at me as though I had insulted her.

"After 9 years of living in your pack, yer have not noticed the incredible range of me talents? I am almost insulted. Mamma notices what I know." she retorted.

"Sorry," I said, "Do enlighten me."

She filled her mouth with some more biscuits and looked thoughtful for a moment.

"Well I can count to go". She spluttered telepathically.

I looked puzzled, "I don't follow you".

"Small bloke" (that's our son) "he taught me to count up to go. You know, when we all in the garden and he throws a ball. We sit down and he says.....On marks, one, two, three, go. Then we chase to see who gets the ball first." She paused to take a drink of water.

"See, I have knowledge of counting to go".

While she finished her drink and licked the residue of biscuits from her chops, I went to sit down on the sofa in the back room and stared out of the French windows. Molly followed me in and sat down on the rug in front of me staring out towards the bottom of the garden where the shed sat forlornly in the soggy wet early evening.

"See shed." said Molly.

"What about it". I replied.

"I know that hedgepigs live down there.  I can find them too."

"Using your nose".

"Yeah but not just nozzle. I know where their tracks are round the garden. I also know when they come out to eat."

"Damncats come out from behind shed too" She added, "Mind you Damncats come out everywhere, you don't need a nozzle to find them. Slinkin' here and slinkin' there, sittin' on Mamma's car, messin' in our garden....no manners, they always nasty..." She paused.

"You're getting angry". I said trying to lighten her mood.

"Yeah, sorry. Damncats make me red". she said.

She turned her attention away from the garden and concentrated on her bum for a while. That was my queue to read my paper.
When she had finished, she watched me for a time then came over and poked her nose under the paper and stared at me. I lifted the paper and she jumped onto my knee.

"Do you understand time?" I asked.

"Yeah, breakfast time, lunchtime, dinnertime, tasty-time, chomp-time, munchies-time, da walkies time, Go-pub time, bobo's time. I know time." she said putting her head on my chest.

"But can you tell the time? Do you know how long it takes to do things.". I put the paper down.

"Oh yeah, easy. Remember when you and Mamma get bags out and go on long walkies without me".

I presumed she meant holidays.

"You said, won't be long. We will only be a couple of minutes. Then you were gone for a couple of minutes...Its very long, a couple of minutes. I fitted in a lot of chomp-time and munchie-time in those couple of minutes.

"Very impressive" I lied.

"I also know", She said, licking one of her front paws, "Where to find all the sticks I have ever picked up and moved to new places at de Anderton. (That's the nature park near where we live). There are many of them but I put them carefully in stick nests that have built up over the years, just like you blokes and mamma's do with the stones on the mountains we visit."

"You mean the stone cairns on the fells?" I asked

"Them's the ones bloke. And if I put a stick down somewhere, I can always find it again by using me nozzle".

"Your nose".

"Yeah".

"Me nozzle is quite important. Because you and the Mamma don't know how to use yours properly. I have the only working one in the pack." Molly continued.

"We do use our noses, er sorry nozzles". I said.

"But yer not very good at it." she said.

"For example?" I asked.

"For example, just before last no-work-today," (I presumed she meant last weekend), "Me and you came in from de walkies and yer sniffed and said, mmm Mamma's cooking spaghetti 's".

"Which she was." I confirmed.

"Yeah but if you had used your nozzle like me, you would have said, mmm Mamma's cooking spaghetti in water with a bit of salt, mince meat in a sauce that has garlic, tomatoes basil and a hint of black pepper". She looked proud of herself.

"Now you're just showing off". I said.

"No. Just telling you what I know".

Porridge Evangalism

18 months ago, after suffering from that classic folk music disease, gout. ( you thought I was going to say morris dancing didn't you?) I decended on the local quack to get a diagnosis for what I already knew. That being that my big toe was very painful and I could not stand, sit, lie down or hang from my good leg from the ceiling like a bat. 

"I could perform a quick check on it now if you like", says quack. "I simply insert a needle into your toe joint and draw off some fluid. It will tell me quite quickly if its gout. How do feel about that?" he continued.

"How do you feel about being threaded through that small window by your ankles" I replied.

"Mmm. Good point. We will do a blood test. While we are at it we might as well test for a wide range of things just to be safe."

"As long as it tells  you enough to give me the right medication I don't care"...pain will make you retort thus.

So on the return of said results, I was summoned like a boy to the head teacher for a lecture. Not about the gout, which was inconclusive, but on the rather high cholesterol level.

It can come a bit of a shock, when you think that you eat healthily and have a wide diet.

"Just get some exercise", said quack.

"Porridge" said my father in law. "Thats what you need. If you can take porridge 4 times a week for breakfast, it will line your insides and any saturates will pass right on by."

As an alternative to the dreaded pills, it was worth a try. So combining that with some exercise 3 times a week resulted in a dramatic reduction in the old level from 7.5 to 4.5. It  took 12 months but well worth it. And with that regime now 3 times a week, there has been no gout, and those little fatty deposits running around inside just float on by and out the other side.

So here's to that simple, often forgotten food which does so much that you just don't know about.