“Greetings all,
I was lying contentedly at the Blogger’s feet the other day – I’ve been holidaying with her and the skinny dog while my humans are cycling around Europe – when I heard her muttering that it would be slim pickings on outsidethesquare101 this month because she hadn’t done anything exciting.
I lifted my head in surprise. Nothing exciting? Who was she kidding? She’d had my company for starters.
Why don’t you, I suggested,
#69 Outsource Your Blog to a House Guest
Like me!
She looked sceptical at first, until I reminded her that she’d introduced me to new, exciting smells and that I’d challenged her to exercise more (there’s a reason she’s known as the Blogger, rather than the Jogger).
I added some intense staring for good measure …
and before long, she was putty in my hands.
So, by way of introduction, the name’s Otto.
I believe I was called after the famed 10th century German king, Otto the Great.
The more prosaic rumour – that it was because my humans love the Italian language and I’m the eighth dog the family has owned – is nothing short of mischievous scuttlebutt.
Legend has it that my fearless father was a Border Collie who was never meant to meet my mother, let alone … well, you know.
Fences and distance were no barrier to him though, for who could resist the allure of the gorgeous golden retriever-poodle cross, living on the adjacent farm? A little over two months after their accidental meeting, their tiny bundle of joy arrived.
…mini me
Which I believe makes me a Border Groodle, a hitherto little-known breed. And being a combination of the two most intelligent dogs in the world (as rated in every single dog survey ever published) AND the best family-friendly dog known to mankind, you can see how I lucked in from the very beginning.
Add to that my perfect deportment, and I’m pretty irresistible.
As I mentioned, I’m sharing digs with the skinny dog, too. He’s a strange little thing who seems to feel the cold. Very quiet most of the time, but when we’re lying outside and the sun moves, he gives this high pitched bark, and the Blogger rushes out to move his bean bag back into the sun. Talk about spoiled!
And now the silly boy thinks that if the sun goes behind a cloud, he can bring it back with his squeaky bark.
I’ve been having a bit of fun with him lately, ‘cos although we get on well, I can easily put him off his game. If I half-stretch across a doorway, it spooks him out, what with me being a properly proportioned dog and he needing to run around in the shower just to get wet. So he won’t walk past me.
The other night, when he was too sooky to go around me to get outside, he ended up piddling on the Blogger’s best Persian rug. Did I laugh!
Of course, she just petted him as she mopped it up and told him it wasn’t his fault. Grr! 
So smug on his velvet cushion
And I have no idea how a dog that gets fed three times a day stays so skinny. I’m only allowed one meal at night – you couldn’t call the pitiful handful of kibble I get in the morning a meal – and yet I never lose weight. So unfair.
But I digress. We’ve all three been having some marvellous adventures because the Blogger takes us out twice a day for walks and ball chases and manages to find lots of new places to explore.
First, we went to a park she called by a funny Welsh-sounding name like ‘Adogoffleash’ park where even the skinny dog was let loose. Apparently he’s never to be trusted off his lead out on the street. Unlike Yours Truly.
It was a foggy morning, not another dog was in sight and we had a ball (if you’ll pardon the pun).
Magical!
Then we went to another place with water and fish and humans on cycles (but not my humans [sigh]) called ‘horseshoelagoon’ and it was so exciting I forgot to let go of my ball and carried it the whole way!
There were cultural outings, of course, which were enjoyably interactive. I managed to leave my mark at the base of every one of the gorgeous sculptures on this particular walk, so that other visitors with the correct olfactory skills would know that “OTTO WAS HERE”.
But best of all was when I introduced the Blogger and skinny dog to the sights of the city from on high. She did agree when we were at the top that the vista was superb.
I can’t believe they’d never been up to Nail Can Hill before. I’ve got to say she coped surprisingly well going up Hernia Hill, but it was a tad embarrassing for skinny dog and me as she was trying to come down.
As all these fit young runners in their activewear skipped down the steep inclines, looking supremely sure-footed, the Blogger – let’s just say she crouched down and went for a very low centre-of-gravity method of descent, pretending she was inspecting the wild flowers if someone passed. Mortifying!
No doubt about it, we knew we had the world at our feet.
And my rating of this holiday resort? Definitely five stars.
Hope I can come back again.
Cheerio for now,
Otto”
outsidethesquare101 