News Hound Ady & Flo www.sunlive.co.nz

Ooops. It was an honest mistake. After a huge run around the reserve and a mega swim in the estuary then a cooling dip in the fish pond, it was time to wash the fishpond slime off with a good old hosing down. I love a good hosing down.

I've even learnt to turn around so the boss can wash the nether regions.

Then we have a great fun time, biting the water coming out of the hose. Trouble is, sometimes the line between the end of the hose, and the appendages of the person holding it, can get a little blurred.

This day was one of those days. One quick chomp, on what looked like water, turned out to be the hand that feeds.

The boss said some pretty choice words and I knew straight away that someone was in trouble.

He started screaming about rabies, tetanus and calling for an OSH investigation. I just looked perplexed, then decided to put on the cute, head-on-one-side look, because that can get me out of most situations. Not today. He was writhing on the ground wanting intravenous pain killers, a couple of Swedish massage girls and accident compensation pay-out. There was even talk of a good old fashioned lawsuit. That wasn't happening. Besides, I don't have public liability insurance.

We went straight to the freezer and put some ice on it. I tried to ignore the duck breasts and the frozen sausages and the venison/goose salami. But despite my best intentions, I did note all those things were in the freezer. We settled on the frozen peas and they were duly applied to the boss's munted thumb and the slightly-punctured hand. We found some ice cubes, but by pure accident, none of them made it onto the area of the injury. Instead they fell conveniently into a short tumbler, followed by a shot or four of the Captain's finest dark.

After about four rums he started seeing the funny side of it, thank goodness. We had a one-armed tussle on the mat with the play rope and everything seemed a bit better. Just goes to show how little mishaps can turn bad in no time. He should feel lucky he doesn't own a snapping turtle. Bite Pressure tests show their jaw force is greater than dogs.

Then followed the boss's regurgitation of annoying trivia he's gleaned from Discovery Channel. Human bites average about 120 pounds of bite pressure. (Shame he still talks in the old language and hasn't come to terms with decimal weights and measures.)

Compare that to the average domestic dog bite, around 320 pounds of pressure. That's nothing compared to White Sharks, at more than 600 pounds, a shark can bite off a human's leg in just one chomp.

Champion chomper: The crocodile is the biggest biter in the business. And if you saw one sunning itself on a riverbank with its mouth open, it's not skitting. Just cooling down, since they only have sweat glands in their mouth.

The snapping turtle applies a chomp factor of 1000 pounds (more than nine times stronger than humans). Snapping turtles, like hyenas, whose bite strength is similar, rely on carrion to supplement their diet. Their strong jaws help tear apart the tissue of dead animals.

The Champion Chomper is the crocodile. At 2500 pounds of bite pressure, they rarely lose their prey. Ouch.

As the rums went on, the story got better. Before long, the yarn had progressed from an accidental puppy nip, to wrestling a killer crocodile in the wilds of the Amazon. The fact that they have alligators in the Amazon was largely lost, due to poetic licence, and the story just got better as the night went on.

Me, I was happy to be forgiven for an honest mistake and settle down on the rug at his feet and snuggle.

There's a moral to the story. Who knows what it is. Probably, to keep enough supplies of cane sugar by-product in the closet for emergencies.

That's it for this week. Remember to be careful out there, and don't bite the hand that feeds you.

Flo.