7 Aug 2020

I’ve mentioned before about the amazing functionality of my phone. It takes the place of a lot of devices that I no longer need to cart around, and it does it all on a handy item I can keep in my pocket.

I was editing a list today in the NOTES section of my phone. If you don’t utilise the notes area of your phone, or heaven forbid you don’t have a phone capable of keeping notes for you, then I pity you. I love my notes.

I have all sorts of stuff in the notes section on my phone. Shopping lists, books I want to read, password reminders, membership numbers, dimensions of my wardrobe interior, drafts of emails that may or may not get sent, recipes, websites of interest, travel wish lists and soooo much more. If I hear something that interests me that I want to learn more about later, I whip out the phone, and make a note of it. It is the biggest notebook I’ve ever had!

And, by the way, it’s the home of all this Diarrhoea. Every edition has its origin in the notes section on the phone, starting in the “HLD ideas” note that gets added to often, through to the writing of the diarrhoea itself.

One of the notes that I was editing today is entitled “Dog List”. It’s where I make a note of the name of a dog that we meet up with, usually with a basic description of the dog so I can easily recognise it next time.

Because I like to greet dogs we’ve met before, by name. Chewie goes for a butt sniff, but I prefer to call them by name instead.

Often by the second or third encounter with the dog and it’s human, I find out the name of the human as well, and I edit the note to include their names.

There are heaps of dog names on my list. It will be handy if you are ever stuck for a possible name for a new dog – let me know because I have a handy source document.

I was in the hardware shop today and got talking with a six month old Scottish terrier and her owner. The dog licked a lot, the human talked. Nobody sniffed anyone’s butts.

It did get me thinking though, about dog people and non dog people.

When Chewie goes to our local coffee shop for her treat (and my coffee) we walk through a cafe and bookshop area. The owners are very dog friendly and more than happy to have four legged visitors, but just occasionally we get a glare from another patron as if to suggest that my dog is liable to poop on their Eggs Benedict at any given moment…

Just so you know, she’s never done that.

Ever.

She’s much more liable to beg to help you eat it. She’s quite partial to eggs and even enjoys a bit of spinach.

But we also regularly run into people who like to have a chat about the dog, often stop and pat the dog, talk about the dogs they own or used to own, and so much more.

I can tell who are dog people and who aren’t. Very easily. And if I can’t work out what category they fall into, the dogs always know.

As a diagnostic tool, though, it’s handy to note that the non dog people get very upset about all the butt sniffing. I stayed away from their Eggs Benedict, so they should be grateful for small mercies really, shouldn’t they?