"Whenever I meet him he seems to have invented a new way of being really annoying"

IT’S 6.30pm, and I am sitting at the table in my friend’s kitchen, trying to ignore Doc, her newish rescue dog, the size of a wart-hog, who’s eyeballing me from across the room.

Doc is hard to ignore; whenever I meet him, he seems to have invented, especially for me, a new way of being really annoying. And when he’s done showing me his new way of being really annoying, my friend simply cannot get over the charm of it, and all but claps her hands in delight.

“Aaah, Doc likes you,” she said last time, when he kept dropping a manky wet tennis ball in my lap. And after he’d kept his Manky Tennis Ball japes going for half an hour, and my coffee had gone cold in its cup, she cooed, “aaah look at Doc,” in that love-me-love-my-dog voice which makes you feel like Myra Hindley just for not wanting to play with a manky wet tennis ball. “You just want to play, don’t you Docolate Chocolate.”

And then there was the time of Doc’s suppurating ear infection.

“Look at his ear,” my friend said, for all the world as if I wanted to. “Poor old Docolate-Chocolate with your sore ear.” And I swear to you — that dog stood side-on, right in front of me without moving a muscle, so I’d have to admire the pus.

And when I tried to budge him, so that I could avoid looking at his gruesome ear, all of a sudden he invented the Harder-to-Budge-than-an-Obelisk trick which, as far as new ways of being really annoying go, is up there with the Manky Tennis Ball Fandango.

And don’t get me started on his Bugger-Off, This-Family-Sofa-is-Mine stunt, which he pulls every time, whereby whatever comfy chair I fancy sitting on suddenly has 75lbs of smelly Doc relaxing in it, looking up at me with baleful, couch-potato mein.

Which, my friend explains, stroking his ears while I find an old hard-back chair to perch upon, is just “Doc’s natural desire as a Pointer — a hunting dog, you see — to feel part of the pack. Isn’t that right, Doc? And you’re part of our family now aren’t you Docolate Chocolate? Yes you are, yes you are. And you like this sofa, yes you do, yes you do.”

But the worse stunt Doc pulled was in my absence. And I thank the lord for this small mercy, for I heard about it on the phone, and that was bad enough.

“You’ve no idea of the drama,” my friend said. “Doc nearly died. He had an undescended testicle, which came free inside. It travelled all the way up to his intestine and got tangled up in it.

“Twisted right up,” she said, “Poor old Doc. We’ve got the testicle upstairs in a jar. The vet gave it to us. I’ll show it to you next time you come.”

So, sitting at my friend’s kitchen table right now, I’m thinking it can’t get worse. I’m thinking, maybe Doc’s all out of tricks.

“White wine alright?” my friend asks, opening the fridge and pulling out a bottle.

But I am too distracted by the testicle in a jar upstairs to answer.

“White alright?” she repeats.

“White is fine,” I say.

I’ve been here five minutes and though Doc is still eyeballing me from across the room, he hasn’t played me for a sucker yet. “Yep,” I think, sipping my wine, “that dog’s run out, all out of wiles...”

And then Doc takes a flying bound across the kitchen and pins me to the back of my chair, his paws digging into my thighs. Head to head with him I can see the veining in the whites of his eyes.

He stares at me, tongue lolling, and I daren’t look down, for god knows what’s going on with his down-belows.

“Oh look at Docolate-Chocolate,” my friend says, as if this will make my mauling more delightful, “oh look at him saying hello!”

And so we have it; Doc’s latest trick: the Surprise Hello. And it really takes the f*****g biscuit.