I have adopted a 4-year-old toddler from Scotland. She’s a feisty little bitch who guzzles her food, shits prodigiously and ignores everything I say.  When she’s not sleeping on one of her many beds she likes to lick her own arse and fanny before drooling and slobbering the resultant gunk over me.  Her breath stinks, her hair is matted and filthy and her social skills leave a lot to be desired.  She’s adorable. She’s incorrigible. She’s irresistible. She’s a dog.

  Never having had a dog before, I’m adapting surprisingly well to this sudden change in my domestic arrangements.  Bonnie, a West Highland Terrier, has moved in because her previous “master” is seriously ill and can no longer care for her.  Every day she leads me a merry dance to and from the unprepossessing parks of south Cardiff, seemingly incapable of passing a droplet of stale mammal urine without stopping to thoroughly investigate while I shiver in the cold, damp, grey of the Cardiff Autumn.  Everyone tells me how good for me all this additional walking is; and I am bound to agree.  The only fly in the ointment is the reason I resisted canine charms up to now: poo-poo.  Call me squeamish but I am having the greatest difficulty picking up hot, wet shit from the pavement, even with the help of the two-year supply of poo gloves I was also bequeathed.  As a result I have become the sort of person that I would have roundly condemned just a couple of weeks ago: the selfish, inconsiderate, filthy bastard who leaves his dog’s crap all over the streets.  I feel I’ve arrived: surely now Splott will accept this (Old) St Mellons gatecrasher? 

  But in the long run this can’t go on.  There are heavy fines for not picking it up.  I think I’ve worked out a solution: a complete surgical colonectomy followed by the attachment of a small colostomy bag (tartan would be nice).  Then I could get away with feeding her one multivitamin in the morning and only have the hassle of disposing of a small lentil of hard poo once in a blue moon.  Where’s the Yellow Pages?