A Dog Too Far

Town Carnival last night and a good time was had by all. The carnival forms up outside our house and we, Mum and Dad always go out to chat to the people on the floats as they finish their displays and assemble their troops, occasionally helping out with lends of scissors, string, cups of tea or use-of-the-loo-for-the-little-ones before the "off". Last night it was a small army of Brownies dressed as Grannies, and their leaders, plus the Beauty Queens of a village "on the island"

We were allowed out too, on leads and milled about at the end of the drive, fascinated by all the lights and noise, music, chatter and the thrum of diesel generators, toffee apple sellers and bizarre-ly dressed humans. Plenty of them made a fuss of us as they went by or stopped to stroke us.

Then, once carnival had set off and our own evening-guests had arrived, we all adjourned indoors, and from here it got interesting. First, little Norfolk, Dylan decided to have a pop at the cats, so they had to be separated and the cats moved upstairs. Then, later my raeal Dad (Hector) and brother (Archie) decided to have a go at Dylan, so they had to be separated.

There were , briefly, two separate parties going on. Dad, First dad and First Mum plus we six westies were all out on the terrace (luckily warm, windless and dry), the other guests with Dylan in the front of the house, with people mingling between the two, carefully shutting the child-gate behind them as they came and went. I had a great time at this - made a big fuss of First-Mum and messed around with Archie who (someone has to do it) took a quick swim in the pond at one point.

Later, once the other westies had gone, we all moved indoors and fell asleep exhausted while the humans chatted and then, once Dylan had gone too, the cats were let back out and nornmality waas restored. Mum and Dad say we need to re-think the animal guest lists. These 7-dog do's sound great fun in theory, but probably we need to have Mollie, Archie and Hector over when they are the only dogs, and likewise Dylan. Maybe also, that old trick of a big long walk on neutral territory to wear everybody out and get them all used to each other, before we come back to one of the houses.

Deefer