Lucky dog

On Saturday night my husband and I had a date!  We suddenly found ourselves childless - daughter off to a weekend scouts camp, and our son had a last minute sleepover so we decided to go the cinema...

Only we didn’t quite go alone - our third ‘child’ Max came with us.

We were told if he barks he would have to leave, but otherwise it was perfectly fine to bring him to the movie - so we crossed our fingers that the singing in Les Miserables wouldn’t set him off…

All in all he seemed to enjoy the film, at one point he got up on the seat and was riveted by the horses galloping through the streets of Paris, but then he got bored half way in and promptly feel asleep.

You have to take my word for it that we didn't bring him along for the cultural experience, it was because we'd been out for the most part of the day and felt guilty leaving him alone again.

But it’s going to be a bit of a shock when we come back to the UK – cos we've got used to pretty much taking him with us anywhere in the Czech Republic: on the bus, the metro, into pubs, restaurants, and now the cinema….of course dogs have to be well behaved (and we usually manage to keep up the illusion that he is by having a pocketful of treats).

I remember once going to quite a ‘posh’ restaurant and was kind of embarrassed that we’d brought the dog in and quickly hid him under the table but the first thing the waitress did before bringing over our drinks was to serve the dog first with a fresh bowl of water!

In fact I'm always amazed that if you're in a restaurant and there's more than one dog, each dog gets his or her own water brought to them at the table.  For us the dog bowl has become the new ‘high chair’.

Don't worry, it's not all gone to the dogs, of course there are some places where ‘dogs are not allowed’-

but unless there is a sign on the door specifically stating it’s a given that they are top dog.