It's Me Or The Octopus

My Dear Fellows and Dear Princess,

I bloody love YouTube. It is full of great stuff I used to love that people don't care about anymore. My latest discovery is that whole episodes of It's Me Or The Dog are on there.

I love doggy programmes. To be brutally honest, I prefer watching the dogs before Victoria trains them. I love other people's naughty dogs that chew up the skirting boards and wee on the cat. 

Victoria is a bit annoying actually. She can be a bit shrill and is trying desperately hard to have a tv persona, but I put up with her because of the lovely doggies. She uses one technique called "sound aversion" which is where, when your doggy attempts to hump your granny, you make a noise like this:

BLULALALALAAALOOOOLOOOOLOOOLAAAAA!!!!

It is true, this does stop the dog doing whatever it was doing, but on the other hand, you look like a flaming nob-end. I think I'd leave granny to fend for herself.

However, a technique I liked was for barky barky dogs. Victoria basically encourages them to bark. 

VICTORIA: Yes! Yes! Bark! Bark for me! Goo' boy!
DOG: Bark bark bark bark  bark bark bark  bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark...
VICTORIA: That's it! That's it! More!
DOG: Bark  bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark...

After a wee while, you could see the dog was getting a bit fed up. Checking his doggy-watch and starting to get tired. But Victoria was relentless. "More! More barkies! Don't stop!"

Eventually the dog tired out and stopped, knackered. But then later on, he accidentally let a bark slip out when someone rang the doorbell.

VICTORIA: Goo' boy!!! Bark for me! Bark bark bark!
DOG: Oh f*** me, not again.

So that is (apparently) how you cure an extra-barky dog.

We also enjoyed a documentary on iPlayer called The Octopus In My House. It is about a scientist who gets a pet octopus called "Heidi" (because she is very hidey). Heidi is very sweet, and by the end of the show, both Caro and me wanted a pet octopus of our own to play with. 

And if the octopus jumped up at the postman, or refused to get off the bed, I'd just use Victoria's techniques on her. What could go wrong?

S.