MY MOTHER BIDS ME by Rosy Cole

Adopted daughter traces her amazing roots. A novel of Jane Austen's England on the Eve of Waterloo.

$17.80

Paperback

Most of the time, butter wouldn't melt!

El Springador 's back at his post after a claw-biting brush with mortality.

I think it's high time I put paw to keyboard, whilst Herself has gone awol, and updated you folks about what's been happ'ning.Spring's sprung and the patch is only half-dug. I've been making space for new plants, rooting out the ones that give bother. (I'm a real help that way.) Some are quite prickly and don't facilitate the call of nature well. I'm glad that yucca's put a spurt on and grown above the fence. Phew!

'Course the flowers and shrubs are s'posed to be out of bounds, but you're not a good dogsbody if you don't see trespussers off the patch and superintend the mousepad under the shed. That's coming down about their ears soon. New arrangement. So they'll be Hitting The Rodent, Jack, PDQ. And I'll tell you something for nothing...Robbie Burns wuz wrong. They're not wee cow'ring timorous beasties at all. They don't hoppit down the shoppit when they're peckish. They dine on grain and birdseed they've rigged up hopperwise with a convenient hole. They're cheeky little beggars, so slick you think you've imagined them, and so fat they're rolling round like whiskered weebles under the shed floor.

But I dogress. I'm always overrunning the tail. Fact is, I haven't posted for a while 'cos I've been doggo – laid low and very pawly indeed. Normally, I'm the fastest thing on four paws and can catch any quarry when all the brakes are off. I'd had a few twinges in my back nearside leg and decided I'd better stop vaulting gates just for the heck of it. Pride goeth before a fall, as they say. And late last Fall, I did.

We were out in the fields and there's a dell that's sometimes littered with cartridge shells. As a pup, I used to take them to Herself because she has something similar in her cosmetic bag. Scattered feathers everywhere. Someone had done me out of a job. I know about flushing game and plucking feathers. It's my bag. I was so mad I was spitting them and the scent of prey went right to my noddle. I couldn't stop snuffling it up. Truffles, forget 'em. Atavistic, she said. I went spaniel-crazy.

Well, a little way off in the next meadow, some molehills caught my eye. Molehills usually need a makeover, so I looked for a gap under the fence. Next thing I knew, one twitched. It leapt up, off and away. I was through that fence and after it quicker than you can snap up a MiniJack. I just had to prove I could still cut it.

I sprinted across a couple of fields, sight glued on that bobtail – it was darting zig-zig to put me off. The wind was roaring past my ears and the recall to heel trailed away behind me, a redundant bit of etiquette for the garden and Cesar Millan a pawfect irrelevance to the planet. The thing was, I'd remembered wot Springie's were for! I fell on the squealing ball of fur and nipped it in the neck. I couldn't help it. I just couldn't! I knew Herself'd be mad at me 'cos we go in for all that animal rescue thingy at home, and being nice to cats. Catz! (Never could bear Mr Eliot's pawtry.)

When the world came rushing back at me, I was in a twister of pain. I wuz ashamed, too, and down in the mouth. Each time I tried to turn back to the path we'd been on, I couldn't. I felt sorry for that paw bunny, still warm, cut off in his prime. The daylight was fading fast. They'd be missing him down the burrow that night. He'd be left out on the cold hillside for the carrion crows.

Eventually, I did turn tail and kangarooed back on three legs. She was cross, but she saw I was in a lot of pain and had had my come uppance. I sank into a deathly hush for hours.

Next day, the vet took some X-rays and said I'd torn a ligament and dislocated my knee. A straightforward op should fix it. It all went swimmingly. I was as good as gold. They fell captive to my Springador charm and said I was a model patient and 'a fantastic dog'. It bucked me up no end, that did. I came home with my leg laced up like a gaiter and steroids for the inflammation. First job up was to nick Bruv's socks.

A couple of days later, the leg began to balloon. By the time I got to the vet my stitches were bursting. It turned out some bugs were trapped under the plastic bit they'd packed the joint with. My flanks were twice the size they should be. With poison! I felt hellish pawly, swaying on my pins. They had to open up the wound and drain it and give me an antibiotic drip and plasma. I was in intensive care for five days – my own little clawset - and there were a lot of prayers going up to St Francis, apparently.

The third day she visited, I was as pleased as punch and feeling more like it. When I heard her voice, I set up a massive thudding tail, so's she'd hear it before she reached me. Then I lifted a front paw and asked her to rub my chest, like you do, 'cos that's wot owners are for.

On the sixth day, I was allowed back on the manor. She says I'm a bit of a comedian and did a fine impression of Hackman - a dog in a bucket. We had to go back and forth to the vet for regular dressings for some weeks. Big Bruv was running a book on what colour they'd be. I had bubble-gum pink and lime-green, scarlet, biscuit-brown, Oxford blue and Cambridge blue. All those luvly ladies would gather round  me like bees round a honey-pot every time I crashed through the door. I just lapped it up.

Well, I came through it all and am in fine fettle, but, like Wellington said about the Waterloo dogfight, it was 'a close-run thing'.

I luv going to the vet now. It's ace. I'm quite a star, you know. They've put a big pic of me up in the Rogues' Gallery in Reception. Yes, that is Rogues' plural!

I wonder if I should audition for Disney?

Jack

The dog who keeps track of the plot.

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