Some joker once told me that greyhounds can’t sit. And for a while we thought it might be true - after all, they’re very muscle bound and, well, if you had buttocks like enormous chicken drumsticks, you wouldn’t want to spend too long teetering on them either I’d wager. They certainly don’t sit when they’re begging, or at any stage between standing and lying down - they just tend to hurl themselves onto the sofa, or do that walking round in circles thing getting closer to the ground with every turn.

Still, the gangly one has once again bucked a trend in his own inimitable fashion. I went to the gym today (more of that later) and when I came back I noticed the skies were looking rather grey and angry. Still, that’s nothing unusual in Cavan so I decided Bert deserved a walk after all that waiting around. Well, 100 yards down the boat road and the heavens opened. We’re not talking a bit of drizzle here either; we’re talking a blowing-a-hoolie ferocious wind, accompanied by sideways stair rods that I’ve only encountered the likes of in Cavan. The lake was frothing like a dirty great cappuccino and I was actually quite enjoying myself. Bertie, on the other hand, has a pathological hatred of getting wet and decided to stage his own dirty protest, proving that greyhounds certainly can sit by plonking himself smack bang in the middle of the road and refusing to budge. This was accompanied by a very Scooby Doo-like ‘harumph’ kind of sigh and a raising to heaven of the windscreen-wiper eyebrows. He’s a big lad, as you know, so after ten minutes of woman vs greyhound tug-of-war that I was patently losing, I gave up and stood forlornly, the rain dripping off my nose, practising my swear words. I came up with a few new ones when it turned out that my new ski jacket isn’t waterproof (hmmm, guess it only has to be snow-proof) and big, cold drips started making their way down my back.

‘Twas only when a dirty great tractor pulling a trailer load of cows started meandering down the lane that Bert realised it was either him or the Massey Ferguson and that the Massey Ferguson might possibly win. So he picked himself up and sauntered slowly to the grass verge, where he stood as the tractor driver drove past us laughing, yes, actually laughing, at the mad English woman with her ridiculously hormonal dog, standing drenched in the p*ssing rain. Git.

Anyway, so the upshot is that yes, greyhounds can sit, but only when they’re sulking, so try not to let them as they’re nothing but bloody trouble.

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