Well, after my blog on the 2nd conditional a few months ago called, If I got a dog , I finally went and did it. As I predicted in that blog, I have called him Sir Bentley Purchase . This is a real name from a person involved in Operation Mincemeat in WWII and I thought it was a really funny name, because people just don t have names like that anymore. I was worried that my lifestyle wouldn t be suitable for taking care of a dog, but it has turned out to be fine.
If I had known that getting up at 6:30 or 7:30am at the weekends gives you loads more time to get those boring weekend jobs out of the way, maybe I would have got a dog even earlier. If I hadn t got up at 7am on Saturday to take Bentley outside for a pee, then I wouldn t have washed up, had a cooked breakfast or got back from the weekend supermarket shopping by 8:45. That meant I had the whole day left to try and come up with excuses for avoiding doing any study for my teaching diploma exam! Fortunately, Bentley doesn t bark at all. My neighbours would have been a bit annoyed and definitely complained if he had been a yapping dog. However, he does cry when he wakes up in the morning, so that I come and get him out of his crate. If I hadn t jumped out of bed every day as soon as he started, I think there would have been angry people knocking on my door. Also, if I hadn t picked up his poo from the communal back garden every time, I would have been thrown out of the building by now.
Of course, with a new puppy, you get lots of accidents everywhere. Unfortunately, the flat that I rent has got a light grey carpet in the living room. So, every time that he does an accidental wee, I have to quickly get a wet sponge and cleaning products and deal with it straightaway before it makes a permanent stain. If I had rented a flat with without a carpet, my life would have definitely been a bit easier at the moment. But overall, if I had known how funny and sweet Bentley would be, I wouldn t have thought twice about getting him in the first place!
3rd Conditional Explanation
We use the 3rd conditional to talk about how the past could have been different. If + Past Perfect (had + past participle), would have + Past participle If I had bought a big dog, I would have had to move to a bigger flat. (In reality, I didn t buy a big dog Bentley is very small. So, I didn t have to move flat. This is a different past that I am imagining) We can use other modal verbs, not only would in the subordinate clause (this is the clause that is NOT the If clause ) If I had got a female puppy, I could have called her Boadicea after the English leader that fought the Romans If Bentley hadn t played with me when I first met him, I might have bought one of his brothers or sisters.