Many of you will already have seen this, but if you're a dog lover, then this will be doubly amusing.

Really, no other introduction is needed! Veronica, if you're reading, this one's for you!

I'm incensed beyond reason today, as abusive dog owner, Joy Batison of Northampton, was sentenced yesterday in Northampton County Court for the gross neglect of her dog, Hobo.

You can see pictures and the full story by clicking here, but be warned, the pictures are horribly disturbing.

Hobo suffered months of abuse, and thankfully, the RSPCA was finally called. They were going to put Hobo to sleep, but he amazingly made a full recovery...

This disgusting woman showed little remorse for her crime received a ban from owning pets for 25 years and ordered to pay just two hundred and fifty pounds in Court costs.

I find that a shameful and unacceptable sentence that in no way reflects the cruelty, abuse and neglect this poor defenseless pooch suffered at the hands of this wicked woman. I wonder if the results had been different, had Hobo been a child, but the thinking seems very different for animals.

Well, the bitch got away with it, and this sentence did nothing to deter others. A pitiful fine basically says: do as you will to animals, all you'll get is a crappy slap on the wrist.

Until the system is changed, animals will continue to be farmed and abused. This case could have been a major precedent and awakening in animal cruelty; instead it's been brushed under the carpet.

Well, Joy, I sincerely hope you get what you deserve, as if the justice system can't deliver (and we know only too well that it can't), then I truly hope karma can.

While I'm on the subject of evil acts, and feeling exceptionally grumpy, I'd like to rant about idiots who let their dogs poop in the street and don't clean it up.

On these dark nights it's easy to step in and is gross AND neigh on impossible to get off.

As I found out tonight when I did just that. Ick!

But it wasn't a tiny poodle poop. Oh no - that would be too simple. This was dinosaur crap - the size of a bungalow.

I squidged home and managed to scrape it off with a knife (ooh, that reminds me, need a new bread knife) but I can still smell the stink from upstairs. Ick!

I hope karma finds these utterly irresponsible people... may the festering poop of a thousand ravens crap on their heads!

It may sound completely obvious, but never let a puppy jump in the bath with you.

Why? Because, it might seem oh so cute for about two seconds, then, there are, as I can see it, three downsides:

1. You have floppy bits they love to bite (I presume this applies to both sexes).*


2. They end up leaping out of the bath just as quickly, allowing them to dash madly about the house trailing water unhindered by man (or at least by me). They then proceed to jump on your bed and dry themselves on your expensive sheets.


3. They tend to smell bad (thus precipitating the necessity for a proper bath).

In addition, dogs find all of these three things hugely amusing. I learned all of this the hard way and really need to lock the bathroom door when I take a bath.

*If you don't have any floppy bits, you're either very lucky or far too young to have been hit by Mother Nature's magic lard fingers (they don't warn you about that at school!).