I want to talk about dogs. Why? As some of you are aware, I live with a very domesticated dog. His name is Indy, and he’s named after Indiana Jones. The reason being, as my wife often tells me, is that the only reason we got married was because Harrison Ford was not single. Cheers, thanks for mentioning that, for the third time this month!

Indy turned 10 years old in February, and from what I understand of dog years when converted to human years, he’s at least in his fifties; so Indy’s older than me. He’s a Bichon Frise/Maltese cross, which means he’s a dog, but he acts like a cat and looks like a lamb.

Now I realise there are millions of people across the planet, that have dogs in their lives, so what I’m going to discuss could be things you already know. Equally for people that don’t own a dog, this will be some brutal honesty, on the reality of living with an animal that is descended from wolves.

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Let’s start on something easy: his diet. Being part Bichon, Indy is a fussy eater, which can be explained with two examples.

Maybe 10-12 months ago, Indy suffered from some food poisoning; basically eating something that he shouldn’t have. The result we believe, was that he blamed his blue bowl for becoming sick! Seriously. After Indy recovered, he refused to eat or drink out of his blue bowl.

In the end, we had to replace his blue bowl for two separate bowls; one for water and one for food. When that was done, he started eating again. We wanted to test our hypothesis of Indy thinking his blue bowl made him sick, by replacing the new bowls with his old blue bowl.

The result? He refused to eat from it again. We swapped back to the new bowls, and would you believe it, he started eating again. That’s mental!

Another example of his crazy diet, is that Indy seems to understand fractions. In October 2021, we noticed something odd. When Indy had eaten his food, he was only eating half. And when I mean half, I literally mean half.

Previously he would have eaten in the centre of his food, with the food from the sides, moving into the centre, to replace the food that had been eaten. But not now. Now you can see whether he has eaten from the left or right hand side of the bowl; and the rare occasions from the top or bottom. We just need up, down, strange and charmed to complete the set.

We have been recording his fractional eating choices from 1st January 2022, because we just find it too crazy to ignore. At the end of June, we will publish the results of the first six months of observations, because…why not?

Let’s move on to his beds. I say beds, because Indy sleeps wherever he pleases, even though he has a flat cushion for a bed. Anyway, currently he is preferring to sleep on my pillow during the day. This is because of two reasons: firstly, he’s afraid of sleeping on my wife’s pillow; and second, by sleeping on my pillow, he can catch the late afternoon sunlight.

This of course means my pillowcase needs to be changed every 1-2 days. It’s a horrible sensation realising your dog has slept on your pillow, because of the dirt, sand, grass, but also of the smell.

Speaking of smells, anybody that has played field hockey or football will understand the need for shin pads. They need to be cleaned regularly, otherwise they reek of sweat and grass. Indy’s paws smell exactly the same as shin pads.

How do I know this? My wife and I dare each other to smell his paws, when Indy is asleep. We chicken out pretty quickly, as the odour of his paws are quite strong. You can’t tell, but I’m having flashbacks of that smell and it’s not good.

To add to the gross factor, you need to be careful when you’re patting Indy. You may be unlucky enough to receive a Bichon burp or sneeze, directly into your face. No amount of face washing, will ever take that away from your memory. It’s seared into mine.

Another danger is in the morning, when he discovers you’re awake. Whether Indy emerges from my bed, like a small and hairy kaiju, or he’s been sleeping somewhere else, he waits until he hears voices.

He lies in darkness, like Batman, waiting to strike. When he hears voices, he launches his finishing move. While you are lying down on the bed, Indy will stand on your chest, and proceed to greet you. By greeting you, I mean he will lick you.

Have you ever had your nose licked by a dog? Don’t, it’s gross. Would you like more gross information? Sometimes he will reach down and lick your teeth. Under no circumstances, has this ever been a good idea.

A cheek, ear, nose and teeth are all targets to him. Being licked there by a dog, again is pretty foul, however Indy has yet to play his trump card. If you are not paying close attention to him, or you’re not focused, he will lick your eye.

Let’s just think about that for a few moments. Just picture it, a dog licking your eye. It’s hard not to now, isn’t it? I can’t properly stress the utter horrible feeling you have, when this disaster happens. It’s something that you’re not going to put into your diary.

Apart from crying at the rain, the cold, or cats; sleeping on your clean clothes (never dirty clothes, because that would be disgusting, right?); licking your legs after a run or the shower; crop dusting a fart past you; rolling on dead crabs, birds, or fish at the beach; going rubbish bin diving; or turning your own bed into a Bichon odour factory; living with a dog is nothing, if not interesting.

What gross things does your dog do? Let me know.

Thanks for reading, go for a walk with your dog, and I’ll see you next week.

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