Haggis: The Real Truth

Our humans like to have their friends over to join them to eat.  Mostly, Daddy cooks pieces of dead cow over fire in a big metal box, but recently they served something called Haggis.  Mummy likes to explain what she has prepared and where it came from.  As fish retrievers, we are particularly well known for our love of fine cuisine, so Tobermory and I always listen to her stories particularly carefully.  I would now like to tell you what we learnt about this interesting little beast.

 

Haggis are only indigenous to the land that Daddy came from where the male humans wear skirts.  There are two types of Haggis, Anticlockwise and Clockwise.  Ancient Haggis would graze up and down hills but started to graze in circles around the hills and evolved into the two breeds.  An Anticlockwise Haggis has shorter legs on the left side to make it easier to walk around the hills, and a Clockwise Haggis has shorter legs on the right.

 

As an inquisitive dog, I felt that my Haggis education would not be complete without seeing what a live one looks like so searched for a picture of one on Mummy’s writing box, and here it is.  As you can see from its lopsided appearance, this is obviously a Clockwise Haggis.

 

After an extensive hunt, Mummy found a particularly fine herd of Haggis on the East Coast and managed to obtain an Anticlockwise Haggis, generally known as the most tasty of the two which I gather is very unusual this early in the Haggis hunting season.  Tobermory and I helped to clear up and we have to agree that in the words of a very famous male skirt wearer from many human years ago, this truly is a “chieftain o' the puddin' race.”

 

Talisker

How Toby got his Wag Back

As fish retrievers, swimming is in our blood.  On Sunday our humans went to eat human kibble with their friends at a kennel with a hole in the ground with water, so you can imagine our excitement when we were told that not only were we allowed to swim, but one of the humans that lived there threw yellow fluffy balls into the water for us to fetch. 

 

I have to admit to being a little rusty as I haven’t been swimming since my first lesson last year.  It took a little time for me to get the hang of it, but Talisker’s a good swimmer and gave me some pointers, like use all four feet to paddle and most useful of all, use your tail to steer.  I didn’t learn that last year, but man does it make the whole swimming thing easier.  Eventually Talisker told me it was time to get out of the water and go and check out the human kibble.  I was enjoying myself too much and kept going until Daddy spoiled all my fun and made me join Talisker under the table.

 

When we got back to our kennel I was exhausted and went straight to bed.  That’s why they call it “dog tired.”  The problem happened when I woke up.  I’m always happy to see our humans in the morning and wag my tail enthusiastically to show how much I love them, but it wouldn’t stand up and wag.  Do you have any idea how frustrating that is?  Talisker told me it was my own fault because I didn’t get out of the water when he told me to so had worn my tail out.  The worst bit is that when we had to sit before eating our breakfast, my tail hurt.  Mummy was really mean all day, calling me “Mr Droopy Tail” and Daddy said they should give me one of the little blue treats that humans eat when their tails don’t stand up.

 

Finally Mummy took pity on me and spoke with our Doctor on the talking box who advised giving me one of the treats that Talisker gets when his leg hurts.  I’ve always wondered why he’s so happy when he gets those things and now I understand.  Everything outside the front of our kennel looked much less threatening and didn’t seem to need barking at and the best part of all, my tail stopped hurting and I got my wag back.

Tobermory