Outdoor Hirsutes
Luckily, as discussed in Canine Cargo, Dudley is well used to travelling on the road now. However, today a pitiful sight awaits me as I glance in the rear-view mirror of the car I am driving. Dudley, face paralysed by a mixed expression of fear and frustration, is cowering in the corner behind a wheel arch, doing his best to avoid the probing advances of a clumber spaniel with a point to prove. My eyes flash back to the road ahead momentarily before peeking back once more into the mirror. This time, I see a pair of spaniel’s forelegs scrambling upwards for purchase against my brown friend’s cowed hindquarters, leaving me to believe that Scout is after more than Dudley’s lunch money. From my position in the driver’s seat of a moving vehicle, there is little I can do to help him. There is also a third hound lurking somewhere within this melee – a sharp-suited yellow Labrador named Dexter and kennel mate of the testosterone-charged spaniel and, for some reason, he is absent from this reflected canvas. Is he pulling the strings of this sordid tryst from the safety of the sidelines I wonder, or is he simply enjoying some much-needed respite from the unwanted advances of his randy stablemate at Dudley’s expense? I think I know the answer to that one… so much for Labrador solidarity!
Apart from this visual commotion distracting my attention from the ribbon of tarmac ahead of me, there is another force attacking my senses – the faint whiff of dog turd, a smell that has done well to rise above the already heady fug of generic canine pestilence hanging unpleasantly in the air. Luckily for all of us, the destination of our day’s walk looms large on the horizon and there appears to be ample space in the car park to ingest our degenerate craft. Easing the vehicle hastily into the first available slot I come to, I alight and open the boot hurriedly. All three dogs surge past me in a bid for freedom, each one a prong in a jabbing trident; the barbed points thankfully avoid my vital organs.
As the dusting of yellow and brown hair settles, I notice a very un-Dudley-like creation curled up bashfully in the corner like a burnt meringue; that neither Labrador has seen fit to consume this still warm hors d’oeuvre en route worries me as I lean in to remove it, but this is no time to be squeamish. Rather, I bag up the dirty protest and remind myself how useful a dog cage would be in these circumstances – one with separate compartments and removable flooring. But then again, the likely state all three will be in when returning from this walk makes me wonder if a trailer wouldn’t be a better option. There’d be no smell, no distraction and, most importantly, no sense of parental guilt when I gaze in horror at the voracious sexual harassment unfolding behind me.
I hope you enjoyed this snippet from Lab Tested. If you did and would like to read the book in its entirety, you can find it on…you guessed it, Amazon, in both print and Kindle form. Thanks for stopping by.
Stare of the Dog 
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