Hot, hot, HOT!

Angel cunningly camouflaged as a shadow in the garden.

We don't like to complain, but we're getting a little fed up with these extremes of weather. First of all it's torrential rain, and now it's heatwave stuff. What's worse, policemen seem to be back to their old tricks of roasting dogs alive in cars. Not a nice way to go. Dogs Trust say they are saddened by it. We're appalled. Make sure your own MadWoman (or MadMan) leaves you safely in the cool at home in this sort of weather.

In the meantime, who do we write to about getting the weather sorted out? Not to complain you understand, just to make a few suggestions ...

Wet, wet, wet

Raindrops keep falling on our heads and we're not impressed. Here it is, midsummer and we should be out in the garden sunning ourselves. Instead, the sky is as black as a Rottweiler's armpit and it's pouring with rain. And despite the subtle hints, the Madwoman hasn't even turned the heating on to at least try and simulate sultry summer conditions for us. Nothing to do except watch the rain hammering against the windows whilst huddling against a cold radiator.

The Naked Wippitt

Few things are as disappointing as an empty bowl ...

We were in two minds about what to call this post, since it's about food: Two Fat Wippitts perhaps? Or The Hairy Wippitts? Neither description really suits us so we've settled for The Naked Wippitt instead - Archie does after all have a fairly hairless chest (the Madwoman says like a Chippendale, but we prefer Whippendale. It's classier) and both of us, being wippitts, have thin single coats.
The Madwoman has actually done some cooking today - proper cooking that is, for us, rather than for herself. We can smell it baking in the oven right now in fact, and it's making our mouths water. To help fill the time while we're waiting for it to cool, we thought we'd share the recipe with you.
1. Take 8 ozs of liver (don't ask what that is in metric, we have no idea as the Madwoman only understands imperial, and that poorly) and rinse it under the cold tap (think of the job it does and then you'll understand why).
2. Sling it in a food processor or liquidize it until it's a puree, than add 2 cloves of garlic, 2 eggs and 4 oz of self-raising flour and whizz it again until smoothish.
3. Pour the goo into a Swiss roll tin or similar which has been greased and the bottom lined with a piece of baking parchment. Spread it out so it's more or less even and then put it on the middle shelf of an oven pre-heated to Gas Mark 4 (180C) for 30 minutes. Take it out, flip it over so it's upside down in the tin, peel off the baking parchment and return it to the oven for another ten minutes. Remove from oven, take out of tin and cool on a wire rack.

When it's cool, cut into quarters, putting what you aren't going to eat within the next three days in the freezer. Cut up the remaining bit into little pieces and use as delectable training treats.
See how easy it is?
Do feel free to tell us about your own recipes. Actually, on second thoughts, don't bother. Just send us a sample!

Dishing the dirt

You see how little privacy we get?






Considering just how much the Madwoman seems to hate it when we roll in deliciously smelly fox poo (and sometimes other sorts when they're available) we're a bit baffled by her obsession with the stuff that we produce.

We always dutifully go outside to the garden to do what's necessary - even when it's raining hard and it's very tempting not to. Or we go while we're out on a walk. But every single time, she rushes over, produces a little plastic bag and carefully scoops it all up and carries it triumphantly off.

What on earth is the fascination? She doesn't seem to want to roll in it, or even to sniff it and inhale the lovely aroma ... No, all she does is collect it and put each little bag into another, bigger one in a little dustbin with a close fitting lid. After a few days, she goes off with the bag, and comes back without it. She never takes us with her, so we're not sure exactly what she does with it.

We did wonder if she was selling it on some kind of Poo Black Market, but if she is, she isn't being paid in any useful currency, like gravy bones or tripe sticks as she always returns empty handed.

It's a mystery.If anyone can clear it up for us, do please let us know.

Some people have no scents at all

Drying off after my bath

Smell is a really important sense to us dogs, and yes, even to us wippitts, in spite of being labelled 'sighthounds': a fact that the Madwoman seems to regularly forget. We're sure she means well, but sometimes she goes too far, and being forced to take a bath is definitely not a nice thing to do.

Apart from the fact that we just don't like getting wet (you should see the Madwoman trying to persuade us to go out for a pee when it's raining - as she gently but firmly pushes our back ends out, the front is already coming back indoors again) a bath removes the wondrous and complex layers of smell which announce 'This is Archie!' (or Angel). She obviously doesn't appreciate the time and effort involved in restoring the smell. The equivalent for her would probably be like going round with her head in a bag, so no-one could see her face. Although some might say that would be an improvement.

Fortunately baths don't happen too often. Unfortunately one happened today. Archie found a deliciously aromatic pile of poo and managed to have a good wriggle around in it before the Madwoman spotted what he was up to and ran towards him waving her arms and screeching. We politely stood to one side to let her take a turn but she didn't seem inclined to, and rather meanly, wouldn't let Angel have a go either.

As soon as we got home she whooshed Archie up the stairs and into the bath where she proceeded to scrub him with Neem shampoo, effectively removing both his own doggy smell and every trace of the masterpiece he was carrying on his back.
For that's exactly what it was, and which the Madwoman, with her pathetically puny sense of smell also fails to appreciate. Smells for us are the equivalent of paintings to humans; just as you display them on your walls, we display them on our bodies where we can share them with others and continue to enjoy them ourselves.

Giving Archie a bath was more than an affront to his dignity, it was an artistic sacrilege. Would you take paint stripper to a Michelangelo or a Titian?

Lost Wippitt Literature

The Charge of the Fawn Wippitt

There's nothing we like more than enjoying a nap while snuggled up to the Madwoman while she catches up on her reading. At least while she is reading she is awake, so her snoring doesn't disturb our own slumber. But we do feel she could exercise a little more taste in her choice of reading matter; unfortunately she takes no notice of us. It doesn't help that most of our favourite books are lost works of wippitt literature, so aren't always easy to find. But keep your eyes open next time you find yourself in a secondhand bookshop - if you spot any of the following be sure to buy them, and we promise you won't regret it:

The Three Wippitteers

Wuthering Wippitts

A Christmas Wippitt

Wippitt in the Rye

Wippitts of Wrath

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wippitt

Brave New Wippitt

We're not averse to a spot of poetry occasionally either. The Charge of the Light Wippitt stirs our blood, while our recitations of The Wippitt not Taken and I Wandered Lonely as a Wippitt are not to be missed.

Setting the record straight

At the end of last year a retired vet called Olaf Swarbrick commented that he thought that the famous 3,000 year old White Horse of Uffington in Oxfordshire wasn't in fact a horse, but a greyhound or possibly a wolfhound.

He was very close.

If you look more closely you will see that it is in fact beyond a doubt a wippitt, doing what wippitts do best (apart from napping) - running like the wind. We look forward to it being renamed more correctly 'The Uffington White Wippitt' in the very near future.

Wippitt super sense

Do you want to know a secret?

I hear voles.

sssshhhh ...

Creative boredom

Yesterday afternoon we went luvvie-watching: a film crew had descended on the Chiltern Open Air Museum to film something for Midsomer Murders. It was typical filming stuff: hours of nothing happening, then a break for lunch followed by more hours of nothing happening before cries for silence, a few minutes of activity before everyone packed up and went home. And that was just the rehearsal ... we got bored long before everyone else and wandered off to the coolth of the Iron Age hut before wandering home again, marvelling at the need for so many people, being paid so much for doing so little. We're good at doing very little too, but nobody pays us anything for not doing it, no matter how creatively we don't do it.

Today was more fun: we went volehunting again and as Archie's paw seems fine now he was allowed to chase a gently thrown tennis ball. He came back with it on three legs again. Humph. The Madwoman [we call her that because a) She asks us to do ridiculous things like not chase squirrels which is mad, and b) she's a woman, and c) we can't think of a really good acronym] says no more balls for a bit longer. Oh, and we weren't impressed by her pathetic introduction to us yesterday. We could have done it much better ourselves, had we been allowed: in fact we might do it tomorrow. But right now, like the film crew, we're just far too busy doing nothing ...

Voley-vous un vole-au-vent?

Archie and Angel are busy napping at the moment after a busy morning. Napping is one of the things they excel at. They're also pretty good at unstuffing Kongs, barking at the postman and modelling designer jackets during the colder months of the year.

Today they went vole hunting, which is why they are now catching up on their beauty sleep. Vole hunting demands great concentration. It's better when Archie is chasing balls: he's no good at the silent, stealthy approach that Angel is so good at. Not that she has much success normally. But it's like journeys - it's the journey, not the arrival that's the interesting bit.