My dog the critic

This is me with my dog Oliver. People like him. Everywhere we go, he gets stopped and patted. And we go a lot of places. This dog has lived in Sydney and New York, traversed the east coast of Australia, and travelled through 22 States of the US of A.

So today I took my dog with me for a walk while I got my lunch and, on cue, an old man stopped us and started patting Oliver. "Floppy ears! Floppy ears!" he said to Oliver, and then to me, "Have you got time for a story?"

I didn't, but by then the story was already underway. The man told me he wrote Christian poems about Bible characters and some of them were quite long (oh goody). Then without warning, he proceeded to recite one of his poems.

I couldn't exactly pick the Bible character in it. It went along the lines of "I went to the beach with my girl Stella / But when I came back from the surf she was having sex in the shallows with some fella." I kid you not.

Stella, it transpired, was a dog with (and this part is very important) pointy ears. The poem continued for quite some time, while I shifted my feet and Oliver shifted his feet and the rain clouds gathered. I'll spare you the rest and simply cut to the stunning and compelling punchline, in which Stella gives birth to puppies with (wait for it) floppy ears.

"BAHAHAHA" the poet roared, holding his sides as he laughed and clearly very proud of his wit. It started to rain.

And in the pause that followed while I struggled to find something polite to say, Oliver said it all for me.

He walked directly up to the poet and vomited something white and yellow and foamy on the grass in front of the poor man's feet.