Lost and Found

Yesterday was busy. I cooked and cleaned for half the day whilst suffering the stinkingest head cold I've had in some time. Nellybert have had it for well over a week now. Bert says,

It's one of those hingy-about boys.

The cooking and cleaning might have been unnecessary as we had the incontinent dog and one of  our guests wasn't even hungry. So didn't eat. I took myself off to bed before midnight and fell into a deep sleep and missed all the shenanigans of rampaging dogs and very early risers. Apparently The Wee got up at six o'clock to let their wild dog out to pee. Bert says it was five am but he's not taking British Summer Time into consideration. Our new dog Roy had fallen deeply in love with The Wee's dog so when The Wee Manny took Harry out to answer the call of nature Roy pranced out behind him. The Wee did not put Harry on a lead and wild dog took to his beaters and headed over the fields with Roy galumphing behind him. The first Bert knew of it was The Wee Manny standing by his bedside staring down at him, morning fag in his mouth, muttering,

Those dogs have run off.

Bert was not very delighted. Luckily I slept through it all and was not aware that there was anything wrong.

They turned up. Harry was found by neighbours who tied him up and phoned The Wees. Bert went out searching for Roy and discovered him in a derelict house about a mile from our place. It has to be said that Bert has talent for finding lost dogs. There was that time that he found Rosie, the Dirty Rotten Scunging Devil-Dog in a hedge with her paw caught in a snare. How he managed to spot Roy skulking round that old house I do not know.

Bert got him home safe and he has been a little out of sorts all day but, as Bert said, that was a lot of exercise for an old fat house dog like the Royster.

The old house where Roy was hiding. It's much more overgrown now.

The Return of the Scunging Devil Dogs

Paddy and Judy disappeared today. The call of the snowy wood proved too hard to ignore. Dogs love snow because it intensifies smells and smell is how dogs experience the world.

They were only gone ten minutes but that was long enough to worry Bert. And it worried me too. I don't think I could bear another pair of scunging devil dogs.

We said to Paddy,

Paddy. How could you do this? At your time of life?

He looked at us sadly from his favourite spot on the leather sofa. We said,

Paddy. How can you do this to us? At our time of life?

He sighed, tucked his head between his paws and paid us not a bit of mind. I hope it was a one-off.

"scunge"

Ulster-Scots

Meaning:

to explore; wander about in the countryside

Paddy's Day

Five years ago today, Dee Mac and I went to Crosskennan Animal Shelter and brought Paddy home to join the Nellybert family.

He's come a long way since starting of as a rather diffident, snake-hipped fellow. That's him on the left of the picture. At that time Danny was the dominant dog in our house but sadly, Dan died a few months later. 

Paddy's confidence grew and grew but still he wasn't the numero uno dog in the house. That role fell to Rosie. However, as you can see, she adored him. Together they were the scourge of every fox, rabbit and cat in the country. They scunged far and wide and had many adventures and near-death experiences.

Regular readers will know that Rosie scunged her last several months ago. After nearly five years Paddy was Chief Dog. I think the role agrees with him. Don't you?

So to hell with your Guinness and your shamrocks. Paddy's Day isn't green as far as I'm concerned. It's black and white.... and pink.

Bêtes de Chagrin

Rosie and Bert in the Mournes

Team Dirty Rotten Scunging Devil-Dog is no more. Rosie was killed this morning in the road just outside our house. One of Pearlie's helpers left the door wide open and the pair of them, so well guarded by Hannah all weekend, saw an opportunity and made their escape. We think Rosie was struck by a car moments after leaving the house. Due to her injuries we're sure she died instantly.

We'd had her for twelve years. She was at least thirteen years old. Until she met Paddy she was a home-loving girl but there was something about the effect those two had on each other. Every chance they got they were off after rabbits and foxes. We really did our best to be vigilant but they always had their eye on the main chance and the left-open door.

We always gave our dogs extra 'pet' names. We had Danny for teens of years and I think he had about twenty other names by the time he left us. Bert called Rosie the Bitcher, or The Wee Special Bitcher or, a recent favourite, Scritchy.

Rosie was a great favourite with the old girls. Pearlie, Matty and Bert's Aunts Lizzie and Sally all liked her best. Bert loved her best too. Today was the first time I ever saw him with damp eyes.

Loving dogs is bloody hard sometimes. Which is why the French call them bêtes de chagrin - beasts of sorrow. For they break our hearts - they die too soon.

One consolation is that she died before old age truly took hold of her. At least we're all spared that. She'd have hated not to be active.

Sidebar Stories

d@\/e asked exactly how many eggs a day do we get from our 19 chickens? But there's a lot more happening around my sidebar than chickens.

Daughters - 3, Parents -1, Siblings - 6, Husband - 1, Dogs - 3, Cats - 1, Chickens - 19, Calves - 3 Pigs - 3

What of the daughters? All are doing well as far I know. See for yourself. This one is making ice cream. This one appears to be in France. This one is sounding off.

The parent (Matty) is doing fine. Spent this evening barrelling around Tescos filling her trolley with the sort of pap old women like - cooked ham, white bread, Marie biscuits and People's Friends. We always separate in Tescos. Matty does her own thing, I do mine. I meet my Cousin Eye. She and her beautiful daughter admire the contents of my trolley. Eye's beautiful daughter says it's a really healthy trolley. It contains oatcakes, a papaya, cambozola cheese, apples, three pairs of skimpy knickers (this mention of skimpy knickers is going to bring droves to my blog but mind you if I said I'd got Cherub knickers in my trolley that would really up my stats. Trust me. It happened before ) and two paperbacks. BTW the knickers are for Hannah. I don't do skimpy. When you get to my age you like to keep your kidneys warm.

I also meet Jazzer and her daughter Teeny Bird. Teeny Bird is wearing a tiny little vest top. Eveyone else in Tescos is bundled up in coats and woollies. Matty also bumps into Jazzer. They nod politely to each other. Matty does not approve of Jazzer. She has taken an unreasonable dislike to Jazzers facial piercings. She pretends she does not know her name. She pretends she thinks that Jazzer is called Gnasher.

So back to Matty. We meet up at the check out. She abandons her trolley for me to deal with and scuttles off to buy a scratch card. On the way home she fills me in on the current state of play of the parish feuds. Matty takes a keen interest in local politics but is wise enough not to get involved. Some of these feuds go back to the 1930s. But, as Matty says,

They're all very good to me.

Siblings - there are six of them. Two live and work in London and one of those is a blogger. One is in Vancouver. I believe he is an entrepreneur. Two live in Real Ireland. One of those has just come back from a pilgrimage to Santander and the other is a full-time student. The youngest sib lives next to Matty. I like to call him Jolly Joe. It's ironic. He reads this blog. Hi JJ!

Husband - the current one is very recent. We've only been married for eight weeks although I've known him for a bit longer than that. We were Nellybert long before Brangelina. Marriage hasn't changed our relationship much. We still bicker, I still blog, he still plays the clarinet.

Dogs Bonnie remains on her medication. Steroids. She drinks like a fish, pisses like a cow and eats like a horse. She is doing well. The other two still do that Dirty Rotten Scunging Devil Dog thing every time they get the opportunity.

Cat - a complete bastard. I don't really want to talk about her.

Calves - are still calves.

I asked Bert,

When do the calves become bullocks?

When you cut their balls off.


Pigs - I'm a little worried about the pigs. Bert has developed a bit of a 'relationship' with them. He keeps saying he'll never be able to eat them because he loves them so much. And there's us only newly married....

Which brings me to the chickens. Dave asked how many eggs do our 19 chickens provide us with. d@\/e, at present our 19 chickens lay one egg a day. That's right. One. Mind you at least a dozen of them are roosters. We shall eat them eventually. Pearlie gets the egg.

Bonnie Speaks Out

Bonnie got tagged by Hails's super-intelligent cat Kat! And being a good, dutiful and obedient dog she has composed the following for me to copy to Nelly's Garden.

First - the rules

1. link to the person who tagged you.

2. post the rules on your blog.

3. share six non-important things/ habits/ quirks about yourself

4. tag at least 3 mammals at the end of the post and link to their blog

5. let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog

Bonnie's post

I don't actually have a blog which is why I'm using Nelly's. I do have a Bebo page but I hardly ever look at it as Bebo's a bit naff. Nelly uses it to hunt out recent photographs of her old boyfriends on their children's Bebo pages. But hey! that's one of Nelly's quirks, not mine. She'll bloody kill me for telling youse about that Bebo stuff.

1. They don't know what age I am. See they 'rescued' me about 15 months ago when I was on the scunge with this Labrador. Truth is they know damn all about me. They'd heard I was ill-treated and sure I wasn't in the best of shape. But then who'd be in great shape if they weren't getting enough grub? Nelly wasn't that keen on keeping me at the start but I could tell she liked me. I took a bit of a notion of her too so I did that thing us dogs do on soft people like her. I just kept looking at her with big, sad and googly eyes and had her by the third day.

2. Unlike those other two eedjit dogs I don't do the scunging thing any more. Don't get me wrong - I like a bit of a run out as much as the next dog - but knowing my luck somebody would nab me and keep me just like Nelly did and maybe next time I wouldn't like my dognapper so much. Another thing about not doing scunging is that when the other two get away Nelly says things to me like, "At least we've got one good dog," and gives me lots of extra attention. I like attention. Anyway Nelly takes me out every single time she goes for a walk. Them other two have to take turns.

3. I'm a bit of a cat fan. Their cat is a total arse but you couldn't help but love it. Even Bert likes it and he totally hates cats. He calls it His Wee Titty.

4. I'm a bit affronted to be telling you this but I'm not actually that brave. People associate us German Shepherds with aggression and security and fearlessness. But strange dogs frighten me. What I really hate are those dogs that slippytit out of gateways and start attacking me when I'm out walking with Nells. I actually get scared going past gateways and walk as far away from them as I can.

5. I like pigs. But they don't like me. I like chasing them even if they just run round in boring circles. Nelly laughs and says, "If Clint could see her running the bacon off them!"

6. Before I get into a van or car I need to run around it once or twice to make sure that there are no enemies hiding underneath it. I don't know what I'd actually do if there was an enemy lurking there. S'pose I'd just bark a lot and hope somebody'd come and poke at them with a sharp stick.

I'm tagging

Gracie

Paddy

Tycho

Although I don't think Tycho will oblige. I hear his master never lets anybody near his oul blog. Then Tycho is a pedigree and probably too snobby to mix with us hoi-polloi. And of course he's awfully young. Probably doesn't even know about blogging yet. Or Bebo.

Bonnie on Slemish

On the first Sunday of my holiday I suggested to Bert that we take the dogs up Slemish. It was about time I tackled it for I hadn't been up there for nearly twenty years. I was sure it would be a piece of pie now that I'm so fit and everything.

Well. Not really. It was tough enough. I had plenty of puff but it was hard on the legs. At least I wasn't scared of falling off like poor old Bonnie. She was not terribly confident on the steep, clambery bits. I guess she's never been on a mountain before. By the time we got about two-thirds up she was starting to find her feet. We decided it was time for a brief rest and a look at the view. And a photograph.

It was at this point that Paddy and Rosie a.k.a. The Dirty Rotten Scunging Devil Dogs decided it was time to give Nellybert the slip. One minute they were there - the next they were gone. But we thought we'd fall in with them at the top. We didn't.

Slemish might not be hugely high but it's fairly long. Bert went one way, Bonnie and I went another. No rotten dogs.

Well - cut a long story short, we spent hours looking for them. Bert spent most of it walking down the mountain, round the back of it and up the other side. Eventually he located them. But could only grab Paddy. He unceremoniously leashed him up and dragged him down the mountain. I spotted the capture from the foothills. We both hoped Rosie would follow but she didn't.

With Paddy safely jailed in the van and Bert resting up, I took my turn at trying to find Rosie. I was helped by a young man who, was out with his four-year old son. Together we tracked up the far side of Slemish. After about half an hour's walking the child spotted Rosie. She was just sitting there waiting to be rescued. I told the little boy that he was my hero and it was high fives all round.

So that's why only Bonnie got her picture taken on Slemish unless this counts...

Rosie seconds before giving us the slip.

So that's it then. We're never taking those two out together again. Unless they're leashed. But it wasn't all bad. At least little Taylor got to be a hero. And after twenty years I get to go up Slemish twice in one afternoon.

Lost Dog

Earlier today I had to reduce the number of chickens on the sidebar to 7. One of the banties has disappeared.

I'm terribly worried that I'm going to have to drop on the dog count too. Rosie has been missing since 10 o'clock this morning.

Bit Tied Up

Paddy: Well Rose that’s a powerful nice mornin’. Ye fancy a wee scunge? I smell rabbits.

Rosie: Huh! I don’t see how I’ll get any scunging done today. D’ye not see the cut of me?

Paddy: Aye ye’re down in the mouth all right. What’s annoyin’ ye?

Rosie: God but yer stupid! Did the vit gie ye a lobotomy that time ye were in getting your balls off?

Paddy: No need to be nasty. I see what’s vexin’ ye now. Ye’re tied up aren’t ye?

Rosie: Aye! I am! It’s to do with that carry-on yesterday. 

Paddy: Aye yesterday! Yesterday was a good day. Pity Jamie had to come along and spoil it on us. 

Rosie: It’s Alber’ I blame. He should just have minded his own business that time he saw us on the Loan Road. Sure we weren’t payin’ any mine to that oul fecker of a farmer who was roarin’ and shoutin’ at us. 

Paddy: That fat oul fecker hadn’t a hope of catchin’ us. 

Rosie: Aye! Not even if he’d tuk tae the Loan Hill wae his oul Land Cruiser. And he wouldnae hae went there for fear o’ the yappin’ he’d get from the wife for dirtyin’ the motor and her wantin’ to take it into the town tae lift the weans frae school. 

Paddy: Then Alber’ appeared. 

Rosie: Aye and did ye hear the soft coaxin’ way he was trying to get us into the boot of his motor. He hadn’t a hope. 

Paddy: Right! Then we were aff again. Up the Loan Hill. 

Rosie: Nixt thing though Alber’ has his phone out.

Paddy: Tellin’ on us. Rosie: But sure by the time Bert and Nelly arrived we were nearly out of earshot.

Paddy: Didn’t stop them roarin’ and shoutin’ for us though. 

Rosie: We heared nothin’. 

Paddy: It’s not aisy hearin’ things wae yer head stuck down a rabbit hole. 

Rosie: Was it your idea or mine to go down to the low huntin’ grounds? 

Paddy: Was you, Rose. Ye always have the best ideas. 

Rosie: Aye! But it was your fool notion to go down the Dreen Road to get there. Wisht I hadn’t a listened tae ye on that one. Bad luckin’ that two dogs steppin’ down the road on their own an’ one wae his collar left hingin’ in a hawthorn bush. Nigel could lift you for that and then Nellybert would be in bother! 

Paddy: ‘Spose then it was a good thing Jamie came on us.

Rosie: Maybe. Ye were quare and soft jumpin’ intae his car so quick. 

Paddy: Ye weren’t far behind me! Anyway, I couldnae help mysel’. He was that sharp of the tongue. Just like Nelly. Soft words don’t work on me. I hae found in my time that folk that talk all soft and nice tae ye usually give ye a good kick up the arse when they catch a houl of ye. Sharp-tongued folk are just pleased ye done what ye were bid. 

Rosie: Nae matter ye’re still a big lick and a suck. 

Paddy: At least it’s not me that’s tied to a pruta weighbridge! 

Rosie: Away and feck! Ye’ll get yer turn!