Rebel poodles

Our smaller toy poodle is a bit of a rebel.

You might call her downright bolshie. Or perhaps not entirely bolshie. Simply a troublemaker. Not so much a full-blown red as inclined that way, which I suppose would make her orange. Appropriately, since that’s her colour.

I always say that we call her Toffee because she’s toffee-coloured. And, of course, her black companion Luci is Luci-coloured.

Luci in front, Toffee behind her
Innocence personified. But they can be mutinous. If not very effectively

Both Toffee and Luci are connoisseurs of the mouldy piece of bread or rotting bit of bone found lying around in a park. Good at sniffing them out. Enthusiastic in making a beeline for them.

That, though, is as far as the similarity goes.

Luci, when called, at least has the decency to look up from the tasty morsel she’s getting ready to enjoy. Keep calling and she’ll take a step or two towards you. Call ‘drop’ and she might even drop the mouldy bread or bone that she’s picked up. And, eventually, with obvious reluctance, she’ll trot – not run, mind, just the least speed more than a walk to give the impression of obedience – back towards you.

With Toffee, things are nothing like that. Sure, she’ll look up from her piece of rotting meat if called. But with her it’s not with any intention of heeding a call. No. With her it’s perfectly obvious what she’s doing. She’s judging the distance between us. If it’s far enough to give her the time, she’ll take a bite or two. Too close for that? She’ll pick up the whole piece ready to make a dash for it.

She’s quick on her pins too. More than once she’s made me look both slow and stupid around a park, as I chase after trying to get her drop a piece of evil-looking pasty, with her darting away every time I got anywhere near close enough to pop a lead on her.

With this track record, her behaviour the other day failed to surprise me, but certainly left me amused.

In the morning, the dogs get Kibble. Biscuits. They’re not that fond of them, far preferring the wet food – actual meat – they get in the evening. That’s hoovered up in seconds. The Kibble, well, sometimes it hangs around several hours, with them eating a mouthful or two now, another mouthful or two then.

But the other day Toffee tried a novel approach. She simply ate none of it. I realised that she’d graduated, from mere bolshie troublemaker to full-blown trade unionist. Not just any trade unionist, but a shop steward, a convenor even, organising and leading the workforce.

Of course, the workforce was pretty limited, consisting entirely of Luci. Who, I noticed, in any case had a surreptitious mouthful or two, on the QT, whenever Toffee wasn’t looking.

What made me really laugh, though, was the lousy choice of tactics. It may have been a strike but, for pity’s sake, it was a hunger strike. And it was they who were going to be hungry.

So I’m afraid I behaved like the callous employer responding with a lockout to his employees’ strike. I simply gave them nothing else to eat.

Boy, did the strike collapse fast. Dogs cope even less well than men with hunger. Faced with not being fed at all, our two quickly developed a new appetite for Kibble.

By the evening, their bowls were nearly empty. And I gave them a rather smaller portion of meat, mixing the remaining Kibble in with it. Lo and behold, both meat and Kibble were hoovered up in no time.

The rebellion was over. Order had been established once more. The seat of power was not shaken.

Orange she certainly is. But a red? Toffee certainly isn’t an effective one.