Dogs and car boot sales

It’s the start of the car boot season “oop ‘ere in’t narth” and we had a lovely sunny day for it (whatever “it” may be). Pippa decided, as only Pippa can, that she was coming with us this morning. She indicates here determination by welding herself to the carpet should  anyone deign to suggest that she might like to go in her cage as the others have done. Any attempt to pick her up is met with the “dead dog response” whereby she goes all limp and droops in your arms as if deceased! It’s very hard to try to thread a floppy dog into a cage, especially as the moment the legs go near they seem to go rigid and won’t fit through the gap. In the end I gave up and she came with us. I wonder if the hundreds of other dogs there today had also played up similarly at the thought of being left or if they were there under protest.

Our local car boot sales are like the warm up ring at Crufts. Todays headcount included: Greyhounds, Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, Patterdale Terriers of every coat and hue, Staffies by the dozen, Labradors, Lhasa Apsos, Shih Tzus, Bichon Frises, Cocker Spaniels, Springer Spaniels, Siberian Huskys, Akitas, JRTs, Westies, one English Toy Terrier in a designer jumper, Yorkies, Bedlington Terriers, and an assortment of mutts. Add to that the ridiculously names “designer dogs” and you get the overall canine picture. I love watching dogs and people and probably spent more time today observing than looking at the nefarious wrangum on the stalls. The number of owners who seem to have no form of communication with their canine companions astounds me almost as much as the stupidity of people who chose their pets because they match the rest of their accessories.

A rant on the subject of “Designer Dogs” will follow at a later date. For now I shall just tell you of a little plan I hatched before Henry’s nether regions became history. I’d met Cockerpoos and Labradoodles and Chorkies and Chugs – all names a combination of the breed types of the genetic parents. Well I thought I’d like to mate Henry (our Jack Russell) with a Shih Tzu girle and produce puppies which I would give away for free called “Jack Shihtz”.