DOGS

Luckily he's only 11 lbs, if he was a large dog he surely would have been euthanized by now.

One of our dogs is a long-haired Patterdale terrier. The kind of dog that's more a type than a real breed. In Ireland at least, you still mostly find them killing rats on farms or going out hunting rabbits and whatnot. You can tell they're a serious kind of dog, because auld lads are always looking at Bittser admiringly and telling me what a grand little dog he is. "I bet he's a great ratter," they'll say. Or, "I bet he keeps you on your toes." He does not. He has his run around off the lead for about an hour in the morning, and sometimes he'll chase pigeons in the garden for a while in the afternoon, but otherwise he snoozes all day in our ancient cat's bed, and then cries at me if I don't put a blanket over him in the evening. I was saying this to a woman today and she said, "You obviously have the other kind of Patterdale. Probably why he was dumped." Her sister had a Patterdale for a while and had to give it away because it attacked her red setter and almost killed it.