September 2010
Any thought I might have entertained that, at 12 months, Toby might start growing up was dispelled the day I discovered a long-lost ball under the bed.
Toby seemed determined to make up for all the weeks he had missed it.
He kicked it, threw it and chased it all round the house, using the lounges to give him extra spring and speed.
This frenzy of activity exhausted me, a mere spectator, long before it did Toby.
I was just grateful that it wasn’t raining for the first time in a week, that I’d shut him out of the house while I washed the floors and they dried, and that I’d dried his feet before allowing him back indoors.
The endurance of those lounges is certainly well tested by Toby.
One evening his favourite “uncle” came to dinner. As soon as he sat down on a lounge, Toby leapt onto it and draped himself around his shoulders, the better to lick his head.
Our guest, seeking reassurance that this attention was motivated by selective affection, asked “Does he do this with everyone?”
“No. You’re the only one who lets him.” Right answer, wrong explanation.
After nine months, I was convinced that Toby must have exhausted every means of distracting me from shaving.
But I had underestimated his ingenuity. He chose a particularly chilly morning to roll a cold, wet rubber ball up between my legs.
I had yet another reason to regret having rediscovered the ball, and it was clearly time to swap my short shaving robe for my long winter dressing-gown.
I think Toby must have overheard my telling someone that this column might soon have to end, owing to the recent lack of new material. Being an avid reader of the Kangaroo Valley Voice, he evidently determined not to let that happen.
An hour or so after the bathroom incident reported above, I remembered it was time to give Toby his twice-weekly squirts of ear-cleaner, a procedure to which he had previously submitted more or less meekly – at least to the extent of allowing me to massage it well into each ear before he violently shook his head.
Not so that morning. As a result I learnt that the liquid is harmless to the human eye, but most unpleasant to the taste.
Furiously sucking a peppermint, I then left to go shopping. On my list was a birthday card for a relative with an affection for frogs. The only froggy card I could find croaked when opened. I really should have waited until Toby was outside before writing it.
He raced from window to window, and out into the garden, barking furiously. I could do
nothing to persuade him that a plague of frogs had not descended on Kangaroo Valley.
Early one morning something came perilously close to penetrating the main artery in my right arm. I must admit that the evidence was merely circumstantial, but I could not deny that one of Toby’s incisors was the most probable culprit.
I realised that it was easy to wash blood out of sheets, and the paint on my wall is alleged to be washable also.
But removing it from a doona might well prove more problematical.
So, with great reluctance, I cast aside my shroud of guilt and decreed that it was time for the morning rough and tumble games on my bed to come to an end.
Some people are born with cleft lips.
I acquired mine late in life, courtesy of Toby. That said, I have only myself to blame.
Having banned games on the bed, I sought other means of entertaining Toby.
One morning, when he was sitting on the lounge, no threat to anyone, I crept up to him, with eyes staring, making ghostly sounds.
His response was swift and clear: “This dog is not for scaring”. He reared up, and swiped the would-be spectre across the face with one paw. I use an electric shaver, so shaving with a tissue held tightly to my upper lip proved to be an unaccustomed challenge.
Lesson of the month: Don’t tease creatures bigger or stronger than yourself.
Tony Barnett