Another day, another dead thing

       We’d just left the beach this morning and were walking through the car park when Pip picked up one of those disgusting, half-decomposed dead things.

It looked a bit like this...

At first I thought it was a piece of bark. Then I saw the shrivelled up claws. For a moment I thought it might be a frog or a dead bird. But a close examination revealed the ghastly truth. It was a rat!

         I tried in vain, stopping and offering Pip a treat so that he’d drop the rat. But there was no way he was giving up his prize for two tiny pieces of Puppy super coat.

So he carried it all the way from the beach car park to our back yard – about a kilometre. On the upside, when he has something truly gross in his mouth, he can’t chew on his $40 lead – something he does a lot lately. He’s almost worn it through already in one place but luckily it's double-ended.

We started climbing the back stairs up to the house and I said to him, ‘There’s no way you’re bringing that disgusting thing inside!’

Now, I realise I’m in grave danger of becoming a weird dog person, but I’m really starting to think Pip understands me. He dropped the rat under a tree and obediently trotted up the stairs with me so he could take up his spot on his designer doggie bed.

So far, so cool. But...

Several hours later, I opened the back door to go pick the kids up from school and, of course, he raced into the backyard to pick up his treasure. He insisted on carrying the dead rat all the way to school. Kept it firmly in place as we stopped and chatted to a couple of ladies, hung on for grim death as Evonne the lollypop lady bent over to give him a pat and then thoroughly grossed out the school Mums by flipping it up in the air and catching it in front of them.

Luckily, D2 came bounding out at that stage and in a moment of distraction, I managed to yank Pip away from the rodent. D2 then very kindly found a stick and ‘golfed’ the dead rat away from the playground.

Another day, another dead thing!