The good, the bad and the downright scary

The past few days have yielded a bumper crop of dog park regulars sightings. As the title suggests, this has been a mixed experience…

First the good. Liz Duke and her fab four staffy brood were in the park tearing around causing good natured mayhem. The youngest staff who was a mere tiny pup what only seems like yesterday is now growing into a fine adult dog and has a wonderfully chirpy and indefatigable spirit of fun. Mrs Bitey regularly growls at her but she takes it all in her stride and simply bounds off to seek fun and friendship elsewhere.

Another welcome sight was that of Kay with her avuncular labrador Crockett and precocious, poodle pooch, Curley Wurley. Kay is old school of the neighbourhood, wonderfully witty, wise and always good company.  She is down to earth and not full of her own sense of importance and status. Crockett lollops about after tennis balls whilst Curley Wurley lies on his belly surveying the park with black, beady, button eyes. He likes to have a ball to chase briefly- but can’t be arsed to bring it back so sits down and waits for a human servant to collect it for him.

The bad was a double sighting of the Twat in the Hat. TitH is a grinning toff who graces the dog park in full country gent attire including bush hat. He looks like Farmer Jonathan Bell from Camberwick Green (ask google young ‘uns!) and is accompanied by an oversexed, overexcited and undertrained Boxer. When Randy Boxer is not trying to shag anything canine in sight, it belts around wildly out of control pestering humans and dogs alike. When Mrs B had her dew claws removed and was hopping along with both front paws bandaged, bloody Randy Boxer tried to hump her and bowl her over repeatedly. I wouldn’t mind, but TitH just stood there grinning at his dog like a big bloody jessie. Grinning at the dog, and taking photographs of it are the only things that the Twat does. I’m waiting for the day when Randy Boxer decides to hump one of the lesser trained, ill tempered scary types. Maybe the traumatic removal of his testicles will calm him down a bit.

However, to my delight and highlight of this post, there was a brief but memorable sighting of foul mouthed geriatric Nan with Yappy and her small, snarling, sardonic sibling this morning. Nan loathes both dogs and walks them for a friend as an unsuccessful attempt at assuaging her grief after losing her Rottweiler. Yappy is a noisy, bad tempered, tiny terrier and was in full yap bearing her teeth in a most unattractive, and indeed, rather aggressive manner. In equally loathsome humour was Nan – although she was considerably less toothy as she did not have her dentures in. I was unsure which looked the most scary, though on reflection, a gurning Nan muttering profanities under her breath probably takes the title.

Nan treated me to a curt nod and grudging, gummy hello before shrilly snapping “Shat ap you noisy bloody fing!” at Yappy, curling her lip and dragging her charges homewards.

It’s good to be back

Nan

The old saying about not judging a book by its cover has some wisdom behind it and although I like to think that I don’t judge, I do so frequently-  as does the rest of the world. I’m just honest enough to admit it.

So on first glance, Nan looked like a archetypal little sweet old lady. A tinge of blue rinse, sensible winterwear and two long haired tiny terriers, each sporting a matching snug coat. One was yapping non stop and was able to sniff, wee and jog about while in mid yap. Mrs Bitey had a vague sniff but didn’t pay a lot of attention to them as she was busy with vital squirrel observation duties.

Nan said hello and paused to chat about the usual elderly chat top topics: weather, time of year etc.

Another Dog Park regular, Fang, a scary looking but very soppy Alsatian was in the distance with his owner Sandie. Mrs B likes Fang as much as she likes any dog, i.e. not a lot but tolerates his presence, and Sandie is lovely and knows Mrs B well so there were no worries of a Tricky nature.

Nan gestured her head at Mrs B and asked “Is ‘e friendly?” She then peered at Fang in the distance, “what abat ‘im?” before appearing to anxiously glance down at her 2 terriers. I found myself burbling on in a gushing reassuring manner about how lovely Fang is and how well behaved he is etc.

Nan looked unconvinced and then piped up “Pity. I was ‘oping ‘e’d ‘ave that noisy one and teach ‘er a lesson! I ‘ate ‘er, she’s a facking COW!”

It’s hard to explain the tone of voice in which the word COW was spat out. It was more like a drawn out CAAHH really and was spiked with OAP venom.

Stunned is not the word. With my chin(s) resting somewhere near to my toes, I nodded mutely as Nan told me about how she had lost her beloved Rottweiler and was now walking the terrier pair regularly for a friend. “It’s not the same” she sniffed, “Especially wiv that noisy facking COW. I ‘ate her”.

It was like meeting Nan from the Catherine Tate show and I found myself casually glancing around for a camera crew.

I bade Nan a hasty farewell as Mrs Bitey was starting to size up the Yappy COW in a vaguely menacing way and I didn’t share the prospect of a dismembered Yappy COW in the same vein as Nan did.

As a parting shot, Nan told me…

“My friend’s got two of them little ‘uns an’ all, them chawawa fings. Don’t even get me started on them little fackers…”

I didn’t