March 02, 2003
Dastardly and Muttley
You realize how highly your wife rates your retail skills when your assigned
Christmas shopping task is to buy a present for her uncle's dog. Indeed - on
the off chance that the aforementioned mutt might not find enough fulfilment
chomping through the mountain of leftover food during the holiday. And so I
found myself, in the seventh circle of hell that is Tesco's on Christmas Eve in
the Gifts for Pets aisle - and yes - they had a whole aisle.
I settled for an assortment stocking that included various bits of dog savouries,
a collar that was simply to bark for and a little running shoe for chewing
practice. Now, far be it from me to lecture anyone on consumerism but it is little
sobering to think that there are probably shoeless child workers locked into a
factory somewhere in Asia busy sewing together shoes just so that overfed
pooches in Europe can chew them up.
Things like that may me think that maybe we need to redraw the line between
pets and humans. The same though occurred to me when I discovered that
every pooch in my housing estate seems to have agreed that my front garden,
small as it is, shall be their designated latrine. Now, I have exhausted all
diplomatic means of negotiation (i.e. shouting at them, glaring at their owners).
Nope, it is time to lead a coalition of the willing (well, just myself really) to
impose latrine change on these little buggers.
Now, my war is not against all pets, so there shall be no
indiscriminate use of force (that rules out rat poison and airguns). So I went to
the local hardware shops to see what is on offer. Electronic speakers that emit
ultrasonic waves that discomfort animals? Not really suitable for Irish weather.
Crystals that you scatter on the ground that confuse an animal's sense of smell?
In the words of Eric Cartman , what a load of tree-hugging hippie crap .
I was looking for something a little more Donald Rumsfeld.
And lo, there it was. In an anonymous metal can that you had
to open with a screwdriver, a foul-smelling brown liquid that guaranteed
effectiveness against cats, dogs, badgers, foxes and pretty much anything with
a spine, fur and claws. I duly anointed my garden and waited. And waited.
Yesterday morning, a skanky-looking Jack Russell with one eye
waddled up to the garden, took one look at the pristine line of mauve crocuses
and did some anointing of his own. It's time to get medieval.