She's left me

I have no idea where she is. No one tells me anything. She's gone. Bertie's mum arrived at the front door and I was handed over like a sack of potatoes that were past their use-by date.

Then out came my bed, my harness, my Greenies, my food bowl, my food. And off I went. Without so much as a sob, a wail, no keening, no clutching of the chest. We drove off down the road and she was out of my life.

Well good riddance to her. If she doesn't want me, I don't care. I am in a better place. I am living with Bertie. What fun and games we are having.

Bertie is a lucky boy, he lives in a house with a big lawn and a pond. I love the pond. We crawl very close to the ground through the ferns and there it is. You can't see it until you are right at the edge. Then one-two-three in we go. Feet first. Touching the bottom. It's gooey and slippery and, when I climb out, I am black. Black fur, black toes, black legs, black tummy, black mouth. Everything black and dripping black wet except my ears. I don't like getting my ears wet. Bertie is the same. We look at each other with big smiles.

Then we run around on the lawn until Bertie's mum sees us. Ooooh, there's thunder. She runs after us. Around and around we go on the lawn, the three of us. Bertie and I run faster and faster. This is such a good game.

Then Bertie's mum runs in the opposite direction and catches us. She picks us up and takes us into the bathroom. Now she is black too. All down her front. But she is not smiling. She closes the bathroom door and turns on the shower in the bath. We are playing in the bath, as young dogs do, even though she wants us to keep still. She pours shampoo over us. It smells very nice. Aesop. Nicer than the shampoo my human mum uses. She uses Bondi Wash. Mmmmm. From now on, I want only to be shampooed with Aesop, thank you.

Yay, rubbed with a big towel and outside we go. More playing on the lawn and then Bertie and I are sniffing around the garden and crawling through the ferns. We look at each other. Shall we? Yes! In we go. Feet sliding through the black gooze. Shaking fur. Spraying black. Then back out onto the lawn.

And we play the running-round-in-circles again with Bertie's mum. Thunder and lightning this time. Eeeeeks, I think she is very angry. Well, don't have a pond, I think, if you don't want us to jump into a pond.

You think she'd learn. And she did. After the third time that we jumped into the pond. The third time that we turned black. The third time that we played running-round-in-circles on the lawn. The third time that she washed us with the Aesop shampoo. She closed the kitchen door and only let us run out to the other side of the house where there are no ponds.

Never mind. It's still a better standard of accommodation than at my other house. There is a bed for Bertie and me in every room, Aesop shampoo, a door especially for dogs, two humans to give us cuddles and loves, a big gate where we can watch people walking past and bark to tell them to stay away from our castle, and I have my little half-brother, Bertie, to play with.

So, wherever you are, don't worry about me. I'm fine.