What's your 'pet hate'?

Actually, just looking at the title to my post, I think I should re-word it. Mum says ‘hate’ is a very strong word that it is used too often. Mum doesn’t like it, so I guess I shouldn’t use it. And I’m a pet, and pets are cute – so ‘pet hate’ kind of feels wrong. I guess I mean ‘what niggles you?’ or ‘what gets on your nerves?’

With me it’s when people scoop their dogs’ poops. Mum doesn’t like it when people DON’T scoop poops but it gets on my nerves when they do. I mean, how on EARTH are us dogs supposed to know who’s hanging around if we can’t have a sniff at each others’ poops? That’s why I like France.

Another thing that really niggles me is when mum doesn’t eat all her dinner and then SCRAPES IT INTO THE BIN! Why oh why doesn’t she give it to me? I know other dogs who get their owners’ leftovers, but not me. No. What a waste.

Another thing that gets on my nerves is graffiti. I don’t get it. I also don’t understand why they are called ‘graffiti artists’. I don’t know what’s artistic about someone’s obtuse message sprayed in three foot letters on the wall of a beautiful 400 year old building, which is what happens a fair bit in the ancient little town close to where we live.

Quite a few things niggle mum. Particularly when she’s driving. Mum doesn’t like it when people drive too close to her back bumper, and they do that a lot in France. She hisses under her breath “STOP KISSING MY ARSE”. Mum doesn’t like folk who drive at 50kph in a 90 zone. Mum doesn’t like folk who can’t maintain a constant speed. Mum doesn’t like folk who overtake her then cut her up when they pull back in. Mum doesn’t like folk who don’t use their indicators. Basically, mum doesn’t like French drivers. Uncle Hugh calls mum ‘intolerant’, which makes mum shout.

Another thing mum doesn’t like A LOT is when people throw their litter around. She calls them litter louts. When we lived in the UK after we’d been for a walk, her pockets and her rucksack would be bulging with stuff that she’d picked up along the way. Then there are folk that she called “fly tippers”. I don’t know why. Maybe they had flying cars like Uncle Hugh has. Anyway, the countryside in the UK is lovely, but these “fly tipper” folk don’t seem content with that – it seems that they’re only happy if there is an old mattress or an old cooker or an old fridge or an old sofa or lots of black bags or old toys or tyres or something else dumped on it.

Also, in the towns in the UK, there used to be these bins for rubbish and stuff, but whenever mum and me went into town I noticed that the bins were virtually empty and all around the bins, on the ground, there was always lots of rubbish. I used to see people throwing stuff on the ground quite a lot. Perhaps they didn't know what the bins were for.

In France, people are content with having the countryside as it is, they don’t need to litter it to be happy, and the bins in the towns are full of stuff, instead of it being on the ground. The funny thing is - in the UK, whilst they don’t put rubbish in bins, they do put dog poo in them. Bizarre isn’t it? Putting the good stuff in the bin and leaving the crap hanging around. Only in the UK I reckon.

Mum doesn’t like “litter louts” and she says that if she were in charge she’d make sure that “..they were disembowelled by a blunt, rusty knife and then hung slowly by their entrails until dead..” I may be wrong but in my view that seems a tad extreme. I know mum’s in charge of me, but I’m kind of pleased that she’s not in charge of the world.

What niggles you?