Dog tales

Freya loves sleeping. Except for food and going for walks, she’d rather be asleep. And with sleep must come great comfort. Her preferred place to sleep is on a cushion but the bed is her favourite, as long as we’re in the bedroom with her. Unlike Emma, who is more than happy to spend hours up there regardless of the location of anyone else.

Speaking of Emma, she’s now started to sit on the bay window sill in Mirinda’s library. This is something the poodles always did and quite a few other dogs in the street do as well – I mean they do it on their own window sills…not ours. Of course Emma needs the ladder back chair to be in an appropriate position with nothing on it in order to use it for a leg up. Now she just has to realise that it’s more comfortable to lie down on the sill than to sit hunched over, her nose trying to squeeze out of the barely open window.

When it comes to comfort, Freya will recline on anything that is left on the floor that she considers might be comfortable. Mirinda put the stripey mat on the floor and Freya instantly figured it was for her.

While they both have their own dog beds downstairs, Freya will quite often sleep with Emma when she perceives that it’s a bit cold. I’ll often find them snuggled up together. Emma never looks that happy about it but I don’t think she has much choice.

When it comes to going to bed, Freya doesn’t just walk into hers she has to do a series of little, lamb-like hops from the floor to one and then to the other. When it comes to waking up in the morning, Freya normally takes quite a while to become conscious. She’s not really a morning puppy.

Actually, she’s not really an anytime of the day puppy if you ask me. She has the amazing ability to fall asleep at the blink of an eye then takes an age to manage walking…unless there’s an actual walk in the offing in which case she’s instantly awake. And food. She’d do anything for food. Even wake up.

Of course she never misses the postman. She and Emma have an excellent relationship with him. Mind you, he does feed them doggie treats. Still, it’s lovely to see him tell them to sit and wait and they actually do. The postie told us that he has a great relationship with all the dogs on his round. It must cost him a lot in dog treats.

Millie (Sally’s dog) has an interesting relationship as well. As well as the postman, she is enamoured of one of the binmen who come every Tuesday. I watched this week as Millie and Sally were waiting at her house, crouched down, as the garbage truck approached them. The binman was grabbing Otto bins and wheeling them into the street and every time Millie saw him, she’d be straining to get away from Sally.

Eventually Sally let her go and she raced up to the binman. He laughed and patted her, making a big fuss. The other binman joined in the laughter and smiles. It made me feel very happy about living in such a street.

And, finally, I really like the fact that our Starbucks now allows dogs to come into the store.

PS: For the benefit of future Gaz, I’m including the note that a group of stupid morons drove a van into people on Las Ramblas in Barcelona today. Seeing as I’ve visited it a few times over the last couple of years, makes it a little more personal.