Bad breath and hairy slippers

Imagine a big fish.  Imagine a great big fish.  Imagine a great big fish that died a while ago.  Imagine that it's been kept in a warm place in a sealed plastic bag with a pile of old, wet, black, slip-on school pumps that little kids wear.  Now imagine that this bag has been swallowed by an ancient walrus.  The bag bursts inside its belly and it does the biggest burp ever.  This burp clears the beach of all of his wives and children.

Now you may be getting an idea about Bertie's breath.

It's not his teeth.  His teeth have been cleaned by the vet under anaesthetic.  And I do them every day with liver flavoured toothpaste.  It's not his gums, which are healthy.  It's not his stomach, which is fine.  It's just Bertie's own unique thing.

We picked up the dogs from the kennel on our way back from Anglesey yesterday.  We were so excited about seeing them.  It had given us a lot of freedom, not having to constantly worry about whether they are too hot, too wet, going to kill other holiday-making dogs, eat the sea-birds, poo on the communal lawn, invade other people's tents, snatch ice creams out of toddlers hands etc etc.  But we were really looking forward to picking them up.  

After jumping around for a few minutes, Bonnie passed out on Olivia's feet in the front of the car.  She looked like she had a doggy hangover.  I suspect that Bertie had been keeping her awake at night.  Poor Abi had to squeeze Bertie onto her knee on the back seat, sandwiched between the cold box and the bag of dirty washing.  Within seconds his little black hairs were circulating round the car and the three of us were holding our breath and reaching for the window controls as his hot panting breath overwhelmed us.

"It's got worse!" I gasped.
"It's just that we're not used to it anymore," Olivia pointed out, holding her nose.

We bombed down the M6 with all of the windows down, bags and papers flying around the car in the near hurricane conditions.  Bertie talked to us in his high pitch whine all the way.  He told us that we must never leave him again, ever.  That he'd spent the whole week waiting for us, and shouting at the other dogs in the kennels.

Since we got home the dogs have attached themselves to me.  As I type I have Bertie's chin and hot breath on my left foot under the table.  Bonnie is stretched out over my right foot so that I can't move without disturbing her.  My feet are quite hot.  When I move the dogs follow me.  When I shut them out of a room, they press their noses underneath it and snort and sniff, checking that I'm not escaping out of the window.

Talk about guilt tripping!

The chickens were very excited to see me, especially as I'd brought them a huge lettuce.  This morning Delia laid an egg.  Is this the end of her broodiness?