Skanky bones and cat poo

It's the weekend, and our lovely private SE England heatwave continues. The car has 25 degrees on the dashboard thermometer on Dad's way home and everything in the garden is drying out and in need of watering

I am on and off my food at present, keeping them all guessing whether I'll want my breakfast, or my supper. Mum suggests, rather meanly I thought, that this is due to my fondness for finding in the garden, putrid, manky old dog-bones and ancient cat-poo. The bones are mainly from fairly recent chunks from the butcher, of cow pelvis, and venison haunch. The cat poo issue is, sadly, now solved.

Where they can, the humans grab the bones as soon as we get bored, and bin them, but where we can get away with it, we hide them. Mum and Dad are always amused by the unsubtleness of our "hiding" antics, and why we don't all immediately discover each others' bones.

A dog nosing among the new aquilegias (Granny's bonnets) with her tail in the air and in full view, and then skulking back with dark brown mud all over her snout? Why would that make you suspect anything?

Then, tonight, we are all keeping a watchful eye on each other as one of us (equally unsubtle) sneaks off behind the top pond (ears and tail equally visible) to rootle about , then produce the loudest gnawing and shlurping noises you could wish for.

Busted, Mum and Dad usually nab the bone at this point and bin it, but by then the damage might be done - these bones are often skanky in the extreme, with or without maggots.

Squelch

Deefer