Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
It was after one such display of appalling dog handling that Brian, the trainer, called
us over. Quite a tall, forbidding man and desperately serious about our misdemeanours, he
plunged into a lengthy description of all the things we were doing wrong.
During this diatribe I glanced down and saw to my horror that one of Brian's trouser
legs was changing colour: Sam was calmly peeing up his leg. What a nightmare! I had no
idea what to say. Interrupting his monologue was obviously out of the question, so instead
I motioned silently towards the leg in question. Things went severely downhill after that.
Poor Brian took one look at his saturated right trouser leg and bellowed, “You little
bastard! Get that dog out of here right
now
.”
We were never invited back, but I'm convinced that after these formative lessons, our
general levels of 'good citizenship' were tremendously improved.
Another feature of life with Sam was that most people mistook him for a collie. This,
as any dog owner who is (obsessively) dedicated to their own breed knows, can be frustrat-
ing. I am no different. Much as I like collies, as far as I am concerned, the two breeds are
completely unalike. So, much to my husband's irritation, I would spend as long as it took
to correct any misidentification, no matter how well-meaning.
So that was Sam. Biff was a different matter altogether.
