After my morning inspection of the river, I’m happy to spend the rest of the day in the shade, but New Boy has a much thinner coat than me and heads out to warm himself in the sun now and then.
This means he’s something of a frisky pest, to be frank, and his regular provocations and demands for play can bring out my sour side.
Added to that, The Boss took off fishing in Tassie, leaving me with all the responsibility for keeping the place in order. It’s been a good deal cooler down there, and you’d think he would have taken me with him, but there was scarcely a cheerio before he bolted.
So it’s been hard to look on the bright side of anything, and I’ve been looking for good news to cheer me up. I came across the story of Pepper, a six year-old Bernese mountain dog-Labrador cross, who went missing from her home in Colorado two weeks ago and was found by another dog 10 days later, trapped in a steep snow bank down by a creek, near her home.
I’d like a spot of cooler weather — but not that cold.
Then I saw how a three-year-old Australian shepherd named Viking had just been named Best in Show at the 2024 Crufts dog competition in Birmingham, England. He beat 19,000 other dogs to win the coveted title. That’s quite an effort.
Some protesters tried to disrupt the show, as seems the fashion these days, accusing the breeders of designer dogs of being cruel to animals, although I doubt the animals being smothered in affection by doting owners would agree.
And earlier this week I heard that Messi, the canine star of Anatomy of a Fall, stole the show at the 96th Academy Awards — first by turning up and sitting quietly among the audience; and then being featured in a clip at the end, peeing on Matt Damon’s gold star where it is buried in the footpath at the Hollywood Walk of Fame — then making a run for it.
Apparently, the host of the Oscars, Jimmy Kimmel, has been needling Matt over the past two decades, since he joked that he didn’t have room for the actor on his television show — and the word is that Jimmy managed to put the dog up to it.
The best news of the week, though, was that Virgin Australia was inviting dogs and cats on some of its domestic flights, which is long overdue. There has been plenty of grizzling, of course, about people with allergies and dogs chasing cats down the aisle, but it sounds like good sport to me.
Anyway, The Boss says there are plenty of dogs on flights all over the United States, where some airports, such as Denver, have special outdoor lounge areas for the dogs to gather before a flight.
That gives The Boss no excuse for leaving me behind when he nicks off somewhere else fishing, doesn’t it? New Boy sniggers that the Virgin deal is only for smaller hounds like him — but I’m sure I can talk my way into it. Woof!
