CRUMBS! CHOPS AGAIN!

I used to live on a large housing estate which contained an assortment of batty individuals, one of whom insisted on feeding the birds in summer when there are plenty of little worms about for them to eat.

What she used to do (someone told me it was a woman) was buy a loaf especially for the purpose and then scatter the broken pieces throughout the path which my old Wheat and I had to walk in order to get home.

I started walking in all these crumbs and would feel [my guide dog] Wheat’s head go up and down with monotonous regularity.

“Is she nodding her ‘good mornings’ to strangers”?

I wondered. Well I know they’re well trained but that’s surely stretching it a bit. Eventually I found out that she was depriving the “little tweeties” of their “little treaties” and putting weight on at the same time. I had one hell of a job getting her up and down that path without her nicking all the grub she could find and then, obligingly she was given a little variation in the form of an old chop bone with a considerable amount of meat on it!

I realised she’d picked something up and immediately examined her mouth and found it was all greasy.

“Perhaps the old fool has started buttering the bread for the birds”

I thought but no. Butter doesn’t smell meaty and there was a distinct butcher’s pong off the old girl – Wheat you understand not the bread dropper. I felt everywhere for this meaty morsel but do you think I could find it? Then as we moved on (by this time I concluded that she must have known the game was up) and found Wheat was going at the speed of sound (long before the Coldplay song was a twinkle at the end of Chris Martin’s pencil (now now no mucky sniggers at that one)). Then I heard one crunch as the tail wagged against the harness handle:

“You little madam”

I thought to myself.

“You’ve still got it haven’t you? Well not for much longer matey! Give it to Mummy immediately”!

I started my search – Round the mouth, round the path, round the grass beside the path until lumbago seized me in it’s iron grip and I thought we’d both be walking home on all fours and I’d need “physioterrorism” again. Then my darling old dog collapsed in full harness, on duty, in front of me, on the deck!

“Wheat! Wheat! Oh you poor animal! Was there cyanide in those crumbs? Was something nasty in the loaf wrapper pre GM food”?

Was there heck as like! I felt the rib cage going up and down like Tower Bridge or the lift at the Barbican and do you think I could budge her? No. I could see I’d need a block and tackle or a crane at the very least. Eventually a large crowd of about two – Well they made enough noise for dozens let me say, gathered at my side so the shouting was in stereo but not synchronised:

“I say dear is that doggy o.k”? There was I, blind as a bat, crawling all over the floor looking for her illicit bone and here were these two animal maniacs worrying over the dog.

“Yes she’s just resting. We’ve been on a long walk”.

“Oh that’s o.k. then”,

they said and trotted off while I carried on trying to haul her up. I didn’t want them to report me to Guide Dogs for cruelty.

Eventually I got her up and found that her side was all greasy. She’d been lying on her prize and fully intended to get it home. Once more my frantic search began. Eventually the smelly morsel was located under her front paw. I grabbed it, chucked it as far as I could and heard someone say: “Ow”!

All she had when we got home was a good leathering! Calm down dear! I never laid a hand on her but had to wash her with the leather provided by Guide Dogs and in a sulk she went off to bed till grub time.

“And what about the bread”?

I hear you ask. Well I’m afraid she got one over on me and remained a nodding dog right up till the day she retired. Well maybe I had the last laugh. When I suspected her of stealing by finding I cut down on her food a bit. You never know what they’ll pick up and I live in fear of one day finding that one of my dogs has been made ill by what people chuck out in the wrong places. The dogs, like thoughtless people, don’t discriminate. Like the famous mountain climber they’ll eat the food for the same reason he climbed the mountain “because it’s there”.