Ted’s Arrival - Dictated by his step-sister Candy and written by owner, Sam.

Ted pee’d on my head again this morning.  I suppose it serves me right for trying to sniff the tree before he had finished. Ted is my new house-mate.  He has been staying with me for about three months.  He is two years old and apparently came from a place called Peterhead. He is very attractive with lovely thick brindle and white hair.  Ted had not lived in a house before.  However, to give him his due, he did adapt very quickly.  When he arrived he said that he was disappointed because the flat had no distinctive smell.  It did not take him long to change that.  He pee’d six times on the first night!! He has a bladder like a tank. I do not think that his mum can have taught him how to go to the toilet very well because he did not realise that he is supposed to lift his leg.  The result was that initially he always ended up peeing all over the back of his two white front paws.  I used to call him “Yellow Stripes” just to embarrass him. 

Ted is lucky because I have now trained Sam and he is able to enjoy the benefits of my labour.   I always think that it is much easier for the second ”child” because the first one has established the routine and boundaries with the owner. By the time Ted started living with us, Sam had tried all the obedience theories that are supposed to make her the “leader of the pack” out on me.  Needless to say, she would have saved a lot of effort if she had just tried to bite me on my first night.  Anyway, she had given up by the time “Yellow Stripes” came to stay!! When I started living with Sam, I was given my own bed and I had to lie in it….well for the first few nights at least; but Ted did not even try to use a plastic bed, it was straight up onto Sam’s double bed  for him.  Now we work together at night times to acquire as much space on her bed as possible. I sleep on the right hand side, Ted sleeps at the foot, and Sam lies on a small strip of duvet down the left hand side.  Gradually during the night, Ted creeps up the bed and I move into the middle, with the result that Sam ends up either clinging onto the left hand edge or sleeping along the pillow section.  We have to be a bit careful though, because if we go too far, she gets annoyed and throws us off; but that never lasts for long.

Ted and I often go and visit Sam’s mum and dad.  We can tell that Sam’s Dad has never read any of those stupid obedience books because he breaks all the rules. Even if we are naughty he does not really seem to mind, because although he tries to put on a serious voice when he is scolding us, he invariably starts laughing, patting us and giving us treats at the same time. The other nice thing when we visit Sam’s parents is that they have an enclosed garden and so we are let off our leads and we can do “mad runs” and fight.  We tear around like lunatics, chasing  each other and doing “skids”.  Skids are made when you run really hard along the green stuff (I think the technical term is “grass”) and the surface comes away, making it go brown.  Sometimes, by the time we leave Sam’s parents’ house, we have made huge patches of green go brown.  It is very gratifying.

It is quite good fun having Ted to play although, he can provoke other dogs, especially a couple of the guys on our Sunday Seaton park walk, namely Kyle and Oscar. Kyle is the rebel Alpha male that all the girls love.  I have been trying to get Kyle to chase me during our times in the walled garden; but sadly he is more interested in his “ball-on-a-string”.

 It is not surprising that Kyle gets annoyed at Ted, the way that Ted sucks up to Pat (Kyle’s owner) and all the other owners with his puppyish behaviour; and then Ted adds insult to injury by kicking all his mess in the boys’ faces after he has been to the toilet.

 If Ted has a fault it is the way he acts all pathetic and tries to look cute.  He has a tendency to whine if he does not get what he wants, but then he whines even if he does get what he wants, he also whines when he is happy and again when he is sad. He whines all the time in fact.  He just does it to make him look vulnerable and appealing.  I know because if he is really upset then he goes quiet and his tail goes all dangly and limp and he puts it forward between his legs.

 The fact that Ted is so daft and wimpy has made me quite protective. When we see other dogs, he starts to cry. As a result, I have started barking very aggressively so that no “stranger-dog” will try to hurt him.  I did not really bark before Ted arrived.  I did not realise that that barking could be so much fun.  I have decided that I will never stop.  It makes me feel important and strong.  One day we were walking down the street and on the other side of the pavement we saw one of those fatty Labrador things.  He looked quite handsome, but he was fairly young. He must have been quite fierce because he was on a special metal type lead and was wearing a fluorescent yellow jacket to warn people he was coming.  He had two owners with him, a man and a woman. It looked as if he was being trained by the man; but funnily enough I think that the woman was his owner.  She was shorter and was wearing dark glasses.  Ted started whining because the fatty Lab was staring at us, and so I began lunging across the road and barking as loudly as I could. I was so impressive that the woman started waving the white stick that she was carrying at me.  Sam got very angry.  She kept saying how she was mortified and that all the people and the street were looking (apart from the woman in the dark glasses!).  After that Sam ended up carrying a fairy liquid bottle filled with water when we go out on a walk, and if I start to bark I get squished.  I am much quieter now. 

All in all I enjoy living with Ted.  He makes life interesting and keeps me company when Sam goes out to earn money for our dog food.  They said that “two is company and three is a crowd”. It is true that our little flat does seem much smaller than it used to be before Ted joined us; but I have to admit that I like our little crowd and I would not have it any other way.