Micro-chipped

Towser is all done and wants just to get off that table

Another bit of red-tape comes our way hot on the heels of Water Charges, Property Tax and Goat Herd Numbers. We hear on the radio that it will become mandatory from 1st April that all dogs must be micro-chipped. We can hear 50% of our neighbours guffaw-ing with the same response they had to finding out that we actually went out and got our dogs licensed when this was mooted. Yeah Right.

Dog Micro-Chip docs.

The locals seem to have a fairly loose, open minded approach to such things - I am not sure how many people have started paying the water rates, but it is still a hot political potato and the take up has only been in the 30-50% area to my knowledge. There are also plenty of folk not yet paying Property Tax, not registering septic tanks and so on. We are probably unusually stupid in this respect and suckers for everything but a) I still feel like a guest in this country, and it would be unreasonable to come here expecting a welcome and acceptance but to straight way start breaking the rules. b) once we had signed up to dog licences, I think it would be quite a risk to not do the micro chip thing - their database might be a bit ropey but I think that at least they'd be able to check whether the licenced dogs were tagged. And c) we know our luck. Get Liz to tell you her TV Licence story one time, and you'll agree.

So, in we booked to the Castlerea vet to an evening clinic and we took the dogs along tonight to get them done. The micro chip is a tiny pellet the size of a grain of rice, which the vet injects just under the skin between the shoulder blades. The needle looked fairly big (like one of my sheep ones) - the bore had to fit the pellet, so I expected some shouting, especially from Poppea, our drama-queen. Fair play to Pops, who we put in last. I got a small squeak from Deefer and Towser but not a whisper from Poppea; just a pained look and a tensing of the face around the eyes.

Happy St Patrick's from the chooks

Next, of course, as this as all about getting owner personal details onto a Government database, came the paperwork. Triplicate forms - dogs names, breeds and dates of birth, owner name address and phone number and a fair amount of vet details. Bar codes everywhere. The authorities claim that this will help them (the dog warden etc) find you if your dog gets lost and will stop them having to euthenase the poor mite but I can't help feeling that it is more about making sure they get the €20 per year dog licence money from all the nation's dogs. Ah well.

Frost on pussy willow.

The chipping was only €25 per dog and there are charity animal welfare organisations who will do it for free if you are hard up. We, at least, are legal. I remain amused that we only knew this was going on because we had heard about it on our radio station of choice, 'Today FM'. We have had no notification from Government nor seen anything in newspapers. You would think that at least the dog licencing boys would be posting out mail shots to their "customers" or the vets, who stand to make that €25 per dog, would have been contacting clients.

Blue sky for my Kiltybranks dog walk today

Meanwhile our run of blue skies continue all be it with frosty mornings. I've been able to get out on some lovely dog walks and today I returned to Kiltybranks where I can let the gang off the leads. Regular readers may recall that I have found down there a bloke (Paul) who does his own turf cutting and has become a bit of a friend. He goes down there with his collie 'Sam' who has befriended our 3 dogs and, while we humans chat, Sam chases around the guy's turf cuttings pursued by 3 mad westies.

Frosty spider web.

Sam is a long legged, fast dog given to 'Lassie Super-dog' leaps from cut to cut across canyons which leave my short leggedy westies miles behind trying to decide whether to try to jump the gap or run down into it and back up. You see Sam flowing across the tops, barely touching the heather followed by three mad, white, bouncing, tongue-lolling shapes trying to sprong through the heather like salmon trying to jump up a fish-ladder. Today, Paul's partner (Sharon) was there too, so the dogs had a new person to schmooze up and her being a goat breeder, I had a new source of advice on how to tell if Nanny Óg might be about to kid. Nan is, of course, playing her cards close to her chest still.

The flowering currants (Ribes) take a frost hit prior to opening

I spent my St Patrick's Day over at the Sligo house helping K-Dub to start the flooring. The floors downstairs are going to be a bit special. None of your B&Q laminates or cheap tiles there. This is going to be a grid of 4' squares made out of the thinner size of old scaffold boards, infilled with huge slabs of Indian limestone. You can probably not see that in your mind's eye but, trust me, with the boards sanded down and sealed and the stone also sealed it is going to look spectacular. Photo's when some of it is complete.

Bacon and cabbage Roscommon style.

Enough for now. I wish you good night and a happy St Patrick's weekend from our dog-legal, micro-chipped Friday Night pizza and red wine heaven.

Keep your heads down, ladies

There's all sorts going on today, so we get our walk good and early with Dad, unusually for a Saturday, setting the alarm clock. It'll never do! Roll on Project Erroll!. Main event is the local Horticultural Society's annual dinner where Dad, as Treasurer, has to be around to round up the money from the few last non-paying stragglers.

Before that we need to move the 2CV down to Llew's workshop. Although the old girl passes her MOT every year, the floor pan and 'fire-wall' are becoming an embarrassing patchwork of welded-in metal bits and Llew advises Dad that it's probably time to start again with a major body job, ripping out and replacing inner and outer firewall, both sills and floor pans both sides of the chassis. Luckily, on a bolt-together 2CV it's not that difficult (or expensive) to lift the body shell off the chassis and get at the underside, cut all that lot out and weld in new. So 'Clara Bow' is away in hospital at present and the driveway is full of 'sensible' cars.

As main contact for the local branch of the 2CV club, Dad gets quite a few calls from would-be owners trying to buy, and would-be sellers trying to offload cars. Quite often these can be neatly knitted together, but Dad usually passes any 'for sale' cars onto Llew, and so it was the gang were off to Stelling Minnis, a village SE of Canterbury to see a car which turned out to be one we knew. 8-9 years ago this car was fully restored by a N Irish chum Sam. Sam then moved back to NI leaving the car for Dad to sell, in his wake. Sam's now back from NI and Dad wonders whether he might be a possible customer for his old friend.

Meanwhile as the Arab World lives in interesting times we have both Llew's some-time girlfriend (Jean) and Steak-Lady currently out there on holiday. Keep your heads down, ladies.

Deefs

Deefski to Vetski for Jabski

"Gone to Vetski with Deefski for Jabski", says the "amusing" note left by Dad for Mum, fridge-mageneted to the fridge. Very funny I'm sure (how we laughed!) for Mum, and Meggie and the H, but presaging for me the annual booster at nice Vet John's place. Unusually we actually get John - he's usually being much too important and clever to see the likes of us, and we get a succession of 2nd-in-command vets and locums.

I get weighed at 7.6 kgs, poked, prodded, stethoscoped and pronounced 100% fit and well. I get jabbed between the shoulder blades, which seems a bit harsh, but I only whimper instead of shrieking the house down, so everyone pronounces me "very brave". Shucks. Money changes hands and a suspicious crinkly blister-pack of foil is passed across and trousered by Dad.

A couple of days later, supper includes 2 strange pill-shaped white bits, and I get a minor belly ache. Haggis and Megan exchange glances knowingly. Nobody tells me what is going on.

A series of late finishes by Dad at work, have meant a succession of short, in-the-dark walks round the Rec. As long as it's not totally dark, this is a good thing, as lots of dog-walkers get concentrated into a compressed "window" and we meet everybody.

They say you can't be popular with everybody. Although we are a sociable bunch, and have no real enemies, there's this one dark Alsatian who gets walked in the Rec in the dark, always on the lead. suspect this is because he is not the most sociable of beasts. I don't know what it is - he just gets to me, lurking and looming out of the dark like that. I just have to charge at him shouting.

Sometimes I give a few alert barks into the shadows (we'll call it a "pre-emptive strike" but the cynics among you might think I'm nervous of unseen beasties in the dark....."). This gives Dad a chance to grab my collar.

If he fails, and I go into charge mode, we end up with me running round the dark Alsatian shouting, just out of lead range, alternating shouts with squeaks of "He's gonna kill me!" drama-queen-dom. The Alsatian in turn dances round the owner pulling on the lead and shouting and snarling back.

The Dad joins in the shouting and dancing (at me! the nerve!) till he grabs me, apologises to the mysterious, quiet, unspeaking man hanging onto the Alsatian.

It all goes quiet again. Doesn't happen very often, but it did happen on Thursday at about 5 pm, in the dark and the rain. By coincidence, Mum is walking across the bottom of the Rec on her way home from work and hears, in the distance a doggie, shouting commotion which she thinks "vaguely reminds (her) of Deefer", but convinced that we'd not be still out at that time in the rain, she walks on by.

Getting home and finding us all still out she realises it's us she may have heard.

Ooops
Maybe I deserved the jab and the belly-ache tablets
Deefer

Spoilt for Choice....

A girl should, I suppose, always keep her options open. Hot on the heels of my Leap Year Day proposal of wedlock from Asbo (Rags), I get an email from the direction of Mrs Silverwood in the Irish Midlands. Chance and Sam are also marking my card. They do, though, say keep it quiet from the new pup, Samoyed x Labrador, "Dancer" of whom (hint hint Silverwoods) I do not yet have a picture.

If a Labradoodle is a lab x poodle, then what is a lab x samoyed? Laboyed? Sambrador?

Must rush - I have to hold Mum and Dad's hands in case they get scared watching Torchwood!

Deefs