The Great Slipper Robbery

Jeez, did she go mad or what? I mean one lousy slipper. Anydog would think she'd had her leg amputated in her sleep.

Listen up. If humes leave any kind of footwear (including socks), underwear, or anything else that isn't nailed down just lying around in full reachable distance, it's up for doggy grabs, yeah? Now am I right or am I right?

Of course, Gelert had to play the bloody clown, didn't he, and pranced off with it in his gob because he thought the female hume was having a game. That made her even more ballistic.

“Give her back the bloody slipper,” I barked at him, but it was no good. The dumb klutz just kept running up to her with the slipper in his mouth and then sprinting away again just as she got within reaching distance.

Mind you, you had to laugh.

“Gelert,” said the female hume. “Leave.”

Well, she said it in such a wet, imploring tone you just knew that wouldn't do it.

She knew it as well so she tried the sterner approach.

“Gelert!!! Stay!!!”

Now Gelert is a kind of wolfhound type and isn't full grown yet but he's already massive and has a brain that's about appropriate for a very small chihuahua.

Here's a picture of the ‘Big Guy‘, as Petros the dog doctor calls him:



We're all watching and know what's going through his lentil-sized brain.

“Duh, youse wanna chase me and fetch da slippa den? Goo game, yeah? Goo game.”

And off he goes again with the slipper in his gob.

The hume's going hairless by now but the Big Guy doesn't know the joke's over.

“Gelert!!! If you don't come here and drop that slipper right now.....!”

Well, we could all tell she was losing it.

“I'll.... I'll....”

She shot a quick glance at Poppy who was starting to giggle uncontrollably by now and then carried on:

“I’ll will not tolerate...”

We all knew by now that when she lost the ability to speak proper English, something bad was on its way.

“... none of you will get supper tonight!”

None of us? Now wait up here a minute, lady. Time to take action.

Zaira and Seven, being the fastest, sprinted down the far side of the Big Guy, Poppy and I went to his flanks, Ziggy just went into one of his fits (more of that later), and Mum sauntered casually towards him.

Gelert froze, his feeble mind not able to take in the pincer manoeuvre.

Mum went straight up to him, eyeballing him all the time. When she was six inches from his face she whispered, “Drop the slipper, sweetie, or none of us eat tonight.”

Suffice it to say, the dumb klutz's jaw dropped open in horror and the item of footwear fell to the ground.

At that point, the hume stepped forward, picked up the slipper and then patted the Big Guy on the head saying, “Good boy. Gooood boy. Who's a clever boy then.”

Then she saunters off back up to the house, slipper in hand, without a second glance to the rest of us.

Jeez. We're the ones who got the bloody slipper back and he's the one who gets the praise.

There really is no justice in this world. Am I right or am I right?

Still Seven

A few days ago, I told you that we might have a seventh member of our gang. Well she’s still here and she’s still called ‘Seven’ because we haven’t thought of a better name yet. You have to get to know a dog first before you can come up with a moniker that really fits.

When we got up the morning after she arrived, Seven was inside the gate. We all rushed up and started barking questions at her as we’d done the day before. The humes tried to get us to stop, probably because they thought we were frightening her, but most of us just carried on.

Seven still didn’t have much to say for herself so we got bored after a while and wandered off to do our own things. Then it was breakfast and you wouldn’t believe how fast she could eat. I mean, the rest of us aren’t exactly slow when it comes to the old nosebag, but Seven looked like she was going for the world record. Still, as I said before, she’s incredibly thin - you can see every one of her ribs - so she needs all the grub she can get at the moment.

Even now, a few days later, she doesn’t seem to have filled out much but she does seem a lot happier. She’s got to know the rest of us a bit better and seems to realise that we’re actually very friendly. Some of us have taken longer to make friends with her than others. Poppy was about the last to accept her into the gang and even seemed quite frightened of her. Of course, she denied it when I asked her about it but why else did she keep barking at Seven and then running off?

The odd thing is, Poppy is now closer to Seven than any of us and they play together all the time. I even saw Poppy teaching Seven how to play ‘chase’. Seven didn’t seem to understand the game at all to start with but she’s got the hang of it now and can’t get enough of it. She’s fast too.

As she’s begun to settle in, she’s also been getting up to some bits of mischief - and that’s very important if you want to be a member of our gang. Yesterday, for instance, I saw her nick one of the female hume’s oldish jumpers and then make a sort of nest with it. Later on, Seven went off for a pee and Gelert was straight in there and grabbed the jumper.

Seven looked very unhappy when she came back and saw Gelert chewing away on it and had a tentative game of tug with him. She seemed very wary of the Big Guy though and she gave up after a few seconds. She kept her eyes on him and when we all trotted down the land after the humes, she seized her chance and got her jumper back again.

Here's a picture of Seven and Gelert later on when the jumper seemed to have just vanished.

SEVEN: Um, excuse me, Mr Gelert, but I was wondering if you'd seen my jumper.

GELERT: Well now, there's a thing. It was right here in front of me a minute ago.

Anyway, it’s almost food time so I’ll be off soon. Before I go though, I must just tell you about the fantastic time we had last night. It was so cold outside that the humes let us sleep in the house. They put down all kinds of blankets and things on the floor but most of us slept on settees or armchairs. There was even a fire going for most of the night. Brilliant or what!!!

Now We Are Seven???

Well, what a turn-up. Literally. I mean there’s already six of us dogs here and now there might be seven! These humes must be bonkers if you ask me.

Anyway, this is how it happened this very afternoon….

The humes had got a couple of other humes in to help do some stuff to their olive trees. I don’t know exactly what but it seemed to involve cutting lots of branch things out of them. They were only here for about two hours but during that time we had to stay in our private area.

The thing is, a lot of humes in Greece are frightened of dogs. Yeah, believe it! I mean, look at our pictures. OK, so if we’d been allowed out, we’d certainly have raced round barking at them. But only for a laugh. We wouldn’t have actually bitten them or anything. Still, I suppose they weren’t to know that and Gelert is enormous and has got scary eyes, even though he’s really soft as butter.

So there we all were in our private area having a bit of a snooze and occasionally scaring the wits out of these two humes by barking at them when they came anywhere near. One time, we let them get almost up to our fence and then all suddenly started barking at once. Laugh? You should have seen them jump. Poppy reckons one of them actually peed himself but I’m not sure. Poppy makes things up sometimes.

What happened next we only found about later when we heard it from - well, she doesn’t seem to have a name so I’ll call her ‘Seven’ for now. She seems a bit shy at the moment so I don’t know if she’s given us all the details, but apparently she was mooching around just outside the farm gate when our female hume spots her.

Even though she’s doing no harm to anyone and is only looking round trying to find a bit of food, Seven thinks she’s going to get a whack or at least be yelled at, so she immediately goes into submissive mode. (This involves lowering yourself as low as you can to the ground and doing a kind of weaving movement in front of the hume you think is going to whack you one. Nearly all dogs that don’t have homes do this when a hume comes near. It’s a trick they learn very early on after they’ve already had a couple of kicks or the odd thump with a stick. The cowering thing is a dog’s way of saying, ‘It’s OK. It’s OK. I have absolutely no intention of biting you or doing anything else to you that you may find unpleasant’.)

Well, Seven is hugely relieved of course when the female hume comes slowly towards her and talks to her in a low, soft voice. Then the male hume turns up and he does much the same thing. The next thing she knows, Seven’s got a bowl of food in front of her and she can’t believe her luck.

“I’d hardly eaten anything for days,” she told us later, and we could well believe it was more like weeks when we first set eyes on her. You could see all her ribs and she looked totally emancipated.

ED: I think Buster means ‘emaciated’ here.

BUSTER: You interrupting again?

ED: Sorry, Buster.

Anyway, after the other two humes had finished their tree stuff and left, we were let out of our private area and, even though we hadn’t seen or heard Seven yet, we all sniffed that she was somewhere nearby. It only took a few seconds before we tracked her down. There she was outside the farm gate, which was firmly closed, and all curled up on a couple of blankets in this really big open-fronted plastic box. Not only that, but there was a bowl of water in front of her and another one which had obviously had food in it.

Of course, the six of us all started barking at her at once:

“Who are you?”

“Where’d you come from?”

“What you doing out there in that box?”

“Any of that food left?”

The poor thing looked terrified and was shaking from head to tail. We were only being inquisitive, but I suppose six of us all barking questions at her at the same time must have been quite frightening. Fair play to her though, she didn’t run off. After a while, she even answered a couple of our questions. She said she was outside because the humes had wanted to give her a bit of time to settle before she came face-to-face with us lot for the first time. Well, I suppose they had a point there.

I’ve no idea whether Seven will end up being a permanent member of the gang here. She may not still be here in the morning even. Who knows? I’ll keep you posted.

Anyway, here's a picture of her. You can't really tell how thin she is from the photo though:

Journey's End

Sorry for the slight delay, Buster Fans, as I know you're dying to know the next bit of my story. If I remember right, Mum, sister Poppy and I had just set off to find our dads, who lived on a small farm called "Xerika".....

WARNING: This next bit is very sad so if you're easily upset, you might want to skip to the next part.

Poppy and I were less than two months old when we set off with Mum to find “Xerika” and even though it was only a couple of miles, it seemed like an epic journey for our short little legs. It was hot too and Pops and I kept wanting to sit down and rest but Mum kept pushing us on. She seemed so excited about introducing us to our dads.

(Poppy wanted me to add ‘and vice versa’ here but I’ve no idea what she’s on about so I’ve left it out.)

Eventually, we reached the farm where our dads Sammy and Rory lived. Pops and I were so knackered, we just collapsed in the shade. Moments later, we were mobbed by three hooligan dogs who we discovered later were Ziggy, Zaira and Gelert.

Mum went off to look for Sammy and Rory, leaving us to the mercy of these huge (to us) dogs who were clearly intent on playing with us.

Poppy and I dozed in the shade and totally ignored them. Then Mum came back looking distraught. (Pops gave me that last word and I don’t know if it sums up the way Mum looked but I’ll risk it.)

“Where are they?” she panted, looking at the other three.

“Where’s who?” said Gelert.

“Sammy and Rory. Where are they?”

Poppy and I watched as Ziggy, Zaira and Gelert looked down at their paws.

“Well?” Mum was getting impatient.

Very slowly, Ziggy raised his head and looked into Mum’s eyes. “They’re not here now.”

“Not here? Well, where are they then?”

“They stopped living. I’m sorry.”

Mum held his gaze for a few seconds and then wandered off on her own.

Poppy and I were too young to understand what was going on at the time, but Mum explained to us what had happened when we were a bit more grown up.

Apparently, about the same time they helped Mum make Poppy and I, Sammy and Rory kept escaping from the farm and generally making mischief. Then, late one night just before Ziggy’s bedtime, he discovered Rory lying just inside the farm gate. He wasn’t living.

In Greece, where we live, there are bad humes who put poisoned food out for foxes to protect their chickens and it seems that Rory ate some and stopped living soon after. Sammy was never seen again and the same thing probably happened to him but he never made it back to the farm. (Petros, our Dog Doc, gets very angry about this sort of thing but I’ll tell you more about him another time.)

The humes dug a big hole, put Rory in it and then covered him up. Ziggy says he saw water coming out of the humes’ eyes but none of us knows why that would happen.

Mum hardly spoke or ate for days after she heard what had happened to our dads but she’s a bit better now. Ziggy showed her the place where the humes put Rory after he stopped living. She goes there sometimes on her own and sits quietly.

Poppy and I are now six months old so we understand a bit more about stuff. It seems there are good humes and bad humes. Thank Dog, we seem to have ended up with some good ones.

It would have been great to have met our dads but they stopped living even before Poppy and I started living. We’ve heard lots of stories about Sammy and Rory from Mum and Ziggy and I’ll tell you some of them one day. I'll also show you some photos of them.

Mum says I should get to bed now as it’s late but I just feel like barking at something.

The Journey Begins

OK, so I've realised I was telling you about how I came to be here at “Xerika” and then got a bit sidetracked by the all important issue of food.

As I said, my mum was a chicken-guard on this farm and she had these two boyfriends – or maybe it was three....

Now listen here a minute. I know what you're thinking and you can stop that right now. Capiche? Having more than one boyfriend at a time is perfectly normal in the dog world and no reason for you humes to start tut-tutting and banging on about my mum being no better than she ought to be or whatever.

So now that's cleared up, I'll get on with the story. Right?

Anyway, these two boyfriends were called Sammy and Rory and it just so happened that they lived on this farm called “Xerika” a couple of miles away.

To cut a long story short, a while afterwards us pups were born. [Ed. On the 14th July 2007.]

BUSTER: What?

ED: Sorry. Just thought I'd add a bit of background information.

BUSTER: Well don't. Just butt out and don't interrupt when I'm on a roll. Right?

ED: Er.... Right.

Jeez, I'm sorry about that, folks. These humes think they're so damn clever. Yeah, well if they're so damned clever, how come they never learned to lick their own bits. Case proved, m'lud.

What happened after we were born is a bit hazy. I mean, give me a break, I couldn't even open my eyes for days afterwards.

The next thing I know is we wake up one morning and Mum says, “Right, kids. It's time you met your fathers.”

[Ed. It is not commonly known that a litter of pups can be sired by more than one father.]

BUSTER: What did I just say?

ED: Sorry.

So Mum gets up and shakes herself, ready for the off.

“Mumma forget stuff,” says I. (And before you all start having a go, I was a very young pup then and didn't always talk like I do now. Right?)

“What stuff is that, ********?” (I absolutely refuse to make public my mum's pet name for me when I was a pup.)

“Mother dearest, it would appear you are tethered to a chain and are totally incapable of venturing more than a few yards,” chipped in sister Poppy. (Oh, all right, she was always a bit further advanced than me.)

Mum gave her one of those grins she does and says, “No problem, sweetie.”

In an instant, she was off the chain and off up the track before you could say Jack Russell.

“How she done that?” I looked at Poppy, wide-eyed and four-legged.

“No idea, sweetpea, but she done it nonetheless and I suggest we leg it after her toute suite.”

Toute suite? Toute bloody suite??? Smart and pretentious. What a bloody combination.

It turns out later that Mum had done the Houdini trick loads of times, but more of that later.

IT'S SUPPER TIME AGAIN!!!!

Who Pooed?

Jeez! What a night. We've got this great apartment that one of the humes built for us and we're all nestled in all cosy like and someone takes a dump in there, right in the top corner. Stink or what? Zaira reckons it was Ziggy that coiled one down but my bet's on Gelert. They all denied it of course but I watched them all later and Gelert didn't do one for hours after the rest of us.

OK, so where was I?

No idea, so maybe I should introduce the rest of the family here so you know who I'm talking about.

First off, here's my lovely mum, Foxy, with my sister Poppy and I when we were only about eight weeks old:



Then here's my twin sister, Poppy, when she was about four months old. Yeah, we don't look much alike but we were still born about the same time. Incidentally, we had three other brothers and sisters when we were born but I've no idea what happened to them.



So that's my, as it were, blood family. I'll introduce you to the others in a bit. To be honest, the sun's just warming up now and I need a bit of a snooze. Back later.