One minute you’re sitting at home, wondering if you’ll get to see that wee honey of a labradoodle up the Dawsholm Park this weekend. The next, it’s on with the collar and you’re being dragged along to some supercilious Byres Road eaterie which claims to be “dog-friendly”.
And then you’re expected to just lie at the foot of the table docilely, like that brainless big English Sheepdog in the Dulux paint adverts who, by the way, is an absolute throbber and cuts about as though he’s Lassie the Wonderdug. We’ve reported him to the Dog Actors Union dozens of times for being a psycho, but nothing ever happens.
What follows next is torture. For an hour or so, plates of pigs, sheep, chicken, ducks and cows are being passed back and forth above you while you’re expected to budge not a jot. Barbie and Ken think that just because they’ve given us a tin of jellied, left-over gruel before we came out that this will stop us getting the munchies while they’re getting tore into their Chicken Kievs and their Steak Dianes.
Big Rab the Lab from Partickhill was telling me about the ponytail and red corduroy roaster he’s been landed with. One evening, his owner was so out of his nut on the electric smarties that he kept dropping his food all over the floor. What was Rab meant to do? He snaffled them all up and kept getting a fly boot in the haw-maws for his trouble. How would you like it if all you’ve had for your tea is a crispy pancake roll and then you get taken to Mother India’s for an all-inclusive where you’re not allowed to eat anything but a couple of poppadoms?
Then some feckless student assistant will come over with a bowl of water, as though that’s going to shut us up. And then they’ll come out with all that “who’s a good boy, then” in that goochy-goochy-goo voice as though they’re talking to a wean. I’ve seen things … I’ve seen things you little people wouldn’t believe.
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You can’t win with the bowl of water malarkey. If you refuse to drink it, it’ll seem impolite and the two horse’s arses who brought you here will get petulant all the way home. So, you finish the lot and then, guess what? You’re bursting for a slash for the rest of the dinner. And despite there being table legs everywhere you can’t do anything about it.
Sometimes that wee pair of Maltese Shih tsu dollybird seductresses, Fifi and Amber from Hyndland Road might be there flashing their big eye-lashes at you and shoving their new, studded leather collars in your face. But see if you want to pop over and give them some of your chat, everyone gets all fidgety and nervous and you get a slap. It’s just like in The Godfather when Michael’s back in Italy and observes that “in Sicily, women are more dangerous than shotguns”. It’s the same with dogs. Being a Jack Russell, everyone thinks I’m looking for a square-go. But most of the time I’m actually just wanting to organise something for the following week. And, by the way, I should point out here I’ve done all my diversity training about inappropriate conduct.
I’ll tell you a true story that every “dog-friendly’ restaurant owner needs to hear. I was doing my usual raid on the food bins behind the student flats in Maryhill the other week. There’s usually rats up there and, on a good night, you could sink your teeth into about half a dozen of the wee pests.
So anyway, I meet Tam who’s just spent a day on a farm where he must have wrung the necks of about 50 rats. The next week, the big man tells me that on that very same night he got taken to that new Chez Hugh place in Finnieston which Ron Mackenna in The Herald was gushing on about.
Unfortunately, Tam’s had a wee coughing fit all over their fancy carpet. Not having had time to brush his teeth after his juicy rat-fest, he must have released about 50 shades of botulism into that restaurant. The last I’d heard, the place was shut down by the food inspectors after an outbreak of rabies. It was 10 times worse than the time they had to shut that Edinburgh restaurant which was importing its frozen meat supplies from a Ukrainian pet cemetery.
And by the way: see on our group chat last week we were also discussing that new place in the town where a decent steak will set you back about 50 smackeroonis. Well, you know how we’ve got a far keener sense of smell than all of you? See that specially imported rump steak that’s been cured on the thighs of Andalucian maidens and left for 28 days at the top of a mountain? Naw it iznae. It’s nothing more than discarded horse meat that’s been injected with a newly-discovered monosodium by-product that can only be detected by dugz.
And here’s another thing. We know what restaurants are ripping the pish out of you with their prices and selling sub-standard meat. All I’m saying is this: there’s a reason why some of us get hired to sniff out dead bodies. Ken what Ah'm sayin’.
It’s got to the stage that some of the boys in the DugzApp group are thinking about getting counselling from Davey the Preacher, the old Afghan Hound who organises the Bark of the Covenant canine drop-in centre at the back of where the old changing rooms used to be at Glasgow Green.
There’s also been a hidden emotional cost post-Covid for dogs. During lockdown we all got to meet hundreds of new pals and formed deep and spiritually-rewarding relationships because – let’s face it – we were getting dragged out every hour of the day for a walk.
And then, as suddenly as it started, it was over and we never got to see our new pals again. This hasn’t been good for our mental health. Taking us to restaurants in this frame of mind really isn’t great for us. Just leave us at home. We’re not going to start chewing your carpets or your Burt Bacharach vinyls.
