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Daisy's diary: Today's news is ...

June 23rd 2010 10:28

There was an especially informative patch of grass as we were walking this morning. Two cats, seven dogs and a mouse had left their mark there in the past 24 hours.

I was still gathering information when Big Boss, in one of those inexplicable hooman reactions, said irritably, "Can you tell the colour of the dog whose pee you're sniffing?"

It's what hoomans call sarcasm. He does it because he thinks morning walks are for walking. He doesn't understand that they are actually for news gathering.

Of course I never take any notice of his grumbling. I know that his bark is worse than his grumble.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Greyhound, Dog Diaries, Daisy

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Daisy's diary: Sleep approbation

April 15th 2010 12:27

The point I would like to make, a point that I don't think, generally, has received sufficient attention, is that, in certain light, I look much younger than I am.

In fact, in all modesty, I suggest that my good looks are another point which, in the greater greyhound world, have not received sufficient attention.

Don't ask me how I do it. Good genes, probably. And plenty of sleep.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Greyhound, Dog Diaries, Daisy, Pampered pooches

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Scratchy's diary: A snapped tendon, a broken leg and short rations for breakfast

April 9th 2010 07:40

We have had better days. It started poorly when the Big Boss woke with a headache and a dry mouth. He drank too much red wine last night while entertaining vegetarian visitors. He doesn't mind cooking vegetarian, and last night's roast pumpkin and feta quiche won rave reviews, but the following morning he always feels meat deprived.

I don't know if it was the hangover, the dry mouth or the flesh famine which caused him to spread less than the usual amount of margarine on my regular morning slice of toast, but I wish he wouldn't take things out on me.

The Big Boss then took his foggy head to work, and Little Boss took us to the park. That's when things took a turn for the worse. Literally.

We had done the sniff (five cats had visited the park overnight and two dogs and been there shortly before us this morning) and it was time to run. Short Black took off and I turned to sprint after her. Bad move. Something went snap.

The only thing to do in a situation like that is scream, and I did so with with every fibre and unsnapped tendon available to me. It scared the daylights out of Short Black, who tried, in a display of deep caring and concern, to attack me. Little Boss quickly stopped that.

The pain, I worked out, came from trying to put my right rear leg on the ground. So, thinking my way through the problem, I fell over. Immediately, I felt much more comfortable.

Little Boss wasn't feeling comfortable, however. "I need help," she muttered, and I could sympathise. I am, I admit, no longer at my racing weight. Big Boss has picked me up once or twice when I've been reluctant to get in the car, but his eyes bulge dangerously and he goes a bright shade of puce when he does it. It's worth refusing to get in the car occasionally just to see it. But Little Boss wasn't about to try lifting me. Even if we had the car.

Which we didn't. And we were more than a kilometre from home.

Little Boss needed help, and looking around, she spotted a guy sitting on the balcony of his second-floor flat overlooking the park. Watching us. Little Boss looked at him. He looked back. Nup. Not the helpful type, that one.

So I stood up. It was brave, I know, but what else could I do? I didn't know, at that stage, what was wrong, but I knew very well that I couldn't put any weight on my back right leg. So I set off for home doing a three-legged shuffle. Slowly. Very slowly. Very, very slowly.

At this rate, although dinner was more than 10 hours away, we weren't going to make it home in time.

Two women came to the rescue, one passing by and one in her front yard. They both looked concerned and started talking with Little Boss about the problem. It was suggested that I wait in the front yard while Little Boss went to get the car. Good idea, I thought, and happily fell down again.

Back home, Little Boss parked the car and, without getting herself or me out of it, used the Little Phone to ring the vet. She described everything that had happened in detail and then went quiet for a while listening to what was being said on the other end. Then she rang the Big Boss at his work and told him everything. That's when I learned that the vet suspected I had ruptured a tendon.

Little Boss — and she has asked me to insert at this point that she was under the weather too, having such a sore throat and rasping cough that she had seen a Hooman Vet the day before — started the car and drove off.

They made a fuss at the vet, and it was not all due to my good looks. Then they stuck a needle in me and the lights went out. I heard later that they had to anaesthetise me so they could get my hurt leg into the right position to take X-rays. They needed X-rays to confirm the tendon rupture, and give some guidance for the surgery which would be required to repair it. They also wanted to make sure I hadn't done any further damage, like breaking my leg.

The X-ray confirmed the tendon rupture. And a broken leg. "Quite nasty" is how the vet described the break.

Now it's late afternoon and I'm home and I can tell you that I'm busting. They have put what the call a soft cast on me, and I can say with confidence that it's primary purpose is make it impossible to get into a position to pee. Or poop.

I was standing, pondering the solution to this problem, when I fell into the garden and couldn't get out. It's just one humiliation after another. And it's still more than an hour to dinner time.

We have had better days.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Greyhound, Canine health, Scratchy

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Scratchy's diary: The installation artist

April 2nd 2010 23:00

Daisy once said I couldn't do something creative if I was injected with the DNA of Vincent van Dogh. Which was hurtful.

So I decided to prove her wrong.

It took a dog's instincts to create this work of art. You have to get behind the curtain to start, then do your regular five or six turns before lying down.

The result, I think, is a great piece of installation art (especially as I am actually in it), and I hope it proves an inspiration to all bitch-pecked dogs out there.

You know who you are, and it is in your honour that I have called this work Inspiralling.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Greyhound, Dog Diaries, Scratchy

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Daisy's diary: An old dog and a strange story

March 13th 2010 20:15

He was a strange-looking greyhound, especially with those funny tufts of hair on his ears and elbows.

I just met a strange old greyhound in the park who had some weird ideas about history and the Lore of the Great Greyhounds.

The Lore, of course, is the great guide to our breed, passed on to all puppies by their mothers in the first weeks of life. It hasn't changed for generations. It teaches us about the grace and gentleness which are at the core of our physical beings. And it teaches us about the unconditional love we offer to all creatures, even less advanced ones like hoomans, and excepting only anything small, fluffy and moving.

This is at the heart of our spiritual being.

The Lore teaches about the greatest of all the Great Greyhounds, the First Greyhounds, the Mothers and Fathers of our breed who arrived on Earth in 1912 from parts unknown. They came in the company of the Great Hare, also known as The Uncatchable. GH installed himself on Earth's first Running Rail, gathered the Greyhounds and the hoomans around him, and said, "Catch me if you can."

"Okay!" said the Greyhounds.

"We'd rather watch and drink beer," said the hoomans.

And so the world as we know it came to be.

But the silly old Greyhound in the park had an entirely different story. The Great Hare, he said, was invented in 1912 by a hooman named Owen Patrick Smith and was not a being from the cosmos at all. What's more, he said Greyhounds are far more ancient than the Lore tells us, having been around for at least 3,000 years, and being closely related by blood to Salukis, Earth's most venerable dog breed.

Salukis, said the old Grey, have been around for about 8,000 years, are possibly the first dog breed to diverge from wolves, and generally consider themselves the best-looking creatures in the known universe. They are also rumoured to be able to run just as fast as greyhounds but, like hoomans, they refuse to chase the Great Hare. They don't drink beer, though.

What a strange story. I don't believe it, of course, and I have never even seen a Saluki. I guess they are just a product of the old dog's vivid imagination, or a wandering old mind. Still, the picture he painted made me wonder what a real Saluki might look like.

The old guy didn't quite look like a Greyhound, in fact, and with that slightly distant and faintly superior manner, he didn't quite act like one either.

Thinking about it, I really like the old guy's story. Wouldn't it be nice if his version were right.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Greyhound, Saluki, Dog Diaries, Daisy, History

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Scratchy's diary: dozy Little Boss

March 6th 2010 23:13

Every evening, as the city settles, as dinner digests, as we attend to domestic duties such as cleaning paws and finding nooks and crannies to lick and lick again — every night as these things unfold, Little Boss goes to sleep on the sofa.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Greyhound, Dog Diaries, Scratchy

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Scratchy's diary: My February 14 treat

February 13th 2010 22:11

The Big Boss was particularly affectionate to the Little Boss this morning, as if February 14 is some special day. He called her "Valentine". That's a new one — how many names can one person have?

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Greyhound, Dog Diaries, Scratchy, Pampered pooches

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Scratchy's diary: Colour-coded comfort activity

February 9th 2010 11:02

One of the biggest problems in the known universe is the inability of human beings to rise at first light and give dogs their breakfast. It's shocking and sad how many humans fail to understand this

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Greyhound, Dog Diaries, Scratchy

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Scratchy’s Diary: Australia Day

January 31st 2010 03:16

All the bosses stayed home on Tuesday because it was Australia Day, which is a celebration of sorts. It’s like Greyhound Day with lots of food and, also, those drinks hoomans like which increases the volume of their speech.

I don’t know what it’s called. Noise juice, perhaps

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Greyhound, Maltese terrier, Dog Diaries, Scratchy, Pet interaction

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Scratchy's diary: raw and sore

January 4th 2010 05:28

I woke up in a funny place recently. No familiar faces, no Short Black and no Bosses. Just some cats in cages and the smell of disinfectant. There were some people I didn't know, some dressed in green and some dressed in white, but they were no more generous than Big Boss when it came to supplying food.

The thing is, I woke up sore. All my muscles were stiff, like I'd been running 40 kilometres instead of 400 metres. And I had raw, sore patches on my front legs, like I'd been banging them on something

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Greyhound, Canine epilepsy, Dog Diaries, Scratchy

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Scratchy's diary: thoughts on visitors

October 6th 2009 00:15

I like visitors

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Greyhound, Dog Diaries, Scratchy

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Daisy's diary: mixed signals

August 13th 2009 22:59

That Big Boof Scratchy called me vain this morning. That is so hurtful!

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Greyhound, Daisy

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A little ray of sunshine

July 28th 2009 01:27

I have discovered that, when it's cold, it's warmer at the bedroom end of the house than it is at the sofa room end.

The thing is, I don't think it's the beds that make the bedroom warmer. I think it's something to do with the light that comes through the window at that end of the house

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Greyhound, Scratchy, Pampered pooches

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Daisy's diary: the two-nose strategy

July 14th 2009 01:08

The back door to the house is closed and I need to go to the little girl's lawn. Big Boss is working in the study so I have to get him to open the door for me.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Greyhound, Daisy

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