There are times when I worry about how well Luci and Toffee, our toy poodles, are enjoying their lives with us. Obviously, the only way to establish the level of satisfaction others are experiencing, is to consult them about it. That requires a relaxed and unthreatening environment.
So I had a quiet chat with them the other day, after they’d had lunch and were enjoying a bit of a siesta on our bed. With our holiday ending, I wanted to establish what they’d thought of it. The results were illuminating.
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| Luci, bold in black, and Toffee, joyful in ginger taking their siesta after a good lunch |
Me: So, girls, how has this holiday been for you?
Toffee: Holiday? What’s a holiday?
Me: Well, when you take a break from your ordinary routine and go and do something different.
Luci: Why would you want to do that?
Me: Well, for a change, I suppose. A change is as good as a rest [I thought that was quite clever].
Luci: What wasn’t restful about staying at home?
I couldn’t think of an answer to that. And while I was trying to, Luci pressed home the attack.
Luci: Home’s a place where there’s plenty to eat…
Toffee wasn’t having that
Toffee: Nearly plenty to eat…
Luci: Nearly plenty to eat, our bed…
Me: Our bed, actually
Luci: Our bed, where we let you sleep too. And there’s our couch [I resisted making any other intervention] and various places we know well, feel comfortable in, where we can go and relax when we feel like it.
Toffee: Which is most of the time.
Luci: Most of the time. Right. So what’s not restful about that?
Toffee: And there’s Misty, our cat.
Luci: You’re right. I was forgetting him. Yep, Misty the cat. Good to have around and smell from time to time. Or irritate like hell if you’re Toffee.
Toffee: Irritate like hell? What do you mean? Misty thinks I’m the nicest dog imaginable.
There was a bit of a pause, finally broken by Luci.
Luci: Well, I’m glad you think that.
I’ve got to admit, I wasn’ t enjoying their feedback so far.
Me: Didn’t you like the place up in the mountains?
Toffee: Listen, pal, it took two days in that damn car to get there. How’s that restful?
Luci: Besides, haven’t you noticed how mountains are things that go up and up? And you lot always seem to want to go up them? Beats me why you bother. It’s exhausting.
Me: But coming back down is pretty easy, isn’t it?
Luci: Sure, but doesn’t just show how pointless the whole thing is? I mean, you go to all that effort to get to the top. And then you come back to where you started from in the first place. Why do you do that?
Me [a little offended]: I thought you liked walks
Luci [defusing the tension]: Look, and please understand that I really don’t mean any offence, there’s a walk and there’s a forced march. There’s a big difference.
Me: Still. You must have liked that pool where you went bathing, didn’t you?
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| Luci cooling her weary paws |
Luci: Sure. It was great. But only to cool down my paws after you made me walk all the way there. And my paws wouldn’t have needed cooling if I hadn’t had to walk there in the first place. Besides, I still had to walk back.
Me: OK, but you must be enjoying yourselves now, what with having little Matilda around.
Toffee [who was jumping up and down by now, a sure sign of her excitement]: Oh, yeah, we love Matilda. She’s great. We love it that she eats in a highchair. And all we have to do is stand underneath and wait for her to throw great pieces of highly desirable food down to us. Which she always does because she likes doing it far more than eating the stuff herself.
Luci: Oh, yeah, that’s really great.
Toffee: It means that we really get pretty much enough food. Which is pretty much the only time that happens.
Luci: But see, we don’t need to leave home for that to happen. I mean, she was in our place not that long ago, wasn’t she? Highchair and all? Why can’t we have that happen again?
Me: Well, it’s going to, actually. Pretty soon after we get back.
Dogs don’t clap their hands, because they don’t have any. But I could see that was what they would be doing if they did.
Toffee: Now that’s good news.
Luci: That’s the kind of holiday we like. A change we can actually enjoy. Without even having to leave home. Let’s have more holidays like that.
That’s the trouble with focus-group studies. Damn good at giving you information about how your clients think about what you’re providing. But it isn’t always the response you wanted.
Ah, well. This feels like a consultation exercise to forget about. So we can keep taking them on holiday anyway. Listen and ignore. It’s what politicians do when they don’t get the feedback they want.
Why should I be any different?
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