The lure of the outdoors

You know what’s going to happen, don’t you? The tent arrived yesterday and the barmy weather that had inspired its purchase departed.
She wants to sleep under canvas. She wants to smell the dew on the roof in the mornings, not get static shocks from those nylon tunnels which look more appropriate for growing sweaty vegetables. It’s breathability, she says. Sleeping with all the windows, even when it’s minus five outside at night, just isn’t enough anymore. How he puts up with it, I’ve no idea. He doesn’t even bark or anything, just plods off up to bed each night after he’s downed a bottle of wine and let me out for my patrol. After five-and-a-half years, I think he may be about to twig: each night he thinks I’m checking my territory, doing doggy stuff. Each night, I’m gone for a long, long time. Of course, the deafness helps and I can really go for it now after, well, you know what business I’m talking about. In fact, if it hadn’t been for that bitch, my little secret would never have been let out at all. And now it’s all spoilt.
When I first arrived, I had to do a little twist and a limbo-style manoeuvre to work my way through the hole in the hedge; this was okay then as I was a fine figure of a dog. They thought it was the foxes and who was I to disillusion them? If I did, then I’d start getting the blame for the poo on the patio and the other little ....well, let’s just leave it at that. Anyway, after that blasted Cassie made a break for it, they’ve been talking about covering the hole; they’ve even joked about me going to the pub at night whilst he’s standing calling my name (and I can’t hear him, obviously, because I’m deaf).
But now my outings are scuppered. A horrible piece of chain link fencing has covered the holes. You know, it’s only a matter of time before the foxes reopen it. In fact, when they go off on this mad trip they keep on about, I can focus my attention on the work in hand without them looking over my shoulder. The boy will be too busy killing things on the computer and the cats will be just killing things and the old lady thinks that butter wouldn’t melt in my mouth; lord knows, she’s given me enough.