Okay, the boxer dog is now safely back with his owner. I've (we've) finished all 13 episodes of the first season of The Wire and I'm eager for more, though I can't speak for the dog. I may have to watch Season 5 of 24 first as a palate cleanser.

The dog forcibly pushed me out of bed this morning at exactly 8am (not sure if he has a very refined body clock or can actually read clocks...) by putting his back against mine and then pushing hard with his legs. It was actually snowing outside when I looked out of the window. Not a good day to be a dog owner, temporary or otherwise.

I took him out on a small patch of grass near my flat to 'do his business' (dog walker's parlance) where I met a retired woman walking her grandson's American Pit Bull, which I thought she said was called “Maretta”.

“Maretta?” I repeated, thinking this was a rather Mediterranean-sounding name for a pit bull. “No,” she said. “Beretta. It's a gun I think.”

At this point my mind became focussed on handing my canine ward back in one piece later in the day and although I couldn't quite remember if it was American Pit Bulls, or their illegal crosses with other breeds, that were the stuff of infant mauling tabloid headlines, but one potential killing machine named after an actual killing machine seemed like a bad omen so I made a polite but quick exit.

Back at the flat something happened that really shouldn't happen to a man until he's at least sixty — I “had a fall”. I was getting into a hot bath, slipped, and then fell headfirst into the water. The dog heard the noise and dashed in, half-excited, half-confused, and decided that the appropriate response to my floundering was to start licking my bare arse, which was hanging over the edge of the bath as I struggled to right myself.

I know it's not the dog's fault. He was just confused and it was my own stupid fault for falling in the bath, but it feels like a line has been crossed. It's going to be difficult to go back to the way we were.

I can at least console myself with the knowledge that a few weeks ago he went to the vets to have the snip, and were that not the case, my violation might have been all the more severe.