max and me

I'm just watching Marley and Me and it brings back a few memories. I've starred in a few episodes of "When Bad Pets Happen to Good People" myself with my dog Mojo, but actually the film brought me back to a dog we had in my childhood who was called Max.

I was 6 so I can't remember what type he was. He was brown. We got him from the RSPCA in Chobham.

Max was a rascal. Most of my memories are located in the family holiday beach house in West Sussex. One time he came home with a rabbit slung over his shoulder. Another time he helped me clean up the milk when I smashed a bottle on the way home from Bracklesham Bay Post Office and general store (come to think of it, I was 6!! What kind of slave labour is that! Sending a 6 year old a mile to buy 2 glass bottles of milk!). Another time he flew over a breakwater and landed on someone sitting in their deckchair.

But the funniest by far was this. Picture the scene. The Great British Seaside. Half an hour of hot July sun. The early eighties. Someone with her terribly fashionable mullet and bikini lathering herself up with sunoil on a great eighties deckchair. Her skin glistening in the sun. She slides into a comfortable reclined bathing position.

Dude is on his rounds. Dude is marking his territory. Dude levels with sunbather. Dude picks up his hind leg. Dude shoots. He scores!

Sunbather now glistening for a new reason.

Mullet struggles to get up from her reclined position, choking and arms and legs a-flailing. Dude has drenched her left side.

He he he.