Thursday 20th November

Hello again - thanks for staying with us this month, so enthusiastically, and so inventively. Here's today's prompt:

20

If you want fidelity, get a dog. It’ll make you happier, my mother said. You have dogs and you’re not happy, I told her. I know. Bad dogs! she laughed.

31 comments:

  1. They laughed at me when I wanted to call our new dog Fido. ‘It’s traditional,’ I moaned, but no one would listen. So now it’s Goldie. Apparently glistering beats fidelity.

    ReplyDelete
  2. She ruffled Ebony’s fur. “A bad dog only wees on the duvet.”
    “Well, at least a man doesn’t do that.”
    “No,” she smiled thinly. “He’ll go whee on someone else’s.”

    ReplyDelete
  3. He clock watched
    stared at
    the closed door
    log fire
    cosy blanket-
    difficult to get motivated-
    stiff knees, old joints
    but
    she'd be there
    walking the same path
    tail wagging.

    echulme@hotmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  4. Young Victorian ladies had followers, nowadays called stalkers. The word follow also means to accompany, attend, espouse. I’m her follower, I follow her faithfully through life. And she follows me.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Father fell in love with our friend's dog Melusine. It was the first thing he mentioned, ringing home. She was big, beautiful and neurotic. She couldn't bear to be alone.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Lucy shivered. “There’s a draught.”

    “No, that’s Jester, Frederick’s dog. He died years ago but dogs don’t go to Heaven. He hung around down here instead, where everyone loved him.”

    ReplyDelete
  7. If you want fidelity, don't bother getting humans. The very fact that I'm having to address you here today is proof. Not long ago, I was happily blogging away but now She's become obsessed with this whole Your Messages thing and I don't get a look-in.

    Humans have a long history of infidelity. I don't want to give too much away as I really do think that a dog should hold a little back for himself and I don't want to blow apart my reputation as Domestic Dog of Darkness. I like to leave little clues littered around and it never fails to amuse me how they take the bait and concoct wild stories from minuscule pieces of information.

    I don't like guns. Yes, I'm a Labrador but remember that humans are supposed to be intelligent aren't they and the evidence is pretty damning that this is not always the case. Anyway, I hate water pistols and loud bangs, particularly the explosive sort. Do you not feel that it is perfectly healthy to have these fears? Exactly. I could hardly conceal this little quirk in my otherwise flawless nature and so the seed was sown. Then there was Liam, the boy's friend. He obviously wanted to play chase and I sprang into action, bringing him to the ground by his sleeve. It's not like I killed him or anything but my mysterious past as crime buster has been elevated to legendary status.

    I don't suppose that they even suspect that I am just a failed gun dog with a few unresolved issues. They do know that I'm on my third lot of humans after the last lot left me tied up outside all day but I do like to indulge their fantasies as it puts bread under the table.

    ReplyDelete
  8. My dog, Robbie, ran off to live with an old man in a crooked house. My husband did the same thing except the man was crooked, the house was old.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Karma or destiny synonymous
    with a dog’s watchfulness,
    fidelity. Merry or morose,
    Struggle or surrender, karma,
    like espoused saint or shadow,
    chases you to the end.
    My dog my Karma.

    ReplyDelete
  10. A wise man once said to me,

    “If you want loyalty, get a dog.”

    I could see his point. The anger of my betrayal seared. I pulled the trigger anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Dogs can teach you how to deal with others: be kind, be loyal and love unconditionally. However, smelling another person’s butt will get you in trouble so that’s not advisable.

    Jamieson Wolf
    jamiesonwolf@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  12. Two chairs rocking on the porch
    for fifty years without a pause
    one is empty now
    one is mine
    I sit and rock and stare
    at the chair
    empty now

    ReplyDelete
  13. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  14. If you want fidelity, get a dog. It’ll make you happier, my mother said. You have dogs and you’re not happy, I told her. I know. Bad dogs! she laughed.

    “Dogs can break your heart too,” I said “Just look at that time when Dad came over a month after the split.”

    My mother looked at me, and in a flash we both replayed how our dog, Archie, bounded into my Dad’s car and wouldn’t come back out. After a year of trying to paper over the cracks of their marriage caused by Dad’s repeated and barely hidden adultery, my Mother finally told him to leave. The first few weeks were like having an entirely new woman around. The vast relief my Mother must have felt, finally being free from having to cover up her husband’s lack of interest in his children, and their lives was enormous. Dad was asked to leave and continue leading a life that involved taking his assistant on production trips, seeing married ex-girlfriends and having casual sex with whichever woman happened to take him on in a bar.

    After twelve years of a miserable marriage with someone who did exactly what he pleased, my Mother was right to feel liberated, and looking back I wasn’t surprised that she didn’t shed a tear after his departure.

    But the night my dad came round to pick up his belongings and the dog made his feelings clear, was worse than any of the revelations my mother had been subjected to throughout the years. Archie wanted to be with Dad, not with her. And as she tried to coax the dog back in the house, she became hysterical. The dog wouldn’t budge.

    “I didn’t think you’d remember that”, she said.

    “I remember it. Dogs can break hearts too, Mum”

    ReplyDelete
  15. The soldiers killed all the dogs. They were scared the dogs would warn us they were coming. They were scared, my mother said, her mouth bloodied. They were so young.

    ReplyDelete
  16. After he’d left, she lay beside me. Her weight and warmth crept into my sleep; I felt less alone.
    Dog hairs on the duvet were a small price to pay.

    ReplyDelete
  17. What is there to say about dogs, fidelity and men?
    That the leash must not be too long? Stay clear
    Of rabbits? What morality would Aesop deduce
    From Pavlov's tale?

    ReplyDelete
  18. After years of faithful service and eyes bright with pain, I eased her on her journey. You are not faithful, nor have you pain, yet I’d happily do the same.

    ReplyDelete
  19. After the shipwreck of my marriage, my mother gifted me a Welsh Corgi and sternly advised “write every morning from nine to twelve, like Graham Greene but without the drinking”.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Our cats Skimble and Jess make me happy. They're funny, mischevious, playful and full of cupboard love. They're not high maintenance like dogs and are excellent nursemaids when I'm ill.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Every time Paula’s love life went wrong she ended up sobbing her heart out in Mum’s kitchen. She loved the smell of the puppy her mother had just bought. “I suppose I could get a dog, they love you whatever happens.” She said, nuzzling her face into the puppy’s fur.

    As Paula drove home she started to work out what sort of dog she could buy. She didn’t want a pedigree, they had odd problems. It couldn’t be too big, because of her house and she didn’t have time to exercise an active one.

    She needed a small dog, from a rescue home with a good temperament and felt that if she could find that, she would be happy. There would be somebody to welcome her when she got home and to watch weepy movies with.

    She called her mum and told her the plan. Her mum listened and said, “Yes dear, tell me, this last boy, James, what was he like?”

    “You know my type, tall, blonde, taut body. Everything I always look for, simply gorgeous.”

    “So, when you buy a dog, you go for character, practicality and intelligence, but in a man, it’s simply what they look like.” Her mother didn’t give her time to interrupt. “I once heard that a sure sign of insanity was to keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result. Something like, every time I push my hand in this fire it gets burnt, but maybe this time it will be different.”

    Paula was shocked on her end of the phone. “Mum, you can’t be suggesting that I should choose a boyfriend the same way I would choose a dog! That’s an awful suggestion. Surely, I should look for love.”

    Her mother laughed. “I thought that’s what we were talking about!”

    monkey @ monkeyonmyshoulder.co.uk

    ReplyDelete
  22. ‘It’s raining again,’ she says.
    ‘You don’t say.’
    ‘Can’t you go?’ she says.
    ‘He’s your dog.’
    ‘Please,’ she whines.
    ‘Oh, OK.’
    ‘I love you,’ she says. ‘The lead’s by door.’

    ReplyDelete
  23. Dogs, cats, horses...
    No matter what she tries to replace it with it is never the same. You cannot mend a broken heart. And now I have learnt the lesson.

    redjim99

    Jimbarron@walkauvergne.co.uk

    ReplyDelete
  24. Set a dog free and it will come back to you. A friend set hers free, it ran across the garden, the field, through the woods. Never again she said.

    Martin

    ReplyDelete
  25. Reasons for getting a dog:
    You like barks not words.
    They exercise you.
    They frighten burglars.
    Perhaps previous residents left a lead behind?
    You’ve got rats.
    Your neighbours dislike dogs.
    Mary Rose

    ReplyDelete
  26. You were like a dog without a tail-
    I never knew whether to approach you

    or keep my distance.

    If only I’d known your bark
    was worse than your bite.

    ReplyDelete
  27. The woman sat alone weeping for her lover behind closed doors. But he was there beside her, faithful and devoted to the end. No-one knew her dog as she did.

    ReplyDelete
  28. If its owner has the bad taste to die, a cat will start gnawing on the corpse immediately. Dogs usually wait a day or two. Is this loyalty? she wondered.

    freya_scott@yahoo.com

    ReplyDelete
  29. I tried cats. True, they did their own thing, pretty much; stayed out all night, only came home for food. But just sometimes they would sit with me, purring. Bliss.

    ReplyDelete
  30. I can't take it any more. He leaves muddy footprints on the carpet, hair all over the sofa, and slobber all down my neck. Time to find a divorce lawyer!

    ReplyDelete
  31. You get used to a certain level of adrenalin. He doesn't come in late smelling of other women's perfume. He doesn't shower you with affection and gifts to make up.

    ReplyDelete

Add Your Own Message Here
If you want to take part - great. All you need to do is add your response to our message here as a comment, but remember it has to be exactly 30 or 300 words, and it needs to be posted before 8am GMT the morning after the original post for each day. Please also remember to add your Name and Email Address to the end of your message, so that we can get in touch if your work is selected.