Vicious chocolate wrapper

Freya is easily the dumbest dog we’ve ever owned. It’s fortunate she’s cute and endearing because she’s not winning any prizes for her intellect.

Perhaps we’ve been spoiled by the poodles. Carmen and Day-z were both very clever, picking up things quickly and easily. Then, of course, Emma (though not completely poodle) is no slouch in the brains department. Ignoring the barking.

But Freya…put it this way, when she reached the queue for giving out brains, she was off licking someone.

I have, as my first piece of evidence, the doggy door. We thought she’d conquered it ages ago. When she first tried to get through she’d push it with her paws, making an awful racket and getting nowhere. Then, suddenly, she worked it out and things were good.

That was then; now she’s forgotten and has returned to uselessly banging the door with her paws.

My second example of her dumbness happened today. We were in the park. Emma was happily running after her tennis ball and bringing it back to me so I could throw it again. Freya was sniffing around a rubbish bin (like all dogs do) when a cool wind blew up.

The bins in the park have black plastic bags in them and, sometimes when the wind blows, the plastic rattles restlessly like some crackly beast trying to escape it’s dog poo filled fate.

Other times, when there’s little rubbish in them, random bits of light garbage will venture forth on the handy breeze. Which is what happened today.

As I said, Freya was happily sniffing away when a bright red chocolate wrapper landed on her head. She immediately leapt out of the way, fearing for her life. The wrapper sat on the grass, lifeless and still. Freya went over, cautiously, to check it out. She took a tentative sniff then prodded it with a paw. Deciding it was safe she was about to pounce when the wind returned and sent the wrapper flying across the grass like a squirrel with a burning tail.

Well, this was too much for Freya. Most dogs would chase the wrapper but Freya just raced off in the opposite direction, like a scared rabbit. She glanced back a couple of times but, basically, that was it as far as she was concerned and the wrapper ceased to exist.

This wasn’t my only doggy tale for today. When we started our walk we were greeted by a young cocker who took quite a fancy to Emma. He started sniffing her and following her all over. Emma, in typical Emma style, walked away from him, keeping her distance. Freya, of course, just wanted to make friends with him and kept throwing herself in front of his nose.

Eventually Emma started walking around my legs which made the cocker do the same then, finally, Freya joined in the circle. I felt like the central column on a dog carousel.

The owner of the cocker said I was now stuck there forever like some canine totem pole.

Once the cocker had been forceably removed by his owner (he had to go to work or he’d have left me there all day) we headed into the Park proper. And the day was glorious, making the Park sparkle.

And Mirinda’s View looked lovely as well. Actually as I took this photo, a father and child were at the top of a slippery dip in the small playground. Freya saw the man and barked her silly bark. Then the child went down the slide followed by her father, vanishing from our view. This totally freaked Freya out. She squealed and raced back to me for protection from this strange disappearing human.

And, to finish, here’s a photo of Emma with a duck.