Pudding Detective - Chapter 2 - Catch me if you can

Ah, the ingredients! 

Think about this for a moment. If you were making the yummiest cake in the world, one that would blow away all the taste buds you ever had, what would be the ingredient you just had to include...Chocolate? so much that you'd smother your face with just the very first mouthful, so smothered that your tongue couldn't reach far enough around your face to eat it. You'd need one of those anteater tongues in order to retrieve every last morsel...Or, would it be the cream, layer after layer of gooey, sweet cream? Or maybe, just maybe, it's something you can't quite put your finger on, almost like a secret ingredient, one you just have to have but you're not quite sure what it is.

Some others may say the best thing about their food is not so much what's in it but what's happening at the time they eat it. Like having all your favourite friends over for a birthday party; Saturday teatime at your Grandad's. Or maybe, for dogs, it's when you first experience true freedom away from your owner. Ah, maybe it's not all about the food after all. Who would have thought it.

You see, when you're a puppy, everything is so sparkling and new. And if you had a dog's nose and it was the first time you'd been outside off the lead in the countryside, and you could also detect a smell from zillions of miles away (if the wind was favourable that is), you'd disappear for hours as well, zig-zagging through woods and puddles and fields until you found what you were looking for. You'd then disappear, completely, forgetting about everything else, everybody else, like the owners - you know, the ones trudging about in the rain with their wellies sucking on mud, the ones blowing on a whistle until their face went purple and the very ones going hoarse with all the shouting. Yes, those owners.

And when the owner eventually finds you, he realises he's already walked past where you were countless times already. Yet, he's just so relieved to have found you, he forgives you immediately, forgetting all about the whole hour spent hunting with sodden clothes and steamed-up glasses, so utterly underdressed for hide and seek in the rain.

But you might think that was it. Job done. Back to the house. Tea, feet up, and Strictly. You'dbe mistaken. The fun had only just begun. For Pudding had not finished eating her smelly old bone yet, so when Mr Pumphrey, the owner, had arrived she was just licking it, like it was some magical never-ending ice cream. It was as if she had only just got started and she sure wasn't ready to give it up now. Pudding would snarl every time Mr Pumphry got close enough to grab her, and she dragged the bone (half a deer leg) away causing him to slip into the mud every time. Then he tried to trick her. In his pocket he found a piece of cheese,"I thought this might come in handy today", he muttered to himself, held it out and imploringly called her. She lifted her head, looked back down at the bone and immediately realised what was happening. A trick! She leapt again into the deepest brambles. 

Chewy bones or slimy cheese? Hmm, let me see...It's like the difference between cake with chocolate or cake without chocolate, isn't it. 

So, walking back to the house after half an hour of what can only be described as a cross between ice skating and 'tag', Mr Pumphry was definitely ready for a hot bath, some hot food, and an early night with a hot water bottle. And as he lay in bed, still puffing out his cheeks with great sighs, he couldn't help questioning whose idea it was to get a dog in the first place and whether every dog walk was going to be this tiring. 

Pudding, on the other hand, was already asleep, already dreaming, already downloading the day to the memory bank - the endless fields and dense woodlands; the rabbit holes and the squirrels; the muntjac deer and the pheasants; and so much more besides. The smells, oh the smells...the sniffing - enough to make anyone sleepy, not to mention a detective...a dog detective. No - a Pudding detective, no less. Because, when you've got superpowers like hers, it's not just stinky bones which are important. In fact, stinky bones might occasionally get in the way and be a distraction, a huge distraction, not simply for her - but for everyone! 

So, as Pudding twitched and wriggled and twitched and wriggled again, sinking down further and further into the corner of her comfy sofa, she was just beginning to realise there was more to all this than previously met the eye and she now knew, therefore, that this adventure had only just begun.

Zzzzzzzzz