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Dear Mum and Dad, it’s your dog Clancy here, writing from my home in the city.
Here’s the latest news. My housemates, Man and Lady, are on some sort of savage and irrational diet. Fair enough, each to their own. Except the diet includes the insane injunction, “There shall be no toast”.
I can see you shaking your heads in disbelief. This household once contained endless toast.
Both man and dog know: kumara is OK, but it’s not toast.Credit: iStock
There were battalions of toast soldiers, marching from plate to mouth – actually, my mouth – begging to be eaten. There were also torn triangles of Vegemite toast, which I woofed down in the hope of maintaining my B1 vitamins, “essential for brain function”, and B2, which “supports your nervous system”. (I’ve pasted this from the Vegemite corporate website, but I’m pretty sure it’s accurate.)
Sometimes there was even toast served with sliced cheese – a combination of ingredients that, as I chewed, led me to debate that eternal question: If you were on a desert island and could choose to have a) only cheese or b) only toast, which would you pick? It’s a question, of course, that can never be answered, because toast and cheese are the equal best ingredients known to dogkind.
Yet, suddenly, into this nirvana, comes the ban. No toast. No toast at all. Nary a crumb.
Even the beloved young grandson, Pip, is denied toast. “We can’t have bread in the house,” says Man, “otherwise I’ll eat it. We’ll cook up some kumara for him instead. Apparently, that’s very low GI.”
Pip is a growing child, you idiot! He doesn’t need low GI! Oh my God, suddenly I realise: they’ve joined a cult. Pip and I are victims of a cult. Please send help!
I’m a big fan of Pip, by the way. Apart from his excellent qualities as a young human – stroking my ears, kissing my muzzle, letting me chase him down the hallway – he is, in normal times, my chief supplier of toast. He sits in his chair – a normal chair now, no longer a highchair – and I lie on the ground below. Man and Lady – pre-cult – would give him an excess of toast soldiers, many of them attractively anointed with Vegemite.