Lost in translation

If you've ever looked at your dog and thought, wow, your life is great, what I would give for my life to be that easy. Well, I believe we can learn from dogs, and I'm writing a blog, with my dog Daisy, to teach people how to make life that easy.

Actually I started this blog to sell my e-books Jackpot and The Band, but that has now turned into a side gig.

Post for post Daisy and I are tackling life's challenges and world problems.

This is Discussions With My Dog.

Have you ever tried to learn a foreign language?

The words are different and they are in a different order, sometimes even after you’ve mastered the words it still doesn’t translate the way you intended. It’s the same when people speak to dogs, as explained in the following scenarios:

Walkies

Me: Do you want to go for a walk?

Daisy: Do bears shit in the woods? Is the Pope Catholic?

Me: OK, calm down while I find the lead.

Daisy: I’m so excited 🎶 I’m going to bounce around the hallway like a demented space-hopper until we go out the door.

Share and share alike

Me: OMG who farted?

Daisy: C’mon what’s a small air biscuit between friends.

Me: What the heck have you been eating.

Daisy: If you let me have the left-over curry dish, there are bound to be consequences.

Catch me if you can... bitch

Me: I think you could do with a bath.

Daisy: Dumbass, you left the back door open. Good luck trying to catch me any time in the next half an hour.

Innocent until proven guilty

Me: Who chewed up the shoe/book/packaging

Daisy: It wasn’t me.🎶

Me: Who’s been snaffling food from the cupboard.

Daisy: It wasn’t me.

Me: Then what is all this ripped up packaging doing on the floor.

Daisy: They were empty when I found them.

I got 99 problems, but money aint 1

Me: You’ve lost your tennis ball. Go find it.

Daisy: Can’t remember where I dropped it.

Me: That’s the third one this week, now I have to go to the shop and buy more. Do you realise how much money this is costing?

Daisy: What’s money?

You don’t know what’s good for me!

Me: Please stop looking at me like that.

Daisy: That was my ‘hungry eyes expression’🎶. If you don’t like that, I can do ‘absolutely famished’ or ‘edge of starvation’.

Me: You wouldn’t like what I’m eating.

Daisy: I think I would be the best judge of that.

Me: This type of food isn’t designed for dogs. It will make you fat.

Daisy: Now I’m being deprived of food and exercise!!!?

Here's a great example of words getting lost in translation:

Deck maintanence - keeping it hard

Alastair and Daisy

What dog should I get?

If you've ever looked at your dog and thought, wow, your life is great, what I would give for my life to be that easy. Well, I believe we can learn from dogs, and I'm writing a blog, with my dog Daisy, to teach people how to make life that easy.

Actually I started this blog to sell my e-books Jackpot and The Band, but that has now turned into a side gig.

Post for post Daisy and I are tackling life's challenges and world problems.

This is Discussions With My Dog.

I sometimes wonder how I ended up getting a dog like Daisy.

If you are considering acquiring a dog but not sure which breed is right for you, I have devised a simple multiple-choice test to help.

 My perfect match test

Score yourself; 1 point for answer (a), 2 points for answer (b), 3 for (c) and 4 for (d).

1/ How important do you consider recall? 

(If you don’t know what recall means, please refer to my previous post …  "about Daisy"

(a) Very important, my dog should come when called.

(b) My dog should come if I raise my voice.

(c) My dog will come if bribed with a treat.

(d) Purely optional, my dog will come when it’s ready.

2/ If the doorbell rings during dinner, would you...

(a) Go directly to the door?

(b) First put your plate in a high place away from the dog’s temptation?

(c) First lock your dinner in a cupboard?

(d) Ignore the doorbell knowing if you return after 5 minutes the dinner will be history?

3/ During dinner time, would your dog be...

(a) In a kennel?

(b) Lying under the table minding its own business?

(c) Beside your chair patiently waiting for a treat?

(d) Sitting eye-level with the table and may resort to drooling if not fed?

4/ If your dog slipped the lead, and you have to pursue it, are you…

(a) Hopelessly unfit, couldn’t jog more than 50 yards if your life depended on it?

(b) Quite fit, can run 1 mile?

(c) Usain Bolt?

(d) Know when you’re beaten and wait for the dog to return in its own sweet time?

5/ Is your garden

(a) Non-existent, you live in a flat?

(b) A townhouse courtyard?

(c) Neatly trimmed lawns and flower beds?

(d) Needs work but has several trees that are home to squirrels?

6/ How should your dog smell?

(a) Pleasantly perfumed.

(b) Just a whiff of doggyness.

(c) Like a wet sock that has been at the bottom of the washing basket for a week.

(d) Jasmine and dead sea salt because he/she rolled in something unmentionable when you were out for a walk and you’ve just given him/her another bath.

7/ What sort of dog person are you?

(a) You would buy fashion accessories for your little darling

(b) An average dog owner

(c) A gamekeeper or country type

(d) Like the honest chaps in this video clip?

Now tally up your score and find your compatible pet

Less than 9 points          – let’s face it, you don’t understand dogs, get a cat or a goldfish.

From 10 to 16 points      – a poodle, chihuahua or possibly a fat terrier.

From 17 to 24 points      – proper dog owners - Spaniels, Labradors, Alsatians.

25 points +                      – congratulations you are brave/daft/mad enough 
                                            to get a Lurcher.

Alastair and Daisy

Weather Blog

If you've ever looked at your dog and thought, wow, your life is great, what I would give for my life to be that easy. Well, I believe we can learn from dogs, and I'm writing a blog, with my dog Daisy, to teach people how to make life that easy.

Actually I started this blog to sell my e-books Jackpot and The Band, but that has now turned into a side gig.

Post for post Daisy and I are tackling life's challenges and world problems.

This is Discussions With My Dog.

People are obsessed with the weather. I’ll bet when you switch on your PC, tablet or phone one of the first things you see is a Weather App.  That’s certainly true in the UK where the weather is quite variable. In some other parts of the world it’s probably more predictable e.g.

Daisy’s approach to the weather is very practical;

Me – It’s a beautiful sunny day.

Daisy – Let’s go to the woods.

Me – A bit overcast, might be showers.

Daisy – Man up, put your coat on., we’re going to the park.

Me – It’s raining., the park will be wet and muddy.

Daisy – No problem, let’s go to the beach.


A history of meteorologists 

Weather forecasting for people is a little more complicated and has been the subject of a huge conspiracy which has been uncovered by ‘Discussions with my dog’. If you regularly check the weather forecast, you’ll have worked out it is fairly unreliable., this all dates back to the early days of television. Some clever chaps working at the BBC went to the Broadcasting Director and suggested running a daily forecast. In order to do this, they needed several thousand pounds to invest in some new-fangled equipment, weather balloons and a super-computer that could predict the weather. 

The Broadcasting Director reluctantly agreed to their exorbitant demands. The clever chaps in the Meteorologists Department were actually a bunch of old reprobates and they spent most of the budget in the pub getting pissed. Instead of a super-computer they made a machine a bit like the Twister game. You spin the arrow, where it stops gives you the reading. For regions such as Scotland for example, there are four possible outcomes that are accurate 90% of the time;

1. Could be a bright start with a risk of showers later.
2. Damp and drizzly.
3. Cold and drizzly.
4. Pissing down with rain.
When the Meteorologists drinking fund dried-up, they went back to the Broadcasting Director to inform him they needed to upgrade to an even more expensive super-computer. Of course, it’s become a bit more challenging to blag the forecast with the Twister machine in the modern age of the internet and instant communication. Fortunately, there is a new phenomenon to explain this - Global Warming - it’s making the weather very unpredictable and difficult to forecast.

[Brody the Golden Retriever is the new meteorologist in town] 

If you’ve been planning a day out and been let down by a dodgy weather forecast, I suggest you pop down the Off Licence and buy a couple of bottles wine or beer, stay indoors, raise a glass to those splendid chaps in the Meteorology Department, and play a game of Twister with the kids.

Alastair and Daisy