by Anna Wilson
MACMILLAN CHILDREN’S BOOKS
Contents
1 How to Tackle Behavioural Issues
2 How to Make a Right Dog’s Dinner
3 How to Be One Girl and her Dog.
4 How to End Up in the Dog House
5 How to Get into Another Fine Mess
6 How to Deal with a Honk Fest
7 How to Behave (Dis-)Obediently
8 How to Open Your Mouth and Put Your Foot in It
9 How to Put a Brave Face on Things
10 How to Come Up with a Masterly Plan
11 How to Build an Agility Course
12 How to Make Up After Falling Out
13 How to Get Inspiration
14 How to Work as a Team
15 How to Be a Pup Idol
1
How to Tackle Behavioural Issues
I hope everyone out there will know by now about how I, Summer Holly Love, finally persuaded my mum to let me have a wonderful puppy all of my own called Honey.
And how my annoying and embarrassing older sister, April, tried to steal her so that she could get a date with the vet Nick Harris – and, most importantly, how my best friend, Molly Cook, and I (oh, and Mum in the end, I suppose) came up with a Masterly Plan to get April her date and get Honey returned one hundred and ten per cent to ME, her Rightful Owner.
If the Reading Public do not yet know all this, there is no excuse: it’s all there in Puppy Love, the fascinating and frankly terrifically gripping account about how I came to be a very responsible and loving dog owner . . .
Anyway, things have Moved On since those early days of dog-ownership. For a start, April and Nick are Going Out, which apparently means they Stay In and watch telly – and URGH! This means that the sitting room is almost always Out Of Bounds, so I am finding that I spend more time out in the garden or the park with Honey.
And then there’s the fact that my puppy Honey is actually not so much of a teensy-weensy puppy any more when you look at her. She is still a very cuddly and cute thing, of course, and she is not fully as big as an adult dog, but she is growing and growing by the day. I sometimes think that if I had the time to sit and watch her every second of every minute (and I really wish I could do this, but Real Life keeps getting in the way), she would actually grow before my very own eyes! Just like one of those little foam bath toys you can get that positively explode growth-wise the minute you drop them in the water.
At any rate, I have been taking pictures of her once a week ever since we got her, and when I had a look through them on the slideshow thingy on the computer, it was exactly like a cartoon ANIMATION of a dog getting huger and bigger at a very high speed. So that’s how I know how much she is growing.
Now, I don’t know whether this is connected to her getting bigger, or whether it is just her own cheeky personality TRAIT, but I have noticed that as well as growing in a Physical way, her naughty habits have been getting rather larger too.
But of course she is still adorable. And anyone with ears as soft and velvety as Honey can get away with most things in life. (If they are a puppy, that is. A person with soft and velvety ears would just be gross.)
In fact, Honey is so adorable and has become such an important Part of My Life that she recently came very close to knocking Molly Cook off the top spot of best-friendship. It was a terrible and difficult time, which involved lots of cross words (as in ‘being angry’, not a puzzle in the newspaper – although those are so difficult that they sometimes make me have a terrible time too). In fact, at one point I thought I would never have any friends ever again . . .
All of this started with Honey becoming a bit of a handful and developing A Mind Of Her Own. She seemed to have become totally deaf when I called out any of the commands I had taught her when she was small (not that she was that brilliant at listening then, but at least she tried) and instead would go off and Do Her Own Thing.
For a start, she would leap and jump about all over the place and not come when I called her. It was most distressing and was beginning to make me feel quite sad, as I realized that I was losing the Special Bond that I had had with Honey when she was a tiny little cuddly puppy that I could just pick up and hold in my arms.
Well, I certainly could not do that any more. Apart from growing, Honey had become really quite strong. Sometimes when we were out for a walk she would forget she was on the lead and she’d shoot off after a passing bird or cat, or even sometimes a leaf – yes, she is that daft – and lift me into the air like dogs in cartoons do, and I’d be flying behind her shrieking ‘Heel! Heel! STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!’ while she ignored me. She was not yet a year old at this point, but Nick Harris – who was still our vet, even though he was also snogging my sister, which was surely a Conflict of Interests Under the Trades Descriptions Act – said that she would carry on growing until she was a year and a half old.
‘Holy Shmoly!’ said Molly, which is one of the things she says if she is shocked or surprised. ‘If she carries on growing at the same rate, she’ll weigh, oh, at least fifty kilos by the time she’s one!’
Molly normally knows every fact there is to know about everything, but I have to say that there is one Area of Life in which I happen to be more of an EXPERT, and that is dog-related facts. Anyone with even a small amount of dog-type knowledge will tell you that fifty kilos is a ridiculous weight for a female Labrador. But I didn’t think I should point this out to Molly in case she got offended.
Anyway, however much Honey would finally end up weighing, it was obvious that she was going to keep getting bigger, so unless I learned to train her better I was DESTINED to be a Laughing Stock among dog owners – and probably anyone else who saw me walking her in the park as well. I could see it now: me being pulled off my feet by Honey; us bumping into Honey’s mum, Meatball, and her stinky owner, Frank Gritter; and him guffawing in an uproarious manner and bellowing, ‘She’s walking in the air!’ in an out-of-tune RENDITION of that famous Snowman song. It was not an image that bore too much thinking over.
On top of all this, Honey had developed some pretty weird and horrid habits around the house. First of all, she had taken it into her head to eat shoes. . She had decided that she liked nothing more than a tasty bit of slipper or trainer for a snack. That particular habit really got out of hand when Honey ate one of April’s best flip-flops.
‘I can’t stand that mutt!’ April screamed, when she discovered Honey with the remains of a gold flip-flop strap hanging out of her mouth. Poor Honey did not know what she had done wrong.
I’ve told you all about Honey’s shoe FETISH,’ I explained calmly to April. ‘If she gets hold of a shoe, it’s your fault, April. You should not leave them lying around.’
For some reason Mum nearly choked on her cereal when I said this.
I felt like also telling April that it was not Pleasant to say ‘mutt’ (which is an ugly word), especially because if it hadn’t been for Honey, April would never have got together with her Beloved Nick. But I thought that might be pushing things a bit.
Instead I said, ‘Honey’s just becoming an Awkward Adolescent. You know – a teenager. She’s going through a Bit of a Phase, that’s all.’
Mum really did choke then, and had to run to the bathroom. On the way she squeaked something about April having been an Awkward Adolescent herself in her Dim and Distant Past.
There were other, more terrible incidents that Mum in particular didn’t find at all amusing, like the time that Honey jumped up and pulled the Sunday roast down off the kitchen table when Mum had gone to the door to let in some guests.
And the time when she chewed April’s new mobile phone.
And the time she ate the birthday cake that Mum had just made for April.
And the totally weird time that she pulled all the dis
hcloths out of the sink and shredded them around the kitchen.
So all of this made me think that I probably needed to find out more about training Honey so that could I find a way to tackle what Molly had started to call Honey’s Behavioural Issues and get back to having a Special Bond with my dog.
I decided I should talk to Mum about this, as I thought, being a grown-up and everything, she might have some useful advice on the matter. So on the way home from school one night, I practised in my head how I might start this conversation. (I do this a lot when I am particularly Anxious and Concerned about something. It helps me to get the words out better. Sometimes.)
‘Hello, Mum! Wow, what a truly SCRUMPTIOUS and delicious Aroma of delightful PROPORTIONS,’ I would say in a Bright and Breezy manner as I entered the kitchen.
And Mum would say, ‘Thank you, Summer dear. I am Concocting a supper fit for a , because that is what you are to me, my sweetie-pie.’
And I would reply, ‘Oh good, because I would simply Adore to sit and have a cosy chat with you while you are cooking. You see, I REQUIRE a spot of motherly and wise advice about my relationship with Honey . . .’
I was just putting my key in the lock and muttering my final sentences to myself when Mum opened the door at the same time as me and said, ‘Ah, Summer! Just the person I wanted to see.’
Well, what a strange thing to say, I thought. I am, after all, her beloved youngest daughter, so of course I am just the person she wanted to see.
‘Summer Holly Love,’ she said, ‘we have to talk about that hound of yours.’
And I thought, Isn’t it strange how Great Minds Think Alike?
2
How tom Make a Right Dog’s Dinner
‘Oh, right!’ I said to Mum, using the Bright and Breezy manner I had been practising in my head. ‘That’s funny, cos I was just about to say the same thing.’
Then I realized Mum was looking at me in a Distinctly unhappy manner: her eyes were actually and dazzling, she was breathing rather more deeply than is normally necessary in an everyday kind of situation, and her nostrils were what I would describe as Scary and Flary.
‘Oh?’ said Mum, her eyebrows disappearing frighteningly fast into her fringe.
‘Yeah,’ I said, talking faster, hoping that my Brightness and Breeziness would soothe Mum’s Scariness and Flariness. ‘The thing is, I’ve been worried about Honey and how she isn’t listening to me any more these days on the whole, and well I suppose I was kind of wondering if you and me – I mean, I – could sit down and have a cosy chat about it and figure out what I could do to – er – Progress Our Relationship To Another Level.’
(I’m not really sure where that last bit came from. It certainly hadn’t been in the well-planned conversation in my head. ‘Progress Our Relationship To Another Level’ is the kind of thing they say in those serious Sunday-night-type dramas on the telly, which are basically boring love stories for grown-ups where everyone is miserable and not in love any more and they are trying to find a way to make up again. I only hope this doesn’t happen with Nick and April as it looks like it’s a right old palaver. I often think these people would be much happier if they just stopped weeping and moaning at each other and had a full-on instead. It’s much the best way to make friends with someone again when you have been arguing, I have found. Mainly because it’s difficult to keep sulking when you are being sprayed with water and your friend is soaking wet and having a hysterical giggling fit. The other thing that always works is chocolate ice cream, but not for fighting with, of course.)
By this point Mum’s nostrils had flared to such proportions, I was worried that she might breathe in and suck me up into them. Urgh. I had to try really hard to concentrate on what she was saying instead of thinking about what the inside of her nostrils would be like.
‘I think you’ve got more to worry about than “progressing your relationship”, young lady,’ Mum snarled.
I gulped.
Then I realized that Honey, who I’d thought was just sitting nicely at Mum’s feet, was actually being held rather tightly by the collar and was not looking very happy about it.
Honey was also looking a bit odd. She seemed to have brown and red stuff smeared all around her mouth, and she smelled strangely meaty.
‘Shall I tell you what this delightful MUTT has just done?’ Mum asked. (There was that unpleasant word again.) Somehow, I didn’t think Mum was going to wait for an answer from me, and I was right. ‘I came home from work early, as I had – and still have, in fact – a thumping headache. I went into the kitchen to get some water from the fridge, and I found this . . . this . . . ANIMAL . . . this HELLHOUND . . . with the ENTIRE contents of the fridge all over the floor, FILLING HER FACE!’
It was at this Stage of the Proceedings that I noticed the state of the kitchen.
The fridge door was hanging open, and milk cartons and yogurt pots and those plasticky trays that sausages come in were STREWN around the floor. It looked as if the fridge had suffered an Almighty . I was actually hoping that that really was the case, but then I looked at Honey again, and it was obvious what had happened. She had eaten the lot. There was not one item of food left. Not a bean. Not a sausage. Not a single strand of anything. She had even eaten April’s disgusting face-mask CONCOCTION that she insists on keeping in there – I could see the plastic tub she keeps it in, lying half-chewed on the floor next to an empty cheese wrapper. Now, that is what I call desperate. And I would have said so, only I was actually, really, truly speechless.
A TORRENT, as Molly would say, of questions raced through my head like the water bucketing over the Niagara Falls: How did Honey open the door? How did she even get into the kitchen, when I usually shut her in the back room before I leave for school? How did she even know to go to the fridge to find food – surely she couldn’t have smelled it through the fridge door?
Slowly it Dawned Upon Me: I had been in a rush that morning. I had promised to meet Molly early so that we could catch up on our Celebrity Club, as we had missed out on a few meetings recently and we had some important dog-related celebrity stuff to discuss. Maybe I hadn’t shut the door properly. And, actually, maybe I hadn’t shut the fridge properly after getting my packed lunch out either.
Whoops. So it was me Honey had to thank for her mega-snack.
‘It’s no good, Summer,’ said Mum, sounding a bit calmer now that she could see how shocked I was. ‘You are going to have to train this animal properly. First she chews shoes, then she helps herself to the Sunday roast, then she steals dishcloths and now . . . and now . . . THIS!’ She took a very deep breath and continued. ‘You are going to clear up this mess, then we are going to ring Frank Gritter’s mum and ask her where they went with Meatball to get her to behave so beautifully, and then you and Honey are going to obedience classes.’
I was totally and utterly MORTIFIED with an extra-large capital M – in other words, very upset. How could Mum stoop so low as to involve Frank Gritter in my life in any way? He was a boy and he smelt of socks. It would be Social Death at school if anyone realized that I was taking advice from Frank.
And as for obedience classes – that sounded far too much like extra school lessons to me.
3
How to Be One Girl and her Dog
Have you ever noticed that life doesn’t always go exactly how you have planned it? I seem to notice that more and more these days as I get more maturer. I know that I had been thinking that I needed to train Honey better, and I know that I had wanted to talk to Mum about it. But I certainly had not thought that her SOLUTION would involve Frank Gritter and extra lessons for me.
At least Mum didn’t call Mrs Gritter straight away like she said she would. She had too much of a headache, I think, and anyway, it took me about five hours to clean up the mess Honey had made with all the packaging and eggshells and things she had left on the kitchen floor after her monster binge-out session in the fridge. By the time I had finished, Mum was flat out on her bed with a wet flannel o
n her forehead and the curtains drawn.
I decided it was the best place to leave her, so I went and quietly did my homework and tried hard not to think about obedience classes. I thought that Molly would be frankly as APPALLED as me – in other words, horrified at the whole idea, and decided to chat to her about it as soon as I could.
The next day I asked Molly round after school so that we could talk in private. I didn’t want Frank Gritter getting The Wind of anything before Mum had even called his mum. That would be far too embarrassing. So Molly and I had tea in the garden because the weather was quite nice and sunny, and I told her how Outraged I was at being sent to special dog classes.
I was expecting Molly to immediately tell me a Masterly Plan for how I could get out of this situation, but she totally flabbergasted me by having quite a different point of view.
‘You keep saying you want to “bond with Honey”,’ she reminded me. ‘Well, obedience classes will be just the thing to “progress your relationship to another level”.’
I made a humpfing noise and stared at my tuna sandwich. I had a Distinct Impression that Molly was laughing at me for some unknown reason, but I did not want to waste time trying to unfathom it at this PRECISE moment.