Tag: memu

It does sound like the start of one of these jokes ‘a horse walks into a pub, and orders a beer etc.’ but it does appear to be a true story.

We went to look at a new house to buy today and as we had run out of polite things to say to the owner, we shifted the conversation to dogs as she had mentioned they had previously owned one (we presume now gone to doggy heaven, or part of a divorce settlement and gone to live with her ex husband along with it seems also half a grand piano, the ties she had cut the bottoms off and the mid life crisis sports car that may have been the start of the the bad times that had ensued.

Anyway, back to the dog. The dog it seems was a Patterdale Terrier called Zoom. Quite why you would name a dog after an on-line conference calling application flummoxed me.

To be fair the dog had perhaps pre-dated the technology age, but it still seemed strange. Nevertheless, calling a dog Skype or Microsoft Teams would have been equally surprising!

As a previous owner of a Patterdale Border terrier cross, I know Patterdales have some endearing qualities to hopefully offset their not so endearing ones of chasing cats and terrorising other dogs who might dare to greet them. Patterdales do like to be liked by people and it seems Zoom was no exception. Being an intelligent dog he had worked out that when he was taken to the local pub, the kindly drinkers of the Fleece would make a fuss of him, let him sleep by the fire and feed him with some very tasty pub grub. In Yorkshire we not only give our pubs sensible no nonsense names like the Fleece, the Rams Head or the Shepherds boy; we also serve decent size pub food portions meaning there is often a bit going spare for a hungry terrier!

The downside of this great local hospitality was it seems that every time they returned home from a walk, particularly in wild and wet wintry weather when the only prospect for the dog was perhaps a bit of a cold hose down to remove mud, and then some not very appealing supermarket dog food, the lure of the pub was too much and he would run off there at the first chance.

So the moral of the story to us was…if you decide to live here and your dog goes missing…check the pub first!