The Doggie Sleepover
Well, at last the sleepover weekend had arrived and Ellie was excitedly awaiting the arrival of her bestest bestest friend Archie – a beautiful – or should I say handsome, totally black working cocker spaniel.
Archie and Ellie. 2 Dogs Sitting Quietly, a Rare Sight!
As soon as he arrived Ellie and Archie greeted each other by madly racing around the garden and rolling over each other, taking it in turns to play top dog with madly wagging tails and the occasional bark of delight.
We all sat and drank tea and ate biscuits, and still they played. We took them down onto the beach for a couple of hours, and still they played; we returned home and yes, still they played.
Finally we sat them down quietly at opposite ends of the lounge and they obediently sat for a few minutes, until Ellie on full stretch, slowly crawled a few paces towards Archie; he, with a wag of his tail rolled over – just the once – towards her, and so the pattern continued until lo and behold they were together again giving each other gentle licks on the mouth and ears.
The gentle licks soon became a little more frenzied and the wagging of their tails slightly more frantic and they were back playing again!
So the afternoon continued, Ellie being the perfect hostess would wait quietly whilst Archie drank water from her bowl, and she would leave her toys that he wanted to play with. Watching quietly from the sidelines whilst he ripped an old tennis ball to shreds. The perfect lady we thought proudly, until dinner time that is, and then she really let herself down…..big time.
We put the dogs food in their bowls and on the eat command they both started to tuck in. Ellie as usual downed hers in one long suck of her vacuumous jaws. No stopping for breath, no time to taste, just gulped down with a final licking of the lips. Archie on the other hand, remembering his best table manners delicately crunched each biscuit and chewed each piece of hand cooked (what!?) chicken, often stopping to look around and digest each mouthful. Big mistake. No sooner had Ellie licked her bowl clean than she stepped over to Archie’s and began devouring his. Needless to say she was removed from the room!
Finally it was bedtime and when each dog was settled for the evening, in separate rooms, we also retired and fell exhausted into bed. Suddenly I sat bolt upright, Archie was howling – or so I thought. It went on for a good half hour and my thoughts towards our house guests were none too polite.
Finally quiet resumed until 6am the following morning when I was awakened by constant howls and scrapping of doors. That blasted Archie I thought and with great irritation strode down to the hall to stop the noise, only to find it wasn’t Archie but Ellie who I have never in my life heard howl before. She was calling to her love-mate in vain – he was snuggled up with his master fast asleep.
I did have the decency to blush slightly as I remembered by irritated accusations of the night before, not for one second did the thought cross my mind that it was Ellie making that awful noise.
As soon as they were reunited that morning Ellie and Archie resumed their fun and games, licking and pawing at each other, racing madly round the garden, Archie ripping any stray ball to pieces and Ellie stealing any fragment of raw hide she could. She did, thank goodness, stop short of taking the food out of his mouth, but that was about it.
The funny thing was neither took objection to the other, whatever they did, they shared a mutual enjoyment of every moment together and when Archie finally left later that afternoon, Ellie took a moment as we waved him off and then collapsed exhausted into her basket and slept for 2 hours!