The dog’s blogs

Hello readers. Delighted to be writing my first Dog’s Blog since arriving here at Salix & Co. It’s odd being the new pup on the block. I’ve been here a week and now that I’m actually finding my feet – well  paws if you’re being  pedantic – I think life here in the Salix Treehouse is destined to be pretty  agreeable.

They are a friendly bunch and apart from an unfortunate incident that nearly  got me in the doghouse, they’ve been very kind and understanding. Think  we’ll just put it down to being a bit overexcited to be here.

Anyway, since then, I’ve been chewing a few things over. An Apple phone charger and an Ethernet cable to be precise. Hey, I know, I know. I sshouldn’treally be chewing things at all. The thing is, it’s something I do when I haven’t got enough to occupy me or when I have to get my mind around a tricky situation. I’m a newshound after all. I sniff out hard-hitting stories to bring to you, my readers. Which, by the way, is a skill other dog-bloggers do not possess. I refer to the so-called cutest dog in the world, Boo. Excuse me for disagreeing. Boo is an over-groomed Pomeranian with 17 million Facebook ‘likes’ and a style containing more saccharine than a can of Coke. Good on yer, Boo – but a newshound you certainly ain’t.

I recognise that I follow in some pretty heavyweight paw-steps. Evidence of my predecessor, Joe, is everywhere in the office. You’d have thought they might have re-carpeted by now. Ha! Just kidding. But he was a good boy by all accounts and wrote some amazing copy. I can only hope to live up to his reputation.

So what’s been going on this week? Well, life in and out of the Salix office has been pretty full on – but maybe it’s always like this. The health service, like the Kardashians, is never out of the news at the moment. The A&E numbers have either got better or people are just bored by them. Or, more important stuff has risen to the top of the agenda. I heard The King’s Fund’s Chris Ham on the radio this morning telling the nation pretty much what they might have guessed already – that the health reforms hadn’t exactly been an unmitigated success. More depressingly, we gather that flu vaccinations have largely been wasted because they don’t protect the elderly against a mutated form of the virus. And, all this at a time when new research from YouGov, commissioned by NHS Alliance, reveals that public trust in our national health service remains stable. Go figure that out. I reckon this isn’t such a surprise when the system, for all its faults, mostly does good stuff for people. But hey-ho. That’s the media for you. Like a dog with a bone.

Uh-oh – lunchtime. My favourite hour of the day. These guys are so messy! Still, them dropping bits of sandwich everywhere guarantees there’s always something to take the edge off the appetite. If you’d like to hear more from a Spaniel’s angle, you can follow me on Twitter @Salix_Bailey. Makes a change from me following you lot…