By Huw Le Lytle

22 June 2017

The park was full of life today as it was so much cooler than yesterday and everyone was finally able to go back for a visit. We met a little puppy, said hello to some picnickers, and all shared our various water contraptions because it is always good to road test every invention that is on the market for water on the go.

23 June 2017

Today is Bring Your Dog to Work Day, but ours was lock yourself out of the house day. Deputy managed to lock us all out just as we were setting off to go to the park. So Human took us all to the garden in the flats across the way, so we could relax on the cool grass. A lady came out and told us that we shouldn’t be there, and so Human explained our predicament, and she said it was fine to stay. And then about 10 minutes later she came back with a big bucket of water for all of us, and a bottle of water for Human! She told us about her dog who had passed away, and we had a great chat.

Howard took it upon himself to greet absolutely everyone who went past. A man fell rather a lot in love with Howard and kept saying “he’s my favourite” (of course, one should never have favourites!) and he even came
back after his meeting to say hello to Howard again and to introduce him to his

Even Kitty Pryde took park in Bring Your Dog to Work Day

colleague. Aubrey sat on the pillar on sentry duty (watching Deputy and the neighbours work out how to retrieve the keys that had fallen inside).

Then a lady came home to the flats with her daughter and her little boy. She was from Portugal and her family used to have Portuguese Water Dogs, so she came over to say hello and to admire Aubrey. Her little boy fell in love with Howard, who was doing his Meerkat bouncy jumpy manoeuvre. And then the little boy started giggling and imitating Howard. And so they were both bouncing up and down giggling at each other. The lady explained that her little boy was autistic and she said how wonderful to see the friendship with Howard. Her little girl called us all cats, which made us all laugh.

And then, just as we were all getting used to zoomies in the exciting new garden, the neighbours and Deputy managed to retrieve the keys from inside the door with some careful coat hanger work and some dismantling. We all cheered, because an hour had passed already

Howard’s movie suggestion

and the locksmith was still deciding whether he could be bothered to come or not.

So that saved us a huge locksmith fee (hopefully to be spent on a big supply of ribbies). And then Great Uncle Bulgaria came round for pizza and to watch Fire Walk With Me with the humans. It was rather scary stuff. And Human kept asking where Lara Flynn Boyle was.

Howard said we should have watched a Will Ferrell movie.

24 June 2017

Today the humans went into Covent Garden and Oxford Street for some shopping, which means that of course they went to one of our favourite places, Bow Wow London, and brought back lots of treats and toys. Jeff was overjoyed as all the toys were for him (a selection of squeaky rubber “balls” in the shape of a chicken, a penguin, and a pig).

We went to the park this afternoon. The weather had been quite good all day, so the park is always a high risk situation on a summer weekend. As we approached the park we saw some people outside who had clearly been very thirsty and had been knocking back fluids all afternoon. I’m not sure what these fluids were, but one of the park goers managed to fall over while standing still and talking to her friends. This was very curious to me so I made sure that at no point was I standing behind her. Which was difficult, because when they saw us they all wanted cuddles. Of course, Aubrey thought this was marvellous. One of the park goers told us that he had three dogs

Howard made another movie choice

but could never walk them all at once. He asked Human, how do you do it? And Human pointed out that they were walking only two each (obviously the poor man was seeing double). The man still seemed a bit perplexed about the maths, but at least he thought we were all amazing and was really happy to hear we were all rescue dogs.

And then tonight Howard has seen an advertisement for a new Will Ferrell movie, so he is very happy indeed. He can’t wait until it comes out on DVD so that he can add it to his collection to carry all around the house.

25 June 2017

Today’s trip to the park was a bit fraught with danger. Today’s weather has been nice, not too hot, and so lots of people were out to enjoy it. So there were lots of picnics, and football games, so we headed to the playing fields for some zoomies space. But when we got to the playing fields there were some rather awful teenagers who kept throwing pizza and pizza boxes at all the dogs (and some of the people). Dogs should never eat pizza. Apart from it being really unhealthy, commercial pizza dough and sauce is full of onion powder. So Human asked them nicely to pick up their rubbish, and of course you can probably predict the quality answer that Human got. So we left the field and played elsewhere instead.

And then we met a man who said we were all such lovely dogs, and he had a huge cuddle with Aubrey. So he asked if he could take a photo to send to his wife, who was in Greece. He said that they both love dogs and they always promise each other that whenever they see a lovely dog when they are not together, then they will take a photo to send each other. So very sweet that dogs are a message of love for them.

26 June 2017

Today we did some blue sky thinking on the roof, Howard picked some music, and Bulldog Drummond slept in a bowl. It was a tad warm again today, but we still had lots of fun in the paddling pool.

Howard has also discovered there are some mice living in the garden. So he spent a lot of his afternoon trying to tempt them to play. I am not sure Howard would even do
anything if they agreed to some zoomies. He found one near its tunnel in the garden, it ran over Howard’s foot, and he just stood there and watched it. He didn’t seem to be bothered at all. This bodes well for the mice, who seem to be getting more and more bold in Howard’s company.

27 June 2017

Today Human got up extremely early and went to a conference all about animal welfare. The conference was especially about positive animal welfare, which means basically making sure animals are happy and not just “not sad”. That’s a very important difference. And it is going to change the world!

28 June 2017

Human got up very early again this morning and went to the conference again! I was less happy that this was happening for the second day in a row. But all is forgiven when Human walks in the door again. And we all get greeted individually. It’s important that no-one is ever left out. Howard always seems to know when Human is about to arrive. So he always gets there first. Although that could just be because he heard a taxi pull up. Because, if I’m honest, he also ran to the door for a taxi that pulled up outside about half an hour earlier. He was quite astonished and disappointed when someone else got out.

29 June 2017

Howard has no interest in early mornings and so hides in Jeff’s tail

All right, this is now getting ridiculous. Human got up really early again this morning and left us again! But Human got back a little earlier today, and apparently today was the last day, so that was joyous news. But then they went out again tonight to meet up with Kipper’s and Rudi’s humans. We love their humans. Kipper and Rudi are both rescues. And they have very cute and big sticky-uppy ears. Especially Rudi, because she is a Podengo.

30 June 2017

Wonderful news! It was true! Human did not go anywhere this morning. And we were all enjoying some morning cuddles when Howard alerted us to a potential neighbourhood threat. He was objecting to a man loitering in a doorway. Howard always becomes quite disconcerted by people lurking in doorways. The man then got into a blue van that was parked outside the house and then he just sat there. This bothered Howard also. Why was the man sitting in his van? Why wasn’t he moving? The scenario was indeed mysterious and had all the ingredients that Howard finds most irksome – Howard has no patience for lurking in doorways or sitting in cars. He finds both of these activities of inactivity to be very suspicious. Although it could be that in fact he doesn’t like blue. Because the doorway was blue, and the van was blue.

But we all made Howard feel better. Human said, would you like us to look out the window with you, Howard? And so we all did, which reassured Howard enormously, and he went back to sleep on his pillow. But with one eye kept on the man. One can’t be too careful!

Human and Deputy went out for a few minutes in the afternoon, but our greeting when they got back was just as extravagant as if they had been gone for weeks. Deputy says that if they ever feel unloved or undervalued by the world, they just need to walk outside for a few feet and come back in again to feel like the most treasured people in the world.

Then we all went back to work in the Lookout Library. It is indeed one of our favourite places. It has a wonderful view of life. And it is full of stationery. And Howard loves stationery.

Happiness is in the details.