I am in the kitchen when I see it watching me. It is hunched in the tree, still and dark and implacable. It is very menacing. Come out from under the table Hergest, says the Owner. We need to go out. I cannot, I say, a pigeon is menacing me. […]
She says I am growing, but how am I to know that she is not, in fact, shrinking? She says if I am not growing but she is shrinking then everything else must be shrinking, even Caspar. I say has she even read Alice in Wonderland? Sometimes the Owner is […]
I have been banned. It is a Dog ASBO. I am no longer allowed in the nature reserve by the pond. It’s not just you, Hergest, says the Owner. They have banned all dogs from the Nature Reserve. I say, I know it is me. It isn’t you, she says […]
I arrive home from dog day care after an exhausting set of activities, only to have the Owner open the fridge and declare in tones of sorrow which, I must say, sound slightly unsurprised, that we are fully out of cheese. How can we be fully out of cheese, I […]
The Owner has told me not to drink from the pond. She says there are lots of things floating in it that I should not swallow, and not all of them are ducks. The Owner is occasionally wise about many things. I have, for example, still not worked out where […]
Caspar has raised a Matter of Some Concern. It should have been obvious to me long ago, but I suppose I just took it for granted. Humans are Humans, and one does not imagine them having needs, but of course they must eat, they must sleep, they must groom… The […]
It had hundreds of legs, I say, and it ran really fast, and it had huge fangs, and it hissed and gloated. And then it tried to jump on me. We can’t go back in there. Hm, says the Owner, is it stuck in the bath? It might have been […]
It is a very large octopus, I tell the owner. We have to take it seriously. It could swallow us all. The Owner says it was only a dream. That’s all very well for you to say, I tell her, but how do you know? You weren’t there. The octopus […]
The Owner left me in Day Care whilst she went to an Art Gallery. What does she think I am, a Philistine? The Owner says she is very sorry, but the art gallery does not admit dogs. I ask why not? Do they imagine that the Moral Dog is so […]
The Owner says that next month we are going to be travelling on an aeroplane. She has booked me a seat of my own. She says this will be very exciting. Are you looking forward to it, Hergest? She asks. I say I am looking forward to being very excited […]
I can tell that the Owner has been reading Sartre. She is looking rather gloomy, in a deeply philosophical manner, and she says life is inherently absurd. Then she squeaks Squeaky Cat rather despondently and asks me what I think. I say Squeaky Cat is absolute proof of the existence […]
This morning the Owner does not purchase a cheese scone from the cafe. Instead, bizarrely, she appears to be eating mango from a pot. There seems to be a scone-shaped hole in this cafe where the scone ought to be. It is gnawing at me. The Owner says she fancied […]
The Owner says that when it is time to go home then the Moral Dog would go home. He would not sidle round the side of the tennis court and pretend to be deaf. I say I am not pretending to be deaf I am simply postponing my response. She […]
The Owner goes into the bakery and she ties me to a Dog Device on the wall outside. Shackles me. Like a common criminal. She used to carry me in there. Long ago, when dignity still mattered. I cannot believe it. Is that any way to treat the Moral Dog? […]
Caspar and I are trying to pull Houdini out of the gap beneath the bridge over the ducks. It is not going well because Houdini has a stick and he will not let it go. Bercow, who likes telling people what to do far more than he likes doing it, […]
Hergest, a Hound's Philosophy 