24. DOG ENDS

The PIP Assessment

Answers supplied by someone hunted to questions posed in a Personal Independence Payment claims form:

Q. Do you need help from another person to enable you to eat or drink?

A. Yes, it would most definitely help if someone dressed as me to act as a decoy while I was in McDonald’s to distract the bloodthirsty hounds that are usually after me.

Q. Do you need help from another person to monitor your health conditions, take medication or manage home treatments?

A. Yes, I should say so. I can no longer rely on my smart watch since it was torn from my wrist and swallowed by one of the chasing pack of hounds. Now whenever I check the data I discover that I have more than exceeded my 10,000 steps a day (although a good 8,500 are from chasing a stick and a squeaky rubber toy) and that my worming and flea treatments are two months overdue.

Q. Do you use an aid or appliance to go to the toilet?

A. The frequency of my bowel movements have increased exponentially since being first chased by the hounds after my blood.

Q. Do you have difficulty dressing or undressing?

A. I encounter great difficulty especially with dressing as usually the dogs have made so many holes in my clothing trying to get at me that I easily mistake which were the original holes specifically designed for me to put my arms, head and legs through.

Q. Do you use an aid or appliance to help you communicate with others.

A. It won’t be long, I guess, before I do. As an erstwhile colleague of mine, who was also targeted to be hunted and succumbed to the ravaging hounds, now uses a medium based in Barry Island to communicate with us.

Q. Do you need an aid or appliance other than spectacles to read signs?

A Yes, I use a telescope with the most powerful magnification available in the Argos range to look for the tell tale signs that the hounds and hunters are on my trail again. It provides me with about a five mile head start.

Q. Do you find it difficult to mix with other people?

A. I simply don’t want to mix with other people. If I do so it will mean my bits and pieces have been thrown into a collection lorry with the severed limbs of other hunt victims that day.

Q. Are you unable to go out because of severe anxiety or distress?

A. Yes, but I don’t know what those dogs are called hanging around on the streets waiting to pounce on me. But if they are called Severe Anxiety and Distress then I am unable to go out due to them.

Q. Do you use a wheelchair or similar device to move around safely, reliably and repeatedly and in a reasonable time period?

A. Yes, an upgrade on the conventional wheelchair called a Chieftain Tank.