Sammy and Sausages.

Our Sammy used to love sausages.... LOVED them, more than anything else in his world. Notice I used the past tense. Unfortunately Sammy had to be put to sleep last week. He was a high, grey wooly lurcher and even when he was a stupid giddy puppy he had a lurchers look of absolute knowing. Knowing how to get sausages, mainly. You could put a roast chicken in front of him, and a chipolata in a puddle under a bush three miles away, with a series of cunningly hidden IED's dotted around it not to mention a moat and a dog-eating ogre and the chicken wouldn't get a second glance. Well, it'd barely get a first but thats dogs' noses for you. Sausages, everytime.

He was only eight, when the vet came a-calling, but in those eight years we've paid out a lot of good money to every butchers, greasy spoon, trendy pub and scout hut in a ten mile radius. He stole, pilfered, happened across, found, wolfed, guzzled slooped and slurped pounds of the things, from chubby rings of cumberlands to dinky cocktail sausagettes from Iceland. You could have put shit in a sausage skin and he would corner you and howl and howl until he got his teeth round it.

As crafty as he was for nicking them, me and the wife were just as crafty when it came to cooking them up and eating them because, lets face facts, bangers and mash is the finest meal known to man. Our kitchen was Sammy-proof, and had been for some time, although it took trial and error over the years to stop the thieving little gorgeous begger. So, the other week Maggy was on patrol, planting the rubber sausages in places he might just stumble on them, tipping a bit of cold Oxo behind the shed where he couldn't squeeze through but might sit, pining, for long enough for us to eat in peace... the usual. I'd just popped the pink and pudgy row of pork and leek bangers into the oven, shut the padlock on the oven door, swiped the lino with aniseed, turned on the high-pitch distractor - amazing what you can buy on the internet - and checked the windows were tightly shut before double-locking the kitchen door. I almost bumped into Maggy in the hall. She said she couldn't find Sammy anywhere, not in his basket or the garage or either of the gardens, nothing. 'He'll be thieving I reckon' Thats what I said, and even though it'd no doubt turn into a packet of trouble with someone who'd recognise him as ours, this being a small village, the silver lining of that particular cloud was we'd get to eat in peace for sure.

Maggy had a funny look in her eye when I pointed all this out and asked how long the sausages'd be. Twenty minutes or so, I told her. She took my hand and said well how about I get a bit of your sausage while the coast is clear... Well that doesn't happen everyday so up we went to our room, and stripped off quick... Maggy knelt down as I firmed up... Go on, I said, open your mouth for my sausage of love.... and thats when Sammy jumped.

The doctor says its because I was engorged with blood that I lost so much of it, nearly died apparently. I know the whole room needed redecorating, even the ceiling. He says I wouldn't have lost so much if it hadn't been so hard. Doctor, I told him, if it had been soft I wouldn't be here. Sammy loves sausages, not walnuts.