DRIVEN PUPPY

I volunteered to take the puppy for a walk today. This animal belongs to my son. It is a border collie, but only in the loosest sense, because this thing couldn't round up sheep if you drugged them all with Nembutal and lined them up at the entrance to the pen. This dog has been born without a brain. To counteract that, it is as flexible in the joints as the indiarubber man and strong as a bull. Its method of walking is to hurl itself against the harness and lead as if it were a greyhound straining at the traps. It pulls left, then right, then seconds later has rotated 90 degrees at great pace and is pulling from behind me. Then it flings itself between my legs and it is all I can do to save myself from crashing face down in the gutter. All the while, the puppy looks up at me with a lunatic grin on its face. It takes no notice of any command and, if it thinks I am going to chastise it by tapping it on the nose, the way the 'Dog Whisperer' recommends, it simply spreadeagles itself on the ground like a large black-and-white jellyfish and I can't bend down that far to tap it on anything. I lasted for 40 minutes before I admitted defeat and hauled it home. My arm was aching from strain and lack of blood circulation where I had looped the lead like a tourniquet around my wrist to try and keep the puppy going in a straight line, and I had developed a splitting headache. I fell exhausted on the sofa, whilst the wretched animal decided that the time was right for me to play 'fetch obelisk', a monotonous game where I throw a rubber obelisk for the puppy to drop it just outside my reach, so I have to get up each time to fetch it from its location and throw it again, with increasing weariness and frustration. And all the while, that same lunatic grin driving me almost to distraction. Doctors say that having a puppy is a most rewarding experience, psychologically speaking. I've got news for them.