Wallis (sic) and Grommit

Wallis and Grommit are two lovely dogs that were foisted on us by the neighbours down the road - and we didn't even know their names!

Dennis Ford was our neighbour at Plot 9 for several years and then he decided to retire and build himself a cottage on his sons property in Midrand. We were very sad as he was a great neighbour - even mowing the lawn for us when we first moved in and didn't have a mower! We have kept in touch with him and I usually lunch with him at Wanderers every odd month or so.

Anyhow, Dennis's house was immaculate - no maintenance necessary at all, everything spick and span. And then the new people came and dennis introduced them to us - sounds snobby but not our kind of people at all - 5 kids, father a second hand car salesman (I'm sure there are nice ones but he wasn't one of them) and a mother from hell. We were introduced and thats as far as it went... until they sold and were about to move.

The kids phoned me in tears, they are moving tomorrow and dad is taking the dogs to the SPCA to be put down - could I help, they woudl give me all their pocket money each month (HA!!) I kept saying to myself, no, we do not want two big dogs, no we don't and I phoned all over the place to find them a home and I did find one. The problem was they could only be collected on Saturday morning and the people were moving on Friday.... so of course they got dropped off at our house.

We arrived home that evening to find them ensconced in the back garden - a large female young boerbull and a large white labrador x boerbull. I sms'ed the kids - what are their names - Thandi and Rascal - ugh. As we strolled along the fields that evening the dogs ran along with us... what nice dogs they were mused Johan, yes they are aren't they... and you know what happened next - we kept them, of course, as if there had been any doubt at all that we wouldn't!. Just as well, as Grommit is a decided racist and would have bitten his new owner who was a black man!

They were originally outside dogs - good, they were so big, but of course you can't have half the dpgs in the house and half out - its not fair, so Wallis & Grommit each fill up a sofa in the evenings. Wallis thinks of herself as a chihuahua and would love to cuddle up on our laps - she is most jealous of Biggles who can actually do so!