A second letter home from Shackleton

Dear my-humans

I promised another update from Camp, so I have engineered some time at the computer and am carefully poking my way around the keyboard.  Thank goodness for the spell-checker, which covers a multitude of awkward paw-toe mistakes.

It’s been all fun here, and we’ve invented so many new indoor games while Noah’s deluge carries on outside.  My favourite is Battleground Sofa, which involves charging round the living room, using the mats as skid-boards, and seeing who can launch themselves highest and fastest onto the furniture – Harry is our current champion, and even managed to grab a mouthful of the ornamental ivy as he flew past!  My second favourite is Recycle Bin Forage, but the proxy-humans have cottoned on to that ruse and now empty it daily – spoilsports. I quite like Water Dribble too, where we take a long, long drink and see how far we can dribble it across the room.

Apparently, I am the Ring Leader for the Log Liberation Front, or at least that is what Badgerbeard calls me. We wait patiently until attention is elsewhere, then sneak out a piece of kindling or, if we are feeling particularly bold, a whole log … and then either hide it under the Battleground Sofa or surreptitiously strip the bark and chew the wood. When caught, we are full-dog-named, which means we have done something naughty – I get the whole Shackleton, while poor Harry is shamed with a complete Harold P. Eddison, and believe me, you can hear that full stop.

There was even more excitement the last couple of days when Millie and Jasper visited.  We had been told that The Squidgies were coming, but I was not sure what a Squidgy was.  Turns out it’s a slightly overweight Jack Russell (of sorts), and after our initial caution, there was much haring around, noise and drama. They did seem to get a lot of privileges that were not afforded to the rest of us, such as sleeping on the bed – most unfair.

We also have a sworn enemy now.  The Devil Vacuum Cleaner crawls out from the pantry and roams around as if he owns the place. For our safety we are shut away in the Utilitarium, but help out by barking with gusto to try and scare it back to whence it came.  I have to say that Badgerbeard is our hero – he fights it with strength and resilience, swearing only occasionally. Gingerbeard must be afraid of it like us dogs, as he never goes near the monster.

And most shocking, we found out that there is now a cat – yes a CAT! – in the sheds (and the humans knew it was there all along!)  Gingerbeard has the audacity to feed it, and while it’ll never be a pet, it seems pretty at home on the straw…a prime rat-spotting hideout. Our noses are seriously out of joint, especially as it seems to have a name too, the rather silly Alexander Pusskin.

As I sit typing, I do have to say that social media does not have sufficient barkicons to cover the full range of dog emotions – it’s very species-ist and discriminates against hound-kind. I would love to sprinkle my missives with barking-at-the-cattle, gazing-wistfully-at-cake and the very useful face-that-looks-like-I-farted-in-church-on-a-wooden-pew-and-everyone-is-staring-at-me-now.

Just so you don’t think it’s all play, the humans have been doing some work, including putting in new fence-posts.

Love, as always

Your Shack

PS – I received yet another award!  “Collie most likely to bark at random noises” (especially the mouse that lives under the back step and who cavorts around in the dark taunting us).  I also had a bit of a ballyhoo with Scout over spilled bird food (why, we have no idea), and in my defense she started it.  However, as you can see here, we are still friends.