According to Kennel Club standards a Grey Poupon is a medium-sized French breed with a broad head, scissor-like teeth, prehensile neck that allows a cobra-like strike on it's prey, and rough coat of grey and brown for camouflage in leaf litter under the privet hedges it favours to lie in wait for its prey. Despite the effete name, the Grey Poupon is a notably aggressive Postal Hound, from which that popular phrase, "Going Postal", is derived
Bred to defend red letterboxes against thieves attempting to steal the contents, the Grey Poupon didn't catch on due to the unfortunate defect of extreme colour blindness. The dog cannot distinguish the colour red. However, it knows post is post through an acute sense of smell with which it can effortlessly detect the ethereal aromas of envelope gum, saliva and sellotape
The effect of the hound's ocular disability, which, by extension, has lead to its declining popularity, is that the Grey Poupon cannot distinguish between a postbox thief, wearing customary blue and white striped shirt and balaclava, and a postman wearing a red uniform with cap set at a jaunty angle, since both post-taker and post-deliverer carry a swag bag exuding the heady scent of letters and parcels, that arouses the dog defend to them to the death
The breed was popular in the nineteenth century, but in the early twentieth century, as growing statistical data established patterns of social geography, it became evident that households in urban areas with a population of Grey Poupons rarely received any post; and such a population might be as sparce is one dog per twenty streets; and that, concurrently, hospital admissions of Postmen with dog bites peaked well above the average
Granny was not bothered that the post never made it to her door as the shady walk to the post office to pick up the mail afforded her pleasurable exercise. But Grandad lived in fear of the dog, having lost most of a finger of his left hand opening the bureau to fetch a stapler
The dog enjoyed down-time away from privet duties by stretching out on the living room rug and dreaming of parcel tape. The bureau was situated in the living room opposite the rug. Grandad, in a momentary lapse of judgement, carelessly pulled up the bureau roll top. He inadvertently released a stimulating whiff of postal fragrance from the ball of rubber bands collected from bundles of post and kept in the bureau to be put to use at some future date
The dog awakened, sniffed, and much aroused, leapt, bit, swallowed and settled back on the rug happy in the knowledge of a job well done. Such was the speed of the attack, Grandad had no time to defend himself, even armed as he was with his heavy Isoberg Rapid stapler
Granny blamed Grandad, rather than the dog, for the loss of the digit and Grandad kept a wary distance from then on. I was a selfish and ungrateful boy of the sort that never writes thank you letters for birthday and Xmas presents, so my person was never contaminated with the smell of postage stamp or envelope, and I and the dog got on famously
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