Ray absolutely loves peanuts, and he also loves bread, so you can imagine what he is like when I have peanut butter on toast!

After living with us for over 18 months now (which means that he has been training us for over 18 months now) he is getting manipulation down to a fine art. Young girls learn how to manipulate their Dads, and when they become women they are generally pretty good at manipulating men however, us men are still clumsily fumbling around with the art. We (men) should perhaps study canines a lot more in order to understand how it all works!

This morning I toasted two slices of bread and then spread peanut butter on both. Ray, not surprisingly, hovered around no doubt hoping that at best I would drop a slice (positive thinking!), or at worst at least offer him a small piece. He was disappointed on both counts because I stood in the kitchen chatting away and ate one of them. Then I took the other slice, grabbed my cup of tea, and went back to my bedroom fully intending to do some work on my laptop. As I was about to sit on the edge of the bed (to face my laptop), Ray suddenly jumped up onto the bed, and I believe his intention was to sit next to me (not an unusual event), but something went slightly wrong and he bumped into me. Was it intentional?

Fortunately I had a good hold on both my cup of tea and on my piece of toast however, I did notice that he was now well within snatching distance of the toast. I quickly put my cup down and moved my toast to my other hand (which was furthest away from him) as I have experienced this procedure a number of times before! With toast in one hand, and the other hand on the keyboard, I started to open up some files.

For some reason I just had to look down and there he was, perfectly calm and just looking up at me with his big brown eyes. I took another bite of my toast and looked back at the keyboard. Then I felt some movement and, of course, had to look down again. He had snuggled in really close to me, and was giving me his “poor undernourished and neglected dog” look. I continued working until I suddenly felt a significant weight on my arm. Looking down, he had placed his head right across my arm and, being the size that he is, there is quite some weight to that skull of his! Of course I was still getting the “eyes” treatment.

Clearly I could not work like this so I thought that as he was clearly comfortable on the bed, what harm could it do to give him just a small piece of peanut butter on toast after which he can lay there and keep me company for as long as he wishes. I broke off a small piece (before I put the last piece in my mouth) and offered it to him. He took it without any hesitation (no surprise there)……….. and then promptly jumped off the bed and went back into the kitchen to see what Carol was doing.

What a con job! Did I ever feel used!!!!!!!