The blame game

There is one facet of Waffle’s personality to which I will never become acclimatised. It is unnerving and it is shocking and it usually results in a lot of shouting.

This Waffle idiosyncrasy most often manifests itself when he and I are alone on a Sunday morning, when the house is quiet and while I’m trying to watch Match of the Day on my laptop in the sunroom. Normally, I’ll be sipping on a cup of black coffee ahead of the reveille for the remaining members of the clan. Normally, the world feels at peace with itself and for me, this hour on a Sunday feels like a stolen moment; I’ve nothing to do, nothing to say, nothing to lament.

Normally, I’ll have donned my headphones so as to hear MoTD without waking up the rest of the house. And normally, Gary Lineker will be introducing his guests when it happens and then my Sunday morning inner peace is shattered. It goes like this…

I’ll be on the cusp of enjoying the previous day’s football highlights and unbeknownst to me, a jogger (or joggers) will run past on the road outside the house.

Situated a good 50 yards from the road, it never looks as though the jogger is about to invade the house like a swarm of the undead. But that makes no odds to the hairy guardian.

Habitually astride the back of the sofa, simultaneously keeping an eye on me and the road, upon seeing the runner (or runners), Waffle goes off like a hairy car alarm. It is a sudden explosion of sound and, because I am at that moment at one with the universe, the eruption of barks works like an electric shock from an unseen spectre.

“WAUWAUWAUWAUWAUWAUWAU!”

I am not embarrassed to admit, but the suddenness of the alarm scares the life out of me and most often I jump. Furthermore, if I happen to be sipping from that cup of hot black coffee at the time, my jumping results in a spillage down my PJs and sometimes even a burnt chin.

See what I mean about these episodes resulting in a lot of shouting?

Without boring you with the calibre of those shouts, suffice it to say, they are many and blue. And, such is the shock on my part, if I happened to be eating a slice of toast at the time, I have been known to fire the toast at the hairy car alarm in a bid to shock him out of Defender Zone.

It doesn’t happen every Sunday but it happens enough for me to be annoyed about it. In fact, it’s so frequent, I no longer even look out the window to see who’s running past. And the best of it is, as soon as I offer my meagre admonitions, Waffle shuts his trap and even has the decency to look chastised.

“Don’t look at me like that, dawg!” I hiss in a whisper, although I know the damage has already been done.

Last Sunday, this scenario played out just as I have described except that I didn’t burn myself (or stain the PJs) and wasn’t eating a soon-to-be toasty projectile. However, not looking out the window, I didn’t see that there were no runners running past the house. Nor did I see that I had neglected to close the gate and that a cow had arrived in the drive and was looking towards the house with dull, bovine stupidity. That realisation only dawned when Waffle refused to shut his trap and continued with the “WAUWAUWAU-ing,” despite my own volume increasing and a throwing of a cushion.

Finally, glancing out the window and noticing the bovine stupidity, I paused MoTD, set my cup down and moved to open the back door. Duly complying (he knows the drill at this stage), the Hairy Defender sprang out of the house as if fired from a cannon. The cow didn’t have a chance – although that isn’t to say Waffle ate her up inhis tummy but rather, he barked her into submission.

I watched until the stray cow was encouraged to depart the premises and I watched Waffle bark her down the road for good measure. I also watched as Waffle turned, peed against the gate and then made his shaggy way back to the house. I opened the door to let him in, for once slightly pleased with his defensive capabilities. However that feeling lasted as long as it took for the little human to appear bleary-eyed into the sunroom.

“What’s all the shouting about?” Anna demanded, as if it were I who was solely responsible for that morning’s reveille.

“There was a cow in the garden. Waffle chased her out.” I spared a glance for the Hound. “Good boy, Waffie.”

But Anna only glared at me.

“What?”

“I remember mam telling you to close the gate before we went to bed.” She was as much as saying the whole thing was my fault.

I spared another glance for the Hound.

“Stupid dog.”