Dooks!

The outspoken new columnist who isn't afraid to to say it as it is!

Last week I was curled up in my basket watching Mad Max: Fury Road in the house I share with my humans. It’s a post-apocalyptic hellscape where you must be ruthless to survive. But enough about where we live…. the film was terrifying!

In Mad Max there’s a dog. In Mad Max 2 there’s a dog until The Humungus kills it (where’s the RSPCA when you need them!) But in Mad Max: Fury Road, society is beyond the point where it’s even viable to keep a pooch.

‘Why are you not heeding this stark warning my two-legged overlords?’ I barked frantically as Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron bickered over a gear box.

‘How grimly predictable that I get placed in this drizzly back yard again’ I thought to myself ninety seconds later as I cocked my leg on one of the children’s bikes ‘simply for woofing my truth.’

It’s increasingly hard to remain optimistic. The European Copernicus climate service tells us that 2024 was the first year to exceed 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, far exceeding ‘anything that is acceptable’. This is the average temperature the Paris Agreement was supposed to keep us below.

Yet Express and Mail reading humans who blame immigrants for the depressed economy they voted for because of war films, don’t believe it’s happening because it rains in June. And the avocado munching metropolitan ones are vaguely aware of it, but only in the same way they’re vaguely aware that they’re running out of Baker’s Complete and then do nothing about it because they’re busy in Zoom meetings or racing between cash machines trying to get money out for the dogwalker.

It’s called denial. A psychological defence mechanism bipeds use to swerve short-term anxiety, and one which won’t be very useful to them if they want to throw sticks for their dogs in East Anglia once it’s gone the same way as Doggerland.

On a recent walk I tried to tell my owner that the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries estimates the global economy could lose 50% in GDP between 2070 and 2090 from the catastrophic shocks of climate change unless immediate action is taken. She looked me in the eyes, and for a moment as hers widened, I thought she was going to engage. But instead she said ‘No, no, no, Dooks no not there, I’ve forgotten to bring a bag.’

Easy for her to say. What she’s forgetting is that 2070 is only 45 years away. Which in dog years, is only six and a half human ones.

Is it me, or are dog walks getting shorter these days? I’m sure I used to get two hours a day before that second kid was born. Come on pooch lovers, get your wellies on!

I was excited to see that Jennifer Aniston has announced the first of her new children's books, and it's inspired entirely by her rescue dog, Clyde. I hope he has a bit more about him than the rescue dog at number twenty-three. I’ve never seen her save anyone in my life!

Have you got a question for Dooks? Leave a comment below and he’ll endeavour to get back to you.

Thanks so much for reading. I’m going to keep everything on here free. But if you’d like to upgrade to a paid subscription it would free me up to write more, and I could afford better dog food for Dooks. Diolch.