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The fruit bites back

Sometimes, what you have just eaten has an unpleasant knack of getting its own back - the cucumber that makes you burp for several hours, after you ate it in your salad; the spicy take away that gives you indigestion (or worse); and the heavily laced trifle, that tips the balance of your alcohol consumption and means you can't drive home for several hours. And for our four-legged-friend - alias the fruit thief - the apples have bitten back.

Heavens knows how vast a quantity he had guzzled earlier in the day; he has abandoned covert strikes on the trees when he thinks no one is watching, and instead, strolls up lazily, plucks an apple, and turns to look at us, before collapsing his swollen (fruit stuffed) belly onto the ground and almost resignedly crunching his way through it, as though it is his solemn duty to do so. His greed, however, caught up with him in the evening, by which time he had been turned into a drooling, possibly drunk, shadow of his former self. It was as though someone had turned on a tap inside his mouth. He lay pitifully, in a spreading pool of sticky drool. A kind and helpful friend (another mum of dogs) offered advice and with lots of rehydration and definitely no more apples, four-legged-friend was happier by the morning.

Needless to say his subsequent visits outside have been carefully monitored and the plan is to pick all the remaining apples tomorrow.

But I guess he will then turn his attention to the hedgerow and the brambles ... or maybe he'll get a nasty surprise if he tries a sloe.

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