My Pets Are Arseholes and Other Stories

My pets are arseholes, they really are.  We have two dogs and two cats and I can say, without reservation: they’re all arseholes.  I could leave it there but I’ll give you some examples.

We got a rescue kitten in March.  All my idea.  The husband thought we had enough on our plates with full-time jobs, three children, two dogs and a senile seventeen-year-old cat (I’ll come to him).  I thought he was wrong.  Maybe it’s me who’s the arsehole.  Anyway, I digress.

We ‘rescued’ this kitten.  The clue’s in the name. She needed a home because she was being fostered.  She needed a ‘forever home’, the advert said.  She was supposed to be eternally grateful that we’d taken her in.  Do you know how she showed her ‘thanks’?  By shitting in the cat-box within the first five minutes of the return journey.  We had to wind down all the windows, motorway and all, with our heads hanging out of the window like Labradors enjoying the sea air in Lytham-St-Anne’s.

We bought a thirty quid bed, to welcome her to her new home home.  She ignored it so resolutely in the first few days that the Staff (I’ll get to that fucker in my own sweet time, too) thought it was fair game and annihilated it, leaving only a confetti cloud of stuffing and material.

By coincidence, we bought new pillows a few days later and temporarily put the old ones on the landing for the night, in the exact same place where her specially-bought-and-thoroughly-ignored-then-subsequently-chewed bed had sat.  Guess where she decided to sleep from that moment onward?  See?  Arsehole.

Because she’s cute, she gets away with so much more than she should.  For a start, she’s a greedy bastard.  She sits on the side in the kitchen (I know, very hygienic) and wails with ‘hunger’, as though she will swoon from the lack of nourishment at any moment.  So I feed her. And then find out that in the last ten minutes she’s also been fed by the husband, the eldest and no doubt a couple of the neighbours (she’s a regular visitor in their homes, I’m reliably informed).

And, may I add, she only loves my husband.  The one who didn’t give a shit either way whether we got another cat or not?  Him.  Arsehole, arsehole, arsehole.

Ahh, the senile cat who has chosen the bread board as his regular place of rest.  We have four sofas, an ottoman, six padded dining chairs and four beds.  He chooses the bread board.  The place where we lovingly (ahem) prepare food for the family.  The place where all the TV adverts say hosts more germs than your loo so it’s imperative to keep it thoroughly disinfected.  The place that is semi-permanently covered in breadcrumbs (you know, being a ‘bread board’ and all that?)  Surely it would be the equivalent of sleeping on the beach and ending up with sand in your nether-regions?  It can’t possibly be comfortable.  Arsehole.

He scratches to go out.  We get up and open the door for him, and he looks at us as if to say ‘WTF?’ and wanders away (usually into the kitchen to sleep on the fucking bread board).  Then, when he’s outside, he scratches, cries pitifully, begs to be let indoors.  I open the door and stand there like a knobhead whilst he leisurely licks his arse as though his desperate pleas to be let in are all in my imagination.

I lift him carefully down from the windowsill, thinking his old joints aren’t what they used to be (even though he can still manage to jump up onto the bastard bread-board.  Did I mention that?) and he cries in protest as though I’m disturbing his peace and quiet.

Then he pisses on the landing carpet.  Arsehole.

Our seven year old Sprollie is generally less of an arsehole than the other three but she still has her moments.  This is a dog who was quiet, and pliant, and calm…until we got the Daft Staff.  Now, she barks at nothing.  Is that a breath of fresh air?  I’m going to bark for fifteen minutes about that.  Yes, I am.  Yes, I am.

Are all my humans fast asleep?  Yes, they are.  Should I bark for no reason and wake them all?  Yes, I think I should.

Did a person breathe in the next town just then?  I believe they did.  Bark, bark, fucking bark.

Please throw my ball for me when we are out on a walk.  However, I’m not going to let go of it, even though I would like you to throw it.  It’s a conundrum that I want you to solve.  I will bring you the ball, hold it in my mouth and give you my best puppy dog eyes.  I will look down the path along which I would like you to throw the ball.  But I ain’t letting go.  No, sirree.  Nobody’s getting this ball, let me tell you.  Now, please throw the ball that is firmly adhered to my mouth.  Please.  I’ll fight you for it.  Why are you being so mean?

Arsehole.

Then there’s the Staff.  The four-year-old lunatic who people cower from, not realising that not only does he not have enough brain cells to formulate a plan to attack someone, but also that he’d much rather chew my bra in half or wind up the Sprollie by pinching her ball.  Needless to say, that’s why she’s not letting go of it.  Even though she still wants us to throw it so she can chase it.  Arse.  Hole.

The Staffie and I have an understanding.  I respect that he loves his little humans so much that he wants to be with them all the time.  Every single minute of every single day.  And I make certain allowances for this because they adore the bones of him in return.

He understands that when he knocks me off my feet when we’re out walking, or lunges to grab food from random strangers, or pinches footballs from teenagers who are trying to play a game, or refuses to come back to me in front of other people when I shout of him, even though he is perfectly obedient when we’re on our own, that I will think he is an arsehole.

And then he farts on every step as he walks up the stairs and goes to sleep on my newly-washed bedding.  Absolute arsehole.