It's a hard-knock life

Poor Harry. Life's just pants for him at the moment. Piglet's terrified of fireworks and thunder (and heavy rain, because he's bright enough to have noticed that heavy rain is often accompanied by thunder) but not gunfire. Harry doesn't like gunfire, and at the moment there are a lot of automatic gas-powered crow-scarers being used to keep rooks and pigeons off the growing winter crops. So when we go out for walks instead of running ahead, investigating the hedgerows for rabbits, he's walking nervously at heel. Now, to make things worse, he's being picked on at home. Beattie's never been very keen on him (she likes Piglet - we think it's because Harry's the only black-spotted dal she's known, and she's colour-prejudiced), but for the last few days every time he's gone too close to her - to walk past her to get a drink, or to pick up his toy that's near her, for instance - she's turned on him, snarling and barking until he cries.