Next level balloon animals by Masayoshi Matsumoto. Photo / Supplied
Pets behaving badly
Keith writes: "My little dog Kupa, a bichon/poodle/Tibetan terrier-cross is a particularly bright little fella. One day I was having my mother over for a visit so I baked a batch of scones in the morning and left them wrapped in a tea towel, pushed to theback of the kitchen bench so he could not get to them, while I went for a bike ride.
"Returning two hours later all the scones had vanished. How he got on the bench is still a mystery. The tea towel was lying on the floor along with a few crumbs and one very fat-looking dog. Now I thought it was impossible for a dog this size to eat 12 large scones but all were gone. I whipped up a new batch of scones quickly and, when my mother arrived, I told her what had happened and had a laugh about it.
"Her dog, being a hoover when it comes to food, promptly walked straight into the lounge, behind the door and came out with a scone in her mouth. Thinking this was not possible, I moved room by room through the house with a very unhappy little dog following closely behind and all but guiding me to the rest of the scones that did not fit in his stomach. I found one scone under the pillows on each of the beds, one under the spare bed (wedged into a rolled mattress), one in my wife's gym bag under her clothes, along with crumbs in the basket of stuffed toys (must have been the last one he could fit). Total of six in the stomach and six hidden. One clever pooch!"
"In the mid 1970s, our extended family was having our traditional New Year's Day picnic at Long Bay beach," writes Raewyn. "One of the aunties found something peculiar in the sand — a little semi-transparent bag with something like flakes inside it. We puzzled over what it could be. 'Drugs!' said one of the aunties, 'I bet it's marijuana. We should take it to the police!' Then another auntie arrived to take a look. 'Oh, that's a teabag!' Teabags had just arrived in New Zealand and we had never seen one before. Thank goodness we didn't take it to the police!"