Dog in the house

So last night I was just outside our house after unceremoniously dumping our old sofa in the back garden when a small black dog wandered up our driveway and just stood looking at me.

With no apparent owner of said dog in sight, I chanced being bitten and investigated the tag on the collar of previously mentioned dog. As the address was one somewhere just round the corner from our house, I decided the best course of action would be to return 'Blatch' (what kind of name for a dog is that?) to his owner.

Knocking on our front door to inform Mrs D. of my intended action pertaining to the canine, I held on to the collar of our new friend, lest he wander into the road and be mangled.

Mrs D. appeared, the dog wagged his tail and she informed me that she had seen him running solo up the road some days previous as I danced Flatley style in front of our open gate preventing his entry into our back garden.

Blatch, being an intelligent sort, immediately spotted that I had little experience dealing with his kind - dismissing me and my gate protecting folly - choosing instead the easy route past my beloved. He gave her a cursory glance that they both seemed to understand and headed straight through my house and into the back garden.

Now this is probably just me, but I feel incredibly uncomfortable with a strange dog in my back garden - something that I discovered only that day. Mrs Dion seemed overly joyed with the turn of events however and both her and 'good old Blatch' were wandering round the garden sniffing and deciding what he should urinate on next.

I managed to disguise my discomfort rather well I feel, only occasionally skipping about and waiving my hand in the manner of an excited Michael Barrymore on an early episode of 'Strike it lucky' in a vain attempt to encourage our visitor to depart the way he had come.

After an arbitrary amount of time both Mrs D. and the local littlest hobo decided that it was time for him to be on his merry way by some psychic link that I was not party to. Whenceupon, she lifted him up, took him to the front door and let him loose.

He did not - as I suspected - immediately run back to our back garden for more urinating fun, but instead opted for a quick glance at us, a wander over our front lawn and a stand on our wall before deciding that today would not be the day that he settled down and he would indeed keep moving on.

This has led me to believe that I understand even less about our canine pals than I first thought and that the missus may actually have psionic powers. All I can hope for is that the exchange between the smell of feline urine for canine urine in my garden will result in less stand-offs between me and the local moggy population resulting in less embarrassment on my part.