The story of Baxter

3 years ago today I picked him up from a family who had ended up with an unplanned litter. He came home, met his mortal enemy (the cat), and began exploring the scene of his future apocalyptic assault on my home

He quickly settled into his daily routine of pinning me to the sofa, eating all the wrong things, looking ludicrously cute, and shouting at the wind.

If a burglar entered, Baxter would just bring him a ball to throw. The wind? Berserker rampage.

£40 on a special rug to hide dry food. Baxter would root for the food. This would mimic natural behaviour and mentally stimulate him.

Turns out Baxter hates mental stimulation.

He picked up the rug and shook the food out of it in 2 seconds. £40 wasted. A sign of things to come.

This not filmed by Darth Vader, but my me, breathless after 40 minutes attempting to catch him. He had discovered how exciting it is to vanish into long grass, and that was my entire weekend gone.

After being with me just 6 weeks Baxter managed to catch a fish-hook in mid-air, as a local fisherman was casting. He swallowed it. Long story short: 5 surgeries, 2 of them emergency, and a combined vet bill of £11,750.

No matter how sad Baxter looks, I was sadder.

Having thoroughly enjoyed that little escapade, Baxter then found this discarded baby's dummy. I took a photo cos he looked cute. 2 second later he ate it. Back to the vet, and this time I had to buy him a surgical onesie too.

Thanks Baxter, you complete bell-end.

No photos of this one, God be praised, but days later he found a pigeon that had been dead long enough for maggots to gather. He grabbed it, and ate it as he ran from me. Beak, feet, feathers, maggots: the lot.

Then he went home and regurgitated it up my entire staircase

Somebody suggested I should buy him some reindeer antler, which he would chew to wear off his insane levels of energy. When it arrived I noticed it looked like a pipe, and tried to photograph it.

Baxter became involved, and this led to what police would later call An Incident.

While we're on the subject: some additional Pulitzer-prize winning attempts at photographing a static Baxter.

The lesson: there is never a static Baxter. He has 2 modes: asleep, and demented.

And he's not keen on mode 1.

His ebullient nature has, however, led to him making some friends. Don't be fooled: they're all arseholes too.

The cat, for example, brought in a live mouse, which Baxter yearned for. In the ensuing fight over ownership, Baxter managed to get tangled in the curtains and yank the pole (and plaster) off the wall.

I hate them even more than the mouse did. And bear in mind the mouse died.

I bought him a paddling pool to lie in when the weather gets too hot. He won't go near it. He will, however, run half a mile to find a stagnant pond, and wallow in it while I contemplate how much my house will stink when we get home.

I spent £200 on plants, and took a whole day preparing the borders and planting them. Then I went inside to cook pasta. In that 15 minutes, Baxter pulled up every single plant and then - on a roll - destroyed the lawn too.

I gave up and got a Baxter-proof paved garden installed.

Baxter never stops. His first walk is 7am, his last is 11pm, and 7 walks a day is the baseline. It can be 10 a day at weekend. If I don't walk him, he howls and bounces off the walls.

No weather keeps Baxter indoors, and it's impossible to tire him out.

Once a week, and mainly just so I can have a poo without the company of a dog, he goes to daycare.

Here he meets 20 other idiot hounds, runs them all ragged, exchanges ideas of how to make their humans' lives absolute hell, and poses magnificently.

He is, however, an absolute sweetheart.

But by the sacred toboggan of Imhotep, I will pay you cash money if you'll take him away.