Island Hideaway 18 - Dog Blogging​

I tried to spend as much time as I could with Mo, reading to her, eating in front of her, talking to her, anything to stimulate her mind, if there was one in there.​​
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However, I had work to do, a couple of articles to bash out and of course  I had to be a dog, I had too many followers I'd let down if I missed more than one day. ​​
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To explain, I write doggie blogs. For real dogs, I don't dabble in fiction.​​
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This was my first dog, a Yorkshire Terrier called Freddie. The blog was started by his owner and was a witty doggie-take on the universe. He wrote the blog daily, sometimes twice a day, and slowly grew an audience. However, the blog took up time, and the owner couldn't keep it up, he had a full-time job, a wife, a young kid, and a dog to walk. Rather than shut the blog down and let down lots of followers, he decided to hire someone to write the blog for him. He happened to be friends with an advertising executive I regularly churned out stuff for (Terrence - yeah, he'll be anyone, anything, he's my single lesbian in the Lebanon and my lonely backbench Tory MP). ​​
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I read some of the previous blog posts and agreed to take it on - the owner would send me very brief updates on the dog's day -  whether they went for a walk, if so where, how far, whether they met any other dogs, as well as what they had to eat that day, and any significant events - dogs and humans spoken to, any life events and I would turn these into a blog, fleshing out the facts with detail, description, occasional flashes of humour or philosophy. 
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My takeover worked, the owner loved it, as did the fans. "You really think like a dog," the owner said, after reading my first piece. I guess there is no greater complement for a writer.​​
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Unfortunately, a year or so after Mo left Freddie died. But other dog owners contacted me asking me to write their dog blogs and I'm now over 17 different dogs. Some say Shakespeare couldn't have written his own plays because some were set in places he'd never been to, but even Shakespeare never pretended to be 17 different dogs.​​
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I do the background research, I take my work seriously - I check the weather reports for the time of the walk, walk the route on google maps, and if there's a pub involved (at least half of my walkers usually end their walk in a pub) I research the pub, look at some photos of the interior and find out what beers they have on tap (using the various online beer guides to get a review of the beers - myself, I only ever have bottles of the 3 beers from the Cornish brewery that the Boatman sometimes sells. Yes I lie about the beers, but remember, also, I'm not a dog).
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I've never owned a dog myself, but when we were at university I used to walk them. It was Mo who started it, there was dog charity near the university, which was always looking for volunteers to walk dogs - either lost and abandoned dogs they were trying to re-home, or dogs who were staying in a kennels while their owners were on holiday. There was a park near the university so she'd pick up a dog and walk it round the park. The second time she did this she asked me along, she got a red setter and I had a Labrador called Truffles. It was an excuse to walk and talk together and it became our regular thing, well one of our regular things. ​​
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Inevitably the dogs we were walking would attempt to mate with each other, it seemed to happen every time, though realistically there must have been occasions where we had two heterosexual dogs of the same gender, I just don't remember it. Hence our walks would frequently be interrupted by us having to pry the dogs apart. "It's walkies," I'd say, "Not fuckies," but the dogs would never listen to me.​​
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"Maybe they're trying to tell us something," I said to Mo one time, as once more her amorous dog leapt on top of mine.​​
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"Yeah," she said, "That you think like a dog."​​
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Banter. We were always throwing words at each other in this way, it's what made our friendship special. ​​
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After blogging I looked in on Mo and her comatose body, lying there, lost to the world. There was no banter now. ​​