Our Dog Eilis...

Eilis is one of our dogs...she is supposed to be a pure bred Jack Russell but her papers were lost...I bought her for five punt ( before the currency changed ) from a chap at a horse fair we'd come across quite by accident...not the man...the horse fair.

There she was huddled up in the gutter tied to a comatose donkeys leg with a bit of string...she was small enough to fit in my hand and I felt sorry for her...so I asked the man how much he was asking and he said twenty-five and I laughed and walked away...he changed his mind and said I could have her for five but he'd left her papers at home and I said that was perfectly alright and he untied her from the donkeys leg and handed her over...

All this occurred outside a butchers shop...with the butcher watching...no sooner had I scooped this little scrap up than the butcher appeared in his doorway...Psst...psst...he was holding a small package in his hand and offering it to me...a bit of chicken he said...for the dogeen. I said goodness me thank you ever so much and he said no problem...

All that happened eighteen years ago. And Eilis has been my hair shirt ever since.

She barks. She barks when we come in and barks when we go out and barks at nothing in particular...most of the time. And she snores loudly. And her claws grow very long then all you can hear is her clicking across the floor...we have to pay the vet vast sums of money to trim her claws because I tried it once and she had hysterics...

When she was no more than a couple of months old she ran right up to the very top of Knock na Shee mountain after sheep...the sheep scattered save for the ram who stood his ground and knocked her flying...she ran all the way back down again...we used to take her out in the car but she eats stuff...she ate through my seatbelt and through the wires at the back that connect to the lights and she'd stand on my lap...when she wasn't eating stuff...and bark furiously at cows and people and other dogs...spit flying everywhere.

She chases my cats and bit the meter mans trousers and if she goes out of the front door she races up to see Bruce and Sammy the dogs who live next door...then she stands outside their gate and barks at them...

Eilis likes sitting in things...she sits in my basket of knitting and on wet towels on the bathroom floor and once sat on my hyacinths and squashed them...

And she adores drinking coffee...leave dregs in your mug and leave the mug on the table and she'll find her way up there and then she'll slop away...happy as Larry...it makes her high as a kite.

She buries bits of dog biscuit then digs them up days later to eat them and brought a bit in one day that had a huge green slug on it...

Eilis adores going for walks but she has to have a lead on otherwise she simply runs away across the bog and no amount of bawling at her makes any difference...she comes back...but only when she decides to.

She's a bit fat now and the fur on her face has gone grey...she sleeps up against my back every night like a hottie bottle that never goes cold and sheds hair all over the throw...

I hope she doesn't get ill...I hope she just goes to sleep one day because although she's a total pain we do love her.

Eilis is pro. Eye-Leesh... a Dogeen is simply a small dog.