Pip, the dobermann puppy’s story as told to Alexandra Bastedo.
You know when you go to a new home the whole layout – the geography – is totally different so it has meant a whole new learning curve for me. However, finally at the age of four months I think I am really getting the hang of it.
Yesterday I managed to get hold of the spare loo roll from the cloakroom downstairs and it made a wonderful plaything. I took it into the garden and managed to unroll it over a wide area, but the most fun I had was tearing the paper into tiny bits and sprinkling it all round the garden like confetti. My owner was really rather a bad sport though. When she came back from cleaning out the Shetland ponies’ stable in the top field she shouted at me and then proceeded to pick it all up muttering to herself as she did so which meant there was nothing left for me to tear up and I had to go back to my boring toys which are now fairly shredded themselves.
However apart from knowing where all the cat bowls are in the top cattery, I also know where the pony and donkey carrots are kept as sometimes when they are filling up the feed bowls for the other animals they give me one. So today while all the helpers were having a coffee break I shot off down to the barn and came back with a lovely juicy carrot which I proceeded to chomp on. Nellie, the adult dobermann looked rather amazed I think she must have wondered where I had found it and was rather cross that I refused to give her any.
My main motive in life it has to be said remains food. I can swing on door handles and open the doors if there is food the other side, I can pull tablecloths off tables in order to send the porridge bowl crashing to the floor so I can scoff it before anyone sees me and on my back legs anything left on the sideboard is now a fair target – I found I particularly like bananas in their skins but they are now living in the fridge and I haven’t worked out how to open it yet.
The only other thing I was told off for was a game I had devised called “swinging on the curtains” – unfortunately the curtain rail came crashing down on me and I was caught red- handed – or rather red-pawed- in the midst of it. The humans didn’t seem very pleased at all. Every time they struggled to put it back the nails came out of the wall and they had to do it all over again. I mustn’t do that again!
However they were pleased with me on our first walk in the country as I trotted along very nicely in my new Roger Mugford training harness. It doesn’t hurt at all and instills a feeling of security when other big dogs bark at you and cows loom out of the mist. In fact the weather has been absolutely dreadful with 80 mile an hour winds so our activity has been rather curtailed . Hopefully as it gets better there will be many new experiences and lots more adventures.
by Alexandra Bastedo
Alexandra is the author of “Beware Dobermanns, Donkeys and Ducks”, “The Healthy Dog” and “The Healthy Cat” books. Alexandra is the founder of the ABC Animal Sanctuary which is staffed by 4 or 5 volunteers a day and depends upon donations – however small- to finance all the animals. Meet the animals on www.abcanimalsanctuary.co.uk
copyright Alexandra Bastedo
