I don’t think a day goes by where I don’t exclaim “That bloody dog!” at one point or another!  If he’s not having barking competitions with the dog over the back fence, he’s carrying on his pointless feud with the cat over the side fence!  He still hasn’t figured out that the cat will always win, because it is way more intelligent and sits just out of reach of Cass’ jaws, but close enough to spike his nose with his claws!  Or he will be destroying our garden furniture. Or traipsing muddy footprints through the house. Or getting hair EVERYWHERE! He’s a short-haired dog, but I swear there is enough fur round the house to rival an Afghan! And at some point, I don’t know when, because he’s like Houdini, but he will manage to roll on every single bed in the place! 

On the weekend, some of Ian’s friends popped over for a beer.  They drove off and managed to get round the corner, before realising they had a stowaway.  He’d just hopped in their ute when everyone was talking, because he clearly wanted to go for a drive! “He’s a bit of a “nibbler”, isn’t he?!” Ah yes, the affectionate nibble! Cass thinks it’s appropriate to latch onto sleeves, trouser legs, bags, even the odd wrist, just to give you a little tug around and let you know he cares! If he really likes you, he’ll even hump your leg! Then there’s the jumping. When it’s a little dog, their little paws feel like tickly feathers on your legs; when it’s a big Staffy, you will get bruises!  I always remember when my friend came over once and Cass was so excited to see her, that he ran at her at full pelt and literally bowled her over! Suffice to say, she was never a big fan after that and we had to make sure he was elsewhere when she came over!

There have been so many times over the years where it would have saved our sanity, particularly financially, to part company, but of course I could never do that! I’m ridiculously sentimental at the best of times and struggle to get rid of anything with an emotional attachment (our box room is literally a room full of boxes of keepsakes waiting for an appropriate designated area to live!), let alone a daft old dog who can still turn on the doleful puppy eyes at will.  But oh does he test our patience?!

Today, Ian and Mia returned home to find our back gates wide open: we had an escapee!  We had all been out at work/kindy all day, so God knows when it happened, but he’d managed to dig under the stake part in the ground and bust it open.  When Ian rang me at work, I panicked.  I am the worst person in an emergency.  My brain goes ten to the dozen and imagines ridiculous scenarios and I am far from calm!  My first thought was: he’ll have been knocked over! Second thought: he’ll have picked a fight with a neighbour’s dog and we’ll be up on a murder charge! Third thought: oh crap, what if he’s seen a cat?!?! Fourth thought, what if someone has stolen him?  Ian said he was going to drive round and then go to the pound and hope for the best.  I paced the office muttering “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!” One of my colleagues asked if he was a small dog.  “No, he’s a big, dopey, idiot dog who hates all other animals, except for bitches, who he will try to hump! He loves people though, but will also try to hump them!” Fifth thought: how many people, or bitches, has he tried to hump?!

I was packing my desk up to leave and join the search party when Ian called to say he was at the pound.  Thank goodness!  “How much to get him out?”  “$250!!! Do we have enough left in the bank?!” (Pay day on Wednesday guys, don’t judge! With all the best intentions, we’re always flying by the seat of our pants for the last couple of days before pay day it seems!) “I think so! Do it! If it bounces, use the credit card!” (You know, that credit card that we just cleared the   balance of and vowed never to use again? Yeah, that one!) Well, it didn’t bounce and we now have the grand total of 87 cents until Wednesday! It’s only a day, what can possibly…I won’t tempt fate!

“$250!” I exclaimed to the office. “What?! Is he registered?!” Ah. Those would be the council registration forms that Ian got, seeing as he works for the council and all, put on the side and never filled out. I know. We are terrible people with horrendously long “to do” lists, unfiled paperwork, who eat “leftover surprise” for dinner two days a fortnight! So, fine us! Oh, you have?! Great!  He does have a microchip….unfortunately that says he lives in Nottingham, England, so the pound must have thought he was on a pretty big walkabout if they checked it earlier!

If you thought that this might be the first time that “that bloody dog” had dunked us into severe financial dire straits then you would be mightily wrong!  Have I ever told you how much it cost to transport him from the U.K. to Australia?! Well, I will tell you again! FOUR THOUSAND POUNDS/EIGHT THOUSAND DOLLARS!!!!  I am aware that exchange rates are not that simple now, but they used to be and I am too lazy/numerically challenged to work it out! This is one of the reasons that emigrating practically bankrupted us and we still spend the last two days of the wage fortnight eating “cupboard concoctions” for dinner! Obviously it wasn’t helped by the fact that Australia updated all of the immigration paperwork and our vet was unaware, so we had to submit everything again and Cass had to spend 7 weeks in quarantine kennels at Heathrow!  Then dogs weren’t allowed to fly to Brisbane, so Ian had to drive to Eastern Creek near Sydney for 10 hours in his cronky old ute, only to find out that he only had a two hour window to pick Cass up in and he’d missed it! So he had to time it perfectly right for the next day! (And we had to pay ANOTHER night’s boarding! Aaarrgh!) Incidentally, I’ve just looked up Eastern Creek and it closed in 2015 (perhaps Cass tried to hump the guards?!) and now we would have had to drive to Melbourne so I shouldn’t moan too much, it could always be worse!

So I got home tonight and looked at Cass, who promptly rolled onto his back to say sorry, so I couldn’t be mad at him! He stunk to high heaven, so wherever he went on his adventure, he had a good roll around.  I wish he could tell me where he’d been, although it might be better not to know!  He had a bloody nose, so whether that was from his arch enemy, the cat, from busting the gate open, or some other misadventure, we will never know! You will be pleased to hear his registration is now all paid up for the year and will expire in…June?! Ripped off!  It’s a good job we love that bloody dog!