My greyhound Basil is an awkward loner weirdo – now I know how my parents felt | Patrick Lenton

My mum and dad eventually realised I was happy being a little freak. And so is Basil

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After his first day of daycare, my long, stinky son Basil came home with a report card that said he'd been well-behaved but also needed to work on appropriate play". As a parent, I decided to take this constructive criticism normally.

Initially I was just relieved that Basil hadn't murdered one of the other attenders of the daycare, which has put me in the weird position of having a lot of empathy for Dexter's dad.