A shaky few days

You don't get pets for life, only for the durations of their lives. You love them with the full knowledge that you will almost certainly outlast them, and keep on doing it anyway. It's one of the big things that makes us humans: We do things despite a conscious knowledge of death, while no other Earth species knows what's coming, and sometimes we crack under that knowledge. As you might have gathered, clouds are gathering in the gloom, and the gloom is getting darker.

Our pet is a particularly dopey old English sheepdog who's been barking at me suspiciously for what seems like since time immemorial. One day, an appropriate time after the passing away of the previous pet, I planted the idea of an Old English sheepdog in my parents head, so that they would have something to take care of and take care of them. Little did I know that that the loon they brought back from the pet shelter would be quite so... manic.

(This quarter of the year is demanding so much courage that I might have to send out for some more. The problem with making progress is that you have to manoeuvre around some particularly evil abysses in the process, and those abysses look into you as the sayings do promise.)

So, the first thing to note about Old English sheepdogs is that they love to play tug of war. Also, they herd all the people in the house into one location, lie on their backs and paddle their legs for attention, bark incessantly and guard their food, and in the case of our Crazy Tess adore car journeys to anywhere. She certainly has been an insane dog to have around, breathing life into a stuffy country bungalow in the middle of nowhere. Despite her indifference toward me, which is shared by practically all animals it seems, it's going to be a wrench when she vanishes. I love the crazy hound.

Normally the Quirky Muffin is written in a vaguely non-personal mode, as more of a challenge to the writer, but the secondary and mostly forgotten minor point is to act as something therapeutic. Here, in the shade of a rather wonderful first day of primary school experience - not sold on it yet, but it is far more interesting than secondary teaching - it's nice to talk a little and ponder the meanings of it all as ominous ideas crowd in. Or, perhaps there has been enough of the ponderings already. Even if we are rendered very shortly to be former dog owners, one of the great things about rescued pets is that whatever life you have given them is better than they might have had before or could have had elsewhere. Accentuate the positives, grasp tightly on to every cliché you can find, and never forget. Then, get another pet, something small and docile this time.

The veterinary surgeon summons once again tomorrow, and blood tests will decide all. If only severe stress were compatible with sleep in some way. A third night without the slumber might be pushing it just a little, but what will be will be...

O.