I need a haircut – Wuff With The Smooth

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve stepped in canine excreta and then threatened to ring Waffle’s neck. Let us just say it was more than once and then leave it at that.

Neither can I tell you how many times I have stepped on my own canine and then jumped into the air when Waffle’s high pitched car alarm goes off. Let us just say it happens too often for either of us to be comfortable with.

And yet, despite these nark-some stepping issues, I cannot tell you how much of a joy it is to take the hound for a walk during the recent spell of springtime sunshine. Let us just say, it used to be for the dog’s benefit and now I enjoy it more than he does.

Last week (or maybe it was the week before – one week runs into the other, these days), I had to take Waffle to the vit’s (country pronunciation) for a booster jab. Honestly, I’m not sure what he was being jabbed with; I tend to feign interest sometimes. However, whatever about the booster and my lack of attention to detail, the end result was: I had to take the hound into the surgery for an injection. This occasion also gave rise to a little examination for said hound (there were questions about worming and associated medications) and then after the deed was done the vet (town pronunciation) gave me the run down on Waffle’s general health. More of this short chat might have sunk in if Waffle hadn’t been making eyes at a female across the room. In fairness, the female was making eyes back and both were straining at their respective leads. What the female didn’t know was that Waffle is currently and permanently emasculated – although that’s a different story altogether.

One thing the vit did say was that Waffle’s weight was edging towards concern territory. She stopped short of calling him a fat B, but I knew what she was getting at.

“Maybe some portion control would be a good idea,” she suggested and I knee-jerk agreed. “I weighed him and he’s just a wee bit over what he should be.”

“We’re two of a kind,” I told her.

Not a week before I too had visited the human’s version of a vit (AKA the doc) and I too was informed that my own BMI is on the edge. The doc too refrained from calling me a fat H but I knew what he was getting at.

“Looks like me and you are going to have to do some serious miles,” I told the Waff on the way home in the car but he just looked at me like I wasn’t wise. “Exercise, Waffle. We need exercise.”

The day after the vit’s I weighed Waffle myself to see what the damage was. I also weighed myself and was astonished to see that the damage had already been done. Still, it was something to go on and I dutifully wrote the weights on a sticky and stuck said sticky onto the fridge.

And so it came to pass that me and the hound have been stepping out more than usual. Up hills and down dales, me and yer man are going at it hell for leather and although it was a bit of a task in the beginning, I am certainly enjoying that aforementioned springtime sunshine. Waffle likes sniffing at questionable stuff and I like scenting the air, which, at this time of the year is fairly phresh with budding loveliness. The furze are beginning to golden, the daffodils are rife and even the birds of a morning are tuning up with intent for their impending orchestral performances. All in all, morning and evening walks are fantastically rewarding and despite my erstwhile better judgement, I now look forward to hooking up the lead, donning a cap and heading off.

The only downside (if it can be called a downside – perhaps inconvenience is a better term), is that sometimes after the walks, because Waffle is so hairy, I have to give him a wash.

His short stature coupled with his gait coupled with a wet road is not conducive to a clean undercarriage and therefore, to avoid washing at every fart’s turn, he needed a haircut.

“Just take it all off,” I suggested to Rachel the groomer and over the course of several hours, off it came. Waffle went into Rachel a shaggy surfer dude and came out a dapper Dan.

Such was his state of hairiness prior to the cut, when he came out, he was like a completely different dog.

The next day, as is the new routine, me and the Waff went for our walk and as that day was a week since the vet visit and the concerns about being over weight, it was weigh-in time – Weight Watchers style.

You may be wondering how I coerce a four-legged creature to stand on a set of scales designed for a bipedal human. The answer is, I don’t. Basically what happens is: I weigh myself, then I pick up Waffle and stand on the scales again. Then I deduct the difference to ascertain the Waff’s weigh.

Surprisingly (for me at least), after a week’s exercise and associated portion control, Waffle had lost almost a whole pound.

I, on the other hand, was exactly the same weight.

I need a haircut.