This is how it starts:

The Basset looks up from his nap and then looks at me. The problem on this day is that it is the last stage of the Tour de France and there is only about thirty minutes left, forty-five with the presentations and everything. I mean the peloton hasn’t caught the break away! I can’t walk him now. So I tried to explain:

The Basset is not very understanding but puts his head back down. Then turns himself around and chills for a few more minutes. After Mark Cavendish wins (fourth time on the Champs Elysees!) the basset looks at me again BUT Bradley Wiggins has won the first Briton has WON and doesn’t he want to see the presentations?????

No, no he does not and then he gives me the stink eye:

So I go to change (sometimes I walk the dog in my pajamas, they don’t look like pajamas and were bought for this purpose), taking my time and half watching the presentations. The dog is on to me and in his seal talk (he sounds like a seal when he talks, arrroooo rroooo rrrrrroooooo) tells me to HURRY UP! I stall enough to watch the presentations, get the final wrap up and head out the door with the impatient basset, explaining to him that I am in charge. If a basset could chuckle he would have.