Sparkie, an Old English sheepdog, slept soundly for much of yesterday in the foyer of the Hotel Minella in Clonmel.
Indeed, he was roused only when one reporter mistook him for a carpet rug and nearly stepped on him accidentally.
One could only envy his general sense of repose, as just yards away the longest "phoney war" election campaign in the history of the State trundled on.
Labour has come back to its birthplace in Clonmel to hold a two-day conclave to mark its return to the political season.
Dubbed "think-ins" by the parties about the major policy issues affecting the State, these autumnal gatherings have become little more than a farce.
Indeed, they no longer excite much interest even among the politicians - until, like "Sparkie", they feel their Dáil patch to be threatened.
However, the gatherings offer the oxygen of the media in advance of the reopening of the Dáil and Seanad later this month.
Last week, Fine Gael's Enda Kenny attacked the Progressive Democrats' Michael McDowell. Mr McDowell attacked Mr Kenny.
So it continued yesterday. Labour leader Pat Rabbitte attacked Mr McDowell, all the time insisting that Mr McDowell is not worthy of response.
"Michael McDowell reminds me of the pampered boy from the posh estate who wants to come to play football with the ordinary lads, but if they don't play by his rules he goes off whingeing," he quipped.
The witticism will have to be reworked many times over much of the next 18 months, as all sides avoid putting flesh too soon on the bones of their manifestos.
Mr McDowell has recently made great play of the prospect of a Labour "wealth tax", even as he touts the PDs' willingness to serve in government alongside them.
Emphasising that Labour would not raise income, or corporation taxes, Rabbitte was careful to avoid frightening the middle-classes, who are paper-rich because of rocketing property prices.
Speaking to journalists, Rabbitte emphasised that extra taxes, if put in place, would impact on developers and landowners who have windfall profits from land rezonings, and not on others.
"I said before that I did not rule out, in certain circumstances, taxes on wealth. That is a different matter from 1970s wealth taxes," he emphasised.
Questioned elsewhere about stallion tax breaks, Labour and Rabbitte are quick to fulminate against millionaires bleeding the Exchequer dry.
In Tipperary South, a constituency where it would dearly love to dethrone Independent Séamus Healy next time, he was careful to tailor his message for a county heavily involved in the gee-gees.
"It is a very important part of the Irish economy but a tax break brought in in the early 1960s for a fledgling industry needs to be reassessed in 2005," he declared carefully.
All messages, after all, must be tailored for individual audiences.