The other day my daughter asked if I could pick up my grandson Joey from nursery when I finished work.

“No problem,” I told her.

“I’ll look forward to that.”

Now, doing the nursery run these days has changed somewhat from when my kids were toddlers.

“You’ll need a password mum.”

“A password?” I was confused.

“To get Joey out of nursery you need to give the nursery assistant a password before she will release him to you.”

Release him? Well, I’d never heard of that one before.

“If I tell you you’ll probably forget so I’ll text you the password later,” she promised.

So 6pm came and I was looking forward to collecting the wee one.

Entering the building the nursery assistant asked.

“Can I help you?”

“Yes, I’m here to pick up Joey.”

“And the password is?”

“Oh….. em…..”

Suddenly it dawned on me that Jenna hadn’t text me the password, and I knew she would have no mobile signal where she was.

“Sorry, Joey’s mum forgot to give me one, but obviously he will recognise me.”

“Joey.” I waved excitedly at my grandson in the corner.

Nothing.

“Joey.”

Nothing.

“Joooo….ey”

Well……. The wee rascal squinted my way, completely ignored me and turned back to watch the cartoons.

“It’s OK,” laughed the assistant.

“I remember meeting you last year with Jenna, so I do know who you are.”

Later that evening Jenna called.

“Hi mum, how’s Joey?”

“I’ve no idea,” I fibbed.

“Eh….?”

“I believe he’s still at the nursery.”

“Eh….?”

“Yep, I didn’t have a password so they wouldn’t let me take him,” I lied.

The penny finally dropped and she apologised for the oversight.

“Life’s much easier with a dog,” my canine obsessed pal suggested.

“She’s got a point,” agreed Mae.

“Our old dog was so clever he could actually open the fridge door all by himself.”

And for the life of me I couldn’t fathom how Mae’s dog being able to open a fridge door on his own was a benefit to anyone except her dog.

“That would mean he could help himself to the contents of the fridge,” I stated the obvious.

“Fair point Janice,” she agreed.

“Because one Saturday night he scoffed all the stew and sausage for our Sunday steak pie and we ended up with beans on toast.”

Christine, who walks dogs for a living got her bit in.

“Dogs do bring more than their fair share of predicaments.”

We all wanted to hear the latest.

According to Christine, this particular morning she ended up walking four large dogs and one small long haired Daschund called Snoopy, all at the same time.

Apparently the large hyper active dogs strained on their leads for the entire walk and exhausted, she finally stopped for a breather and that was when she noticed that she had five leads and only four dogs!

“With the strain of the big dogs I hadn’t noticed that wee Snoopy had slipped her collar.”

“Here Snoopy Snoopy.”

“Here Snoopy Snoopy,” she called out to no avail.

Searching high and low, eventually Christine gave up the ghost and headed back to the van whilst mentally rehearsing over and over what she was going to say to Snoopy’s owner.

But luckily for my pal, wee Snoopy had made his own way back to the van and was sitting patiently waiting on her return.

“I bet that was a relief.” Mae suggested.

“’Lost’ any other dogs?” I goaded Christine.

“Not lost.” She laughed.

“But…..”

On another dog walking day Christine met her colleague in the park who had walked the dogs and needed Christine to drive them home.

‘Simple enough.’ I thought to myself.

“She handed me a piece of paper with each dogs name and address so it seemed easy enough.”

Apparently Christine safely returned one dog, then another, and found herself left with two dogs.

And that’s when the confusion arose.

“Janice the two fluffy white Bichon Frise pups were identical in every way,” she puffed.

“Same size, same sex, same colour and even identical pink dog collars.”

“But you had their names written down.” I stated the obvious.

“No matter which name I called they both wagged their tail and jumped up and down.”

I could see why she had a dilemma.

“I let both dogs out at the first address hoping one would feel at home, but both ran to the front door.”

“I did the same at the second address around the corner and again both dogs ran to the front door.”

Christine explained that her identical dog dilemma added almost another hour on to her day, until eventually, one of the owners appeared, claimed her dog and explained that its sister belonged to her sister who lived around the corner.

“The dogs were always in both houses and that’s why both felt like home.”

“Oh well.” I laughed.

“Seems like children may be less hassle than dogs after all.”