Hello, my name is … FIDO … (a dog can’t be too careful about his privacy on social media) and I’m here to tell you about my latest adventure.

Recently I needed a break from my people, so I sent them away for seven weeks and asked them to get me some replacement humans to work on. They sent Soft Touch and Won Over. My people told them I was eight of their years and arthritic – which was a big, fat lie as I have the energy of a puppy, and I soon showed them that!

But first, a bit more about me – Soft Touch says I am a mid-size poodle with a schnauzer face and spaniel ears – whatever. I am me, unique and special. I don’t run with the pack.

Here is a picture of me just taking it easy after I got them to bathe me one sunny morning.

My personal traits? I like long walks – especially in the rain – splashing through puddles, meeting other dogs and sniffing (Soft Touch says I could work for Quarantine). I could care less about birds – even those noisy cockatoos – but I am interested in big trucks and motorcycles. And pats! I love pats. Never get enough of those. Oh! And about those rainy walks – I also love being rubbed all over with a dry towel. Soft Touch doesn’t mind puddles, but she’s fussy about wet footprints on the floors, so I let her rub as long as she needs. I even help by lifting my paws so she can get right on in there. Sometimes she uses the hair dryer. That’s a bit of fun, as long as she stays away from my face. She seems to get a kick out of me rolling on my back so my tummy gets dry as well.

My good points?

• I rarely bother to bark unless it is the garbage man, post man or deer in the yard – I’ve got to do my protection duty … right?
• I have great interpersonal skills. Right off, I could tell the difference between these two. When I tried to show them how happy I was to exercise them, neither of them responded to me jumping up and down with joy while they got the leash on. Won Over needed me to Sit and Stay. Soft Touch was happy with me standing Still and Straight. And when we’d get back she’d tell me Sit, and then give me a treat. Heck! It got to where I sat even before she spoke and I still got the treat! Must be why she’s called Soft Touch.

Here’s a picture of her teaching me to sit. She figured if she held a treat in her hand and lifted it, that would make my head go up and my rear end go down. I already knew this move, but I played along. Hey! It was a liver treat. My favourite.

Oh, yeah. About the exercising. Won Over was in good shape and we often walked in the morning with her friends, but Soft Touch needed a lot of work. The first few days when I headed out at my usual pace she had to take long strides to keep up and that stretched her muscles, but bit-by-bit I got her to go faster and further until I could have her out for ninety minutes at a time. It’s hilly around here, so I gave her good workout. Odd thing is she didn’t lose any weight (maybe she was sneaking too many liver snacks when my eyes were resting), but her thighs look better now. Almost as nice as mine. All thanks to me – not that she acknowledged that. She’s a bit slow in the morning, so I’d take Won Over out early, and then Soft Touch late afternoon. It meant I was putting in three hours a day, but I’m good for it.

Here’s a picture of me giving her the evil eye to remind her it was time to walk.

They both spent a lot of time sitting around, and so I’d keep them company. Whenever I thought they’d been in one place for too long, I stuck my nose under their arm just to remind them it was time to exercise by patting me. One time, Soft Touch said something nasty when the picture in front of her went blank, but she told Won Over that she hit the undo button and her last paragraph returned. Have no idea what that was about, but it seemed to make her happy.

Here’s a picture of me pretending to be exhausted from our walk so Soft Touch could do something called “writing”. I had a perfectly good bed elsewhere, but it was my responsibility to keep her company. She was cold, so she put a blanket on me. Stupid humans don’t come with their own coat.

Another thing that made Soft Touch happy was me coming to greet her every morning and having a bit of biffo with her feet. She had a sheep on them. Something she called an Ugg Boot. Anyway, I graduated from pretending to bite that, to pretending to bite her hand. She went all gooey and said my soft mouth was a sign of trust.

You want to see trust? Just before they left me, they popped something that went off with a loud bang, and congratulated each other on “hitting their targets”. I didn’t even bother to go look for the thing that went flying through the air. I was busy demonstrating trust. On my back with my legs in the air, and my head hanging over a sofa. It’s an example of that thing they kept talking about:

“Show, don’t Tell”  

Anyway, gotta’ get going now. My regular people are home, so it’s time to get them back into routine. But just before I go, Won Over wants me to say that she “finished another draft of her new novel and sent it to an editor, completed the first draft of a play based on her published novel The Tap Cats of the Sunshine Coast, did more work on her film script and entered several poems/short prose pieces into competitions”.

Soft Touch wasn’t as productive. All she managed to do was rewrite her historical novel “Louisa’s Legacy” into a historical romance simply called “Louisa” and get it off to a commissioning publisher who was waiting on it. Thank goodness that’s done. The last chapter was a wedding scene. If I never hear that Mendelssohn’s Wedding March again, it will be too soon. She told me she needed the inspiration. Bah! All she needed was another walk. A walk down the aisle! Bwarkhahaha!